This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
'Twas the night before Cashmas went all through the land. We listened to podcasts, our tablets at hand. The parents were dreaming of all the ways to go from idea to income in just 27 days. The stockings were filled and hung o'er the fire. Grandma had prepped the Blue Apron Free Trial.
Boxes were packed by the front door with care. A service called Ship Station would handle the wares. When out on the lawn there arose a loud noise. Out jumped a man with a bag full of toys. He arrived unannounced, it was like a break-in.
He wasn't invited to connect on LinkedIn. Santa dashed down the chimney, more boxes in hand. But he came with an invoice. The man had a plan. See, this jolly old man was into the hustle.
He worked hard for his reindeer, his elves loved the bustle. He did it for freedom, he did it for surety. He wanted to create his own security. That's when he turned to the room which had quickly assembled. The words he spoke caused the people to tremble.
Listen up, you think these presents are free? Show me the money or I'm taking the tree. My elves are outside and they want quite the stash. To save Christmas tonight, hand over your cash. The parents looked at each other, did they have paper money?
Credit or debit they said, but the joke wasn't funny. The children were worried about losing their stuff. Without presents or cash, this Christmas was rough. But then on the ledge Grandma appeared. She pulled out her phone and said not to fear.
Does Santa take PayPal? She asked with a wink. The jolly old man paused to think. How about Venmo? He finally said.
No problem said Grandma, let's put this to bed. With Santa paid off and the presents delivered, the household returned to bed with a shiver. And that's how Grandma saved Christmas. Because she was wise. All along she'd had her eyes on the prize.
And for you over there, it's time to find traction. Because inspiration is better with action. Where can you go for tools, tips and hope? Just come to the site and read the show notes. You too can hustle. You can make your life better.
You can do it from home in your holiday sweater. Take hope and take heart. Don't be a wreck. By the very next season, you'll have several paychecks. Don't be discouraged. Tie your dreams to the mast.
Just make sure you're subscribed to The Daily Podcast. Next year you can make your side hustle marker. We'll be right back after thanking our partner. Well, I hope you enjoyed our special 'Twas the Night Before Cashmas' introduction. That is, in fact, how Grandma saved Christmas.
And in addition, we have just finished week number 51. That's right. There are approximately 52 weeks in the year. We are approximately 51 out of 52 complete. Okay, I guess that's actually precisely.
As you may know, we are continuing into 2018 with season two of Side Hustle School. So there's a whole bunch of stories coming out on the other side of the new year. Can't wait to share them with you. And today I'd like to read you emails from two listeners. One with a success story and one with a question.
So this first email comes from Joanne. Joanne writes in to say, "I listened to Side Hustle School while driving two hours each way to my vacation cabin in upstate New York. I started to host on Airbnb to help pay for the utilities and now I make three times my mortgage from it. Your book gave me an idea to start a side hustle to help others who want to host but don't know where to start. I was that person nine months ago.
I listed myself on Airbnb as a co-host and got my first client in one day. Right now it's my only client, but hey, you have to start somewhere. My next step is to come up with a clever name, then build a blog with affiliate links to products that are key to hosting. Thanks for the inspiration, Joanne. Joanne, thank you for the action.
That's awesome. Congratulations. As you may know from reading the book, I talk about starter ideas and next level ideas. It sounds like you're going from a starter idea, which is being a host on Airbnb. And that's actually working out really well, making three times your mortgage from doing that.
But now you're thinking about how to expand and help other people who want to be hosts. So good luck, very cool. And the next message comes from Sean, who writes in with a question and he's got a pretty interesting genre. The kind of niche that Sean is working in is something that you don't hear of every day. He says, "My wife and I have decided to get started.
We both love coffee and music, so we're creating a private label coffee based around a particular genre, black metal." By the way, I think black metal is kind of like death metal, like a certain kind of heavy metal music. If I'm incorrect about that and I've offended someone from the black metal, death metal or heavy metal constituencies, I apologize, no need to email me. Back to Sean's note, he says, "Now it does sound kind of weird and we weren't sure people would go for it." Okay, fair, true. "But minimal advertising on social media has given us a global following, grabbing the attention of well-known musicians. We were able to make the coffee with the help of local roasters.
I designed the labels and packaging and now it's ready to go. But there's a problem. That problem is the website. I've launched the site, had a couple of small hiccups, but overall it works perfectly except for iPhone users. The site does not look good when you're viewing it on an iPhone.
Do you happen to know what I should do about this?" Okay, cool, great question. So the challenge you're experiencing, Sean, is that your website is not responsive. That is a description for how a website can be viewed on different devices from phones, tablets, laptops, different browsers, et cetera, and still present a compatible, cohesive version to the user. So basically you need someone to make your site responsive. And if you say that to anyone who builds websites, any developer, they'll know what that means.
It's usually best these days to build your site from the ground up with that in mind, but it's also possible to modify an existing site. So you might want to check out Upwork.com to find a freelancer someone perhaps oversees or perhaps someone local who can do that for you. And good luck with Black Metal Coffee. I'm going to jump into some comments on this week's episodes in a moment, but first I just want to say I love hearing from listeners. This is one of the most joyous parts of this experience.
I get emails, I get voicemails. We pass them around. Whitney, my assistant, who works with me on the show, sometimes AC in Washington, a producer, other people I work with. And going into next year, we're going to feature more and more comments and stories from you. If you have a question or comment, you want to kind of get it in the queue for next year.
A couple of different ways you can do that. You can call and leave a voicemail on the Hustle Hotline. That Hustle Hotline is 844-9HUSTLE or 844-948-7853. You can also just email podcasts@sidehustleschool.com or record a voicemail with your phone and send it to that same email address. All kinds of options.
And also, speaking of listener success stories, I'm going to talk about two episodes we featured this week that were from Side Hustle School listeners who started their project by listening to the show and taking action, moving forward with their idea. I think that's fantastic and wonderful. If you've been doing that in some way, please let us know. You might want to feature your story next year. And in these two examples, the first one was episode 352, a role-playing pastor rolls the dice on a $2,800-a-month hustle.
This is the story of a Presbyterian minister who had been doing some side hustling before, but he was doing kind of manual labor side hustling, like the kind of part-time gig economy work that I actually tend to discourage people from because it's not really going to help you that much. It's just going to burn you out. It's just like working more hours without creating an asset for yourself. So after one of his parishioners recommends Side Hustle School to him, he starts listening and he gets this idea to create custom role-playing dice. You can hear the whole story in that episode, 352, but basically he learns to manufacture dice and he kind of figures things out and gets things shipped from China.
And now for the past several months, he's been making almost $3,000 a month, which is a huge supplement to his low salary as a minister. So I love that. I love creating freedom and independence for him. And the second story right after that, 353, was a yoga teacher in Seattle who cleans up with a home organizing business. I love this story too.
She actually came to a recording of Gretchen Rubin's Happier podcast with Gretchen and Liz Kraft, and that was in Seattle where I was a guest. Ended up connecting further, and this year she started this decluttering hustle, which also makes something like several thousand dollars a month. But in addition to that, which is awesome on its own, in her case she's both doing good and doing well because she partners with this refugee organization where all the items that she declutters from people's homes, and these people tend to be well off, so they've got a bunch of nice stuff. Well, when they declutter, she donates these items to refugees who are resettling in the area. These refugees are coming from places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, like some pretty tough places, and they really don't have a lot.
So I love that story so much because she's helping people, first of all, through the decluttering business. She's getting paid herself, like not an insignificant amount. And there's this third group of people, these refugees who are finding new lives for themselves, have escaped very difficult situations, and then their lives are made better through some of these items. Like she talked about an Iraqi family that was expecting a baby, and they were able to get a bassinet, a crib, all kinds of baby stuff through this process. So to me, this is what it's all about with Side Hustle School in different ways, creating empowerment for people so that you can live the life you want, you can do what's important to you, you can have more time for yourself, and really just more ownership over your life.
The rest of the episodes throughout the week illustrate that as well in different ways. There's one about a high times cartoonist who creates these cannabis accessories, ends up transitioning to a new career because of it, and it actually unfolds over the course of a couple of decades, which is interesting because usually on this show I'm encouraging people to get started quickly, just like these two other stories you heard about. But we're all on a journey, and sometimes things take time. There's also the story of a paralegal who starts a side hustle during her maternity leave, and then right after that, a story of a dad who creates woodworks while his infant son naps, and makes like a thousand bucks a month from it. So in his case, he's not trying to get rich, he's just doing something different.
He's an ad executive by day, but now he has this creative outlet that also pays some money. Anyways, you can see the side hustle model is working. Like I said, I'm so excited about next year. We're coming up on the last week of 2017 now. There might in fact be an extra special episode tomorrow.
In fact, we had to go all the way to the North Pole to find it. I think you'll like it. We'll also be featuring a pop-up wedding service, something about Bitcoin videos, several other great stories, and that's actually all before 2018 arrives. That's right, we got it busy last week. In early 2018, I'll also be inviting you to join the Side Hustle Society, our long-awaited, much delayed, because of me, that was my fault, training program and online community that so many people have been asking for, a way to connect with other side hustlers, and a way to get some specific process-driven training about how to create your project.
I will tell you all about that very soon. And before I sign off for the day and wish you a Merry Christmas to those who celebrate that, and a joyous season to all, I would like to say thank you to a few people that make this happen. Our production team is led by AC Valdez. We got several other folks helping him out. I'll actually introduce you to a new member of the team in early 2018.
Meanwhile, show notes and host-wringling continue by Whitney Karinek, my wonderful assistant, and the official show cat, Libby Gillibow, remains on duty, or at least on call in the middle of the night. I'm grateful as well to my friend Gretchen Rubin, the founder and curator of The Onward Project, which is a collection of podcasts all about making your life happier, healthier, more productive, and more creative. I think she might have some more stuff coming for The Onward Project in 2018. I look forward to telling you about that. And last but not least, I want to thank you.
That is you, in fact, the listener, the person to whom I'm speaking right now. You are, in fact, the reason I make this show, 358 episodes and counting. If you commit to making this part of your routine and listening every day, I commit to being there for you. I want to do anything I can to support you and your goals. At the end of each episode, I always say inspiration is good, but action is better.
That's because, as I said, I want to feature your story one day. So think of this as an investment in yourself, a pretty short, easy investment, just 10 minutes a day. And if there's anything you can do for us, whether you think of it as a holiday present or just because you're awesome, it's really great if you can help spread the word about the show, tell your friends to listen to Side Hustle School, take their phones and show them how to subscribe, post about us on social media, anything you can do to help bring the benefit of more freedom, more options, more empowerment to people who need it. That is what Side of Soul is all about. That is our relentless focus on the show.
And like I said, so much more is on the way. I hope to see you tomorrow and every day next week. Episodes go online at 6.01 a.m. Eastern Time every single day. I'm Chris Guillebeau.
This is Side Hustle School.
