This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Mic check one, two, three, hello. Oh, hi there. It's Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." Welcome to the weekly recap. We have just finished week number three of season two.
I'm gonna talk a bit about what to do when you have ideas but don't take action. Over here, it's been a busy week. I've been in Australia, one of my favorite countries in the world, if not my single favorite country. Had a great time doing events and meeting readers and listeners in Brisbane, Melbourne, and Sydney. And it was also busy because we ended registration for Side Hustle Society, our first ever training program in online community for listeners who were serious about taking action.
It's been great to see a lot of you guys doing introductions in that group, those of you who have joined. Really excited about everything that's to come. And I've also got a lot of questions about, okay, what happens now, like you did registration for a week, but now it's closed. Well, basically right now, we're just focused on serving that inaugural group of members who joined right away. I wanna make sure those people feel special and rewarded.
We'll also use our first month to refine a bit, get feedback from people and see what goes on our improvements list of what to make next. So the program is gonna be closed for at least a month, but presumably we'll reopen it soon. And if you want to be the first to know about that, you can still go to the same page, sidehustleschool.com/society. And you can't join the program now, but you can join the announcement list. And when we're ready in a few weeks, we'll let you know when it's gonna open again.
All right, today I wanna say hi to a couple of listeners who wrote in. First of all, Mark in Germany. Mark says, my family and I have been listening to the podcast from the beginning. It is a huge inspiration to the kids and I. So inspirational, in fact, that we actually started our own side hustle last summer.
Keep up the great work and maybe someday we can host you over here in Germany. Thanks so much, Mark. I would love to see you there sometime. I also wanna say hello to Heidi in Los Angeles who sends in a listener tip. She says, I've been with you since day one.
Now that we're all in year two, I have a listener tip. In year one, I was a passive listener, then a keen listener, then an active listener. I listen while I work and I'm more focused this year on starting my hustle. I get so many takeaways from each episode that I now have a side hustle school notepad. It sits on my desk each morning when I listen.
I take notes on anything that piques my interest, any resources I should check out, any ideas I have on hearing the stories. It's all percolating and this is helping me look, review and begin to formulate. I've heard from a bunch of people who say, I started listening passively, but then I became more active over time. I think that's great. I want the show to be here for you whenever you need it in whatever space you are in your life.
I know sometimes you may have more time or more interest to work on your hustle than others. That's totally fine because even when you can't work on something, you can be encouraged. Maybe you'll get an idea for something to do later. Oh, and great suggestion from Heidi on taking notes that will definitely increase your attention. Next in the mailbag, I had a question from Jenny and this question she asked I wanted to focus on because I know a lot of people have the same question.
She said, hey, Chris, I have to imagine there are others interested in a side hustle, but aren't really sure what to do. I have a dozen ideas, but I can't quite take that action part on any of them. It's getting a little discouraging. I was just thinking you could address those of us who want to do something, but are not sure what or feel like we're not great at anything in particular. All right, Jenny, thank you so much for the question.
Indeed, you're not the only one who feels that way. I'll make a couple of suggestions. First of all, get clarity. Think about why you want to have a side hustle in the first place. Of all the different benefits of having more than one source of income, what's most important to you?
If you had a certain amount of extra money every month, whether $500 or $1,000 or whatever the number is, what would that mean to you? And perhaps depending on where you are in life, that may feel motivating. Second, I would encourage you to create some kind of public accountability or set a deadline for yourself, or perhaps do both. By public accountability, I mean, you're sharing with your friends, maybe you're sharing on Facebook or somewhere, like, hey, I'm creating this project. And you can check back to follow up on my progress.
Or if you're more internally motivated, maybe you just want to set a deadline for yourself and a series of milestones that say, okay, I'm trying to create this particular program. While there are seven major steps in this program, I'm going to complete step one by the end of this week, step two by the end of next week, and so on, whatever the calendar works out to be. Now, you've probably heard me talk before about Gretchen Rubin's Four Tendencies model. Or if you haven't heard me talk about it, I'm sure you've heard it from somewhere else. It's a wildly popular and insightful model.
You can take a free quiz online, just Google Four Tendencies, or to have a more complete resource, pick up the Four Tendencies book. I highly recommend it. And in that model, Gretchen talks about how the four different tendencies, or personality types essentially, respond differently to inner and outer expectations. So some people, like myself perhaps, we tend to resist both inner and outer expectations, but it's more common to resist one or the other. So some people, I believe they're called obligors, are good at meeting outer expectations, but they're not so great at inner expectations.
Like they tend to put other people's needs ahead of their own, which is not always bad. There's more to it than that. But it's just something to be aware of. So if that's you, you might do better with having public accountability than you would just by setting a private deadline for yourself. And of course, if it's the opposite, if you don't care much for outer expectations, but you do uphold your inner expectations, then the public accountability isn't gonna be as helpful.
Anyway, there's a lot more we could say about that. That's just a summary. But last, if you're stuck on the logistics or the practical aspects of doing this stuff, the good news is those things aren't that hard to figure out. I would first refer you to days 11, 13, and 15 in the Side Hustle book. If you don't have that book, it's basically 27 short chapters.
You get one chapter a day for 27 days. Days 11, 13, and 15 focus a lot on logistics and helping people to move forward by making a list of their tasks, identifying their deliverables, everything that they need. And then also remember, just about every day on the show, I usually mention a specific tool or resource. And some of them I mention over and over because they're reliable or maybe even essential, depending on your project. So if you just listen over time, you're probably gonna understand, okay, here are the resources I need.
Here are the tools I should check out. This might guide me in taking action because now I have clarity about my goals. I understand how I respond to expectations and I'm learning about logistics, tools, and resources so that I'm not held back by the lack of knowledge. I hope that helps Jenny and anyone else out there who's wondering the same thing. I am cheering you on over here.
I want you to succeed. So keep the faith and keep working. Okay, before we go to a quick thank you to our sponsor, I want to play a listener voicemail I received with a question. And I thought this was interesting. I don't think we've had a question quite like this before.
So let's hear from Jonathan. [Music]
Hey, Chris, this is Jonathan. I'm here in Fort Worth, Texas. And I've been looking at working on a web resource for addiction. I'm a former addict myself.
And what I was thinking was when I worked at the place where I went through treatment, I worked after I went through. There was not a lot of resources for people to integrate back into life and deal with those things, especially parents now that addicts are getting younger. But part of me is like, I don't know if that's something I can design to sell. So just wanted your opinion on if you think that would be something worth doing or worth pursuing. Thanks.
- Hey, Jonathan, thank you for sharing that and for your question. First of all, I want to acknowledge you. Good work on overcoming those struggles. I know it's no small thing. And I'm also really glad that you're able to kind of be a light and a guidepost for other people going through that situation.
Now, as for your question, is it possible to turn this into an income generating project? Well, I think the answer is yes, under the right circumstances. We had an episode recently, number 378, about a woman who experienced a high risk pregnancy. Fortunately, she came through that okay as well. And afterward, she created these resources, this kind of coaching program, also a guidepost for other women experiencing the same situation.
So for anything sensitive like that, like her experience, like your experience, there are obviously a lot of other people going through these struggles. So in terms of helping them and creating some kind of product or service, I think the first thing you have to ask yourself is, does this come from a place of authenticity? And do you truly want to help people? If the answer is yes, then I don't think you're taking advantage of anyone. In this situation, reintegrating into society is tough, like you mentioned.
So I think there's validity and legitimacy to making that kind of project. The question is, what exactly are you offering, right? Because presumably you can't offer therapy. You didn't mention being a therapist or a mental health professional. But from your experience, from your expertise, from what you've walked through, what you've talked with other people about, how can you craft an offer for something that people in this situation understand right away and also see the value of right away?
So there's probably a lot of different ways to do it, but I think those are kind of the guiding questions. Good luck with that. Our community will be wishing you well. [Music]
Looking back on this week and looking ahead to the next, just wanted to mention a couple of things. Episode 380, that's 380.
This was kind of the, oh my God, really, story of the week. It's about an auto dealership employee who earns $100,000 selling stickers on Instagram. Every once in a while, and by that I mean like once a week, usually, every 10 days at least. I get a story come across my desk and I'm like, "Really, $100,000 selling stickers on Instagram?" Or the previous week about the college student who's making $40,000 a month teaching ethical hacking. Or in the first week of the show, someone who's doing T-shirt designs using the system called Merch by Amazon, making passive income every single day.
These stories represent the side hustle world. Just remember, if you talk to somebody and they're like, "Oh, a side hustle, that just sounds like working more." I don't wanna be a rideshare driver or I don't wanna become a handyman or handywoman posting ads on Craigslist. Not that there's anything wrong with those things at all. Those are great entry points to this world. But as long time listeners know, I'm talking about creating assets.
I'm talking about creating something that's earning much more money than just driving people around in your car or doing odd jobs once in a while. So I always get excited when I hear about stories that just kind of like blow everything else out of the water. And like I said, they aren't just these rare exceptions. It's not like once or twice a year we have these stories. It's pretty much once a week, just about, and sometimes two or three times a week.
You guys are doing some awesome stuff out there. I also wanted to briefly mention the next episode, 381, a side hustler gets paid to run seven ultra marathons on seven continents. This was about a friend of mine, Joel Runyon, and Joel has a whole system of creating these kinds of projects where he makes money. And a lot of them have actually been much more successful than the one we profiled in this story. He's made a number of six figure and multiple six figure side hustles.
I wanted to feature this one, which is an app that helps people do their physical therapy exercises because it's still in the early stages when he's figuring things out. As awesome as it is to show people making $100,000 selling stickers on Instagram, I also want you to see how people go through the process. So in that story, I think he was doing something like $1,000 a month, which is still great, of course. But as he mentioned, it's kind of in this awkward stage because it is profitable, but you can't really invest a lot into it to take it to the next level. So he's navigating that now, and hopefully we'll have an update for you at some point on how things go.
Looking ahead to next week, we've got another batch of great stories coming up. I just took a quick little peek at my notes for our schedule. We've got a dog sled trainer who becomes a fitness coach, an actual dog sled trainer who did that for 20 years in Minnesota, then makes a major life transition and goes on to help others. I've got something called sexy cosmetics that I don't actually know a whole lot about, but presumably I will learn about it soon and share it with you. And also a story on frozen pup treats, which doesn't seem to be related to the dog sled trainer.
So two dog focused stories in one week. I know it's a rough life. Lots of other great stuff coming up. I very much hope you'll continue to join me for it. Friends, listeners, you're the reason I make this show.
We're now charging ahead on our second season on day one of our first season, January 1, 2017. I said that if you make the commitment to make this part of your routine, I commit to supporting you fully in your quest to create that new source of income. Maybe you've thought about a side hustle for a while, but you haven't made it happen. Maybe you've got your first one going and you're thinking about your second. Maybe you just want to hear about other people who are doing this so you don't feel so alone.
Well, that's great. That's why I'm here. That's why I work on this every single day. And as we close out the week, I want to say thanks to some other folks who work on the show. It's not just me.
I've been recording live from Australia over the past week. We then magically transmit the audio files all the way to Washington, D.C. and Mexico City. It takes a while to get there from Australia. You have to kind of go the opposite direction with those audio files.
Over there, the production team is led by AC Valdez. It also features Sarah Barrett. In Portland, Oregon, show notes and content management are by Whitney Karinek. And presumably my cat Libby Gillibow is still there. I haven't heard from her since I've been away in Australia.
I'm sure she'll have complaints when I get back, but then again, she's a cat. She has complaints every day. So she'll get over it. Paddisle School is a free listener-supported show. If you're enjoying the show, I'd be very grateful if you'd tell your friends about it.
If you know somebody who needs a side hustle, tell them about the show and show them how to subscribe. You could also take a quick moment to leave a rating and review in Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. That would be awesome. And thanks so much, by the way, to everybody who's done that already. Very grateful to you guys.
In every episode, I always say inspiration is good, but action is better. It's 'cause I want you to take action. I want this to be helpful and useful to your life. Tuning in every day is an investment in yourself. I hope to see you tomorrow and every day next week.
Those episodes go online at 601 a.m. Eastern time each day. I'm Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School. [Music]
