This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
Oh, hello, what's up, greetings, welcome to Side Hustle School. We have just finished week 39 of season two. Let's just kick things off right from the beginning here with a moment of gratitude. Last week I mentioned how we had some sudden news when our podcast network announced with no warning that they were no longer going to be a podcast network, which was of course not an announcement that you expect a podcast network to make. Now, as I said at the time, I don't mean to get into all the behind the scenes stuff with you because your time is valuable.
I want to focus on bringing you the daily lessons of Side Hustle School. So there's nothing to worry about. We have other options to distribute the show. My goal is for any transition to be a seamless listener experience. And I only mentioned it last week and I'm talking about it now because I think it's an important business lesson.
I think there's something you can learn from it, or at least it illustrates a principle that I talk about from time to time. Where are you putting your focus? Where are you putting your attention? What kind of asset are you building? Long ago when I was selling on online auctions, I had an experience of an auction site I was on that completely disappeared.
This was a big company, just completely went out of business, disappeared, leaving its active listings and even its completed listings out of communication and therefore out of getting paid. And this was a huge thing at the time. I lost something like $2,000, maybe as much as $3,000. And that was something like 15 to 20 years ago when I was first learning how this whole world worked. And at the time, that was a very significant amount of money for me.
I don't mean to say that $2,000 to $3,000 is small to me now or to anyone now. But the point is, back then it was a whole lot. And I kind of realized, huh, what happens here? I thought I was building an asset, but actually the value is with this online auction site. And they controlled the network and the communications between buyers and sellers.
And now that they disappeared, I got nothing. Basically, I got to figure something else out. And of course I did. But in comparison to these experiences, I'm thinking now this is better because as much as I appreciate our partners at that network who sell the ads and take care of the business stuff, that's important. But the reality is that the value of something like Side Hustle School is in its community of listeners.
It is you. And so if we have to do something else to figure out the paperwork and how things run behind the scenes, that's a much better problem to have than to not have an audience. So the moment of gratitude, I was looking through my LinkedIn invitations. I mentioned recently that you can add me on LinkedIn if you'd like, and I'll add you back. I had something like 100 new invitations the next time I checked.
Massive listeners were saying things like how they're going back and listening to the entire archive or something specific about how the show has made a positive difference in their lives. And I was like, "Me too. The show has made a positive difference in my life too." As just one example, I've got a note here from Amanda S. Amanda says, "I've started setting my alarm to play Side Hustle School every morning so I can start my day inspired to get out and do my own thing. Thanks for the motivation." Well, Amanda and everyone, you're welcome.
I am motivated too and I'm glad. I'm grateful. So we're not going anywhere. We are fully committed through the end of the year and most likely in November or so, I'll make an announcement about what comes next. Short version is I love doing this.
So as long as you care about it, I want to keep making it or at least making some version of it. So that's enough about me. Let's talk about you by way of something I heard in yoga this week. Okay. So I guess it's about me technically, but really it's about you.
At the end of the class, the instructor said something about your body appreciates you making time for it. And I liked that phrase. I know as well as you do that it can be hard to find the time for yoga or for running or hitting the gym, whatever kind of exercise or activity you like. But when you make time to do so, you're usually better off. It's very rare if ever that you actually choose to make time for something even if you don't want to, but you know it's important, you know it's something you believe in and then later on say, "Yeah, I wish I hadn't done that." Most of the time you say, "Yeah, I wasn't sure in the beginning, but I'm glad I did it in the end." So there's this weird paradox of how the things we need to do for ourselves tend to get deprioritized in comparison to other people's needs or the demands being placed on us, yet if we're not caring for ourselves, sooner or later we're not going to be a great help for anyone else out there.
So naturally, I think this is true in a lot of things of life, but also in the world of your little or not so little income generating project. You know the whole purpose why I'm here every day, the one you do apart from your job, that side hustle, whatever you like to call it, sometimes it's tough to find time. And I understand, I get it, but my question for you is what will you be better off with having found a way to make time for this week? Or we could just flip it a little bit and say, "This week, what will you be better off with having found a way to make time for?" Ask yourself that question and just take a moment if you can to write down your answer. Maybe even pause this and come back to it in a second.
Or if you're on the go at the moment, maybe just try to keep it in your mind. What will you be better off with having found a way to make time for? And here's just one more tip that might make it easier. If you can't, find a long stretch of time to block off this week or today or whatever time period you're looking at. Identify what you'll do with whatever time you do have and identify that in advance.
So make a list of actions you can take, steps you can complete that will move you to the next level or the next stage or set of tasks. And then whenever you snag that limited time window, whether it's two hours or 20 minutes, you won't waste it by figuring out what to do. Make sure you have a plan of attack, a plan of action that you can take with you for those little windows of time. All right, that is my encouragement/rant for you today or at the end of the week as we get ready to begin a new one. Today also includes another update from someone we featured on the show a while back.
We've been doing these blasts from the past every week. And today's update is from a photographer named Daniel. Let's hear from him. Hi, this is Daniel Grove in San Antonio, Texas. My side hustle is cosplay portraits and creative photo shoots.
And I was featured on episode 119. So since last year's episode in April, I've continued to improve my photography and editing so I can stand out from the other cosplay photographers in my area. I've also worked with a lot of new cosplayers at local conventions and gained a lot of fans. So as they post and share my work, others learn about me online and I make connections with them for future jobs at conventions here in my own city. Because of my complicated edits, I've also had a lot of photographers hire me to edit their own photos with my unique style and vision.
And that's a really great feeling. I recently did a few projects for the owner of a major convention here in my own town. And that has got me free tickets to that convention as well as an in with cosplay celebrities that he deals with for these events. And those are my ideal clients. At these cosplay conventions where I do my photo shoots, I now bring with me newer photographers that want to learn and I use them as assistants.
I get someone to move my lights around and carry my gear from shoot to shoot and they get to learn how things work and how I make my images. After being featured on Side Hustle School and listening to other podcasts, I was inspired to start my own podcast earlier this year. It's called the Visionary Variety Podcast, and we cover photography, business, art, and all kinds of nerdy stuff. So that's another great avenue for me to help other photographers and people in my industry. I eventually want to turn the Side Hustle into a full-time income by next year.
So in order to do that, I've got to become more profitable and sustainable and reevaluate how I'm doing things. So I've realized that I've got a very unique product that a lot of people want. And my goal is to market myself to the right people and make the money that I'm worth while I do what I do. My advice for any other side hustlers out there will be this. Be the best you can be at what you do.
And if you're in a competitive kind of market, look at what others are doing and either do it better than them or do something else better and stand out and be unique. Well, that's about it for now. I hope I inspired someone out there with my Side Hustle story. And thanks for listening. Awesome, Daniel.
Thank you so much for that update. When we first featured him on the show, he had earned something like $40,000 cumulatively from his Star Wars and other cosplay themed photos. He's got a goal in mind of where he wants to go next. And it sounds like he knows what he needs to do to make that happen. So I respect that intention.
I also like this quote he had about how a lot of these other photographers are better than me at photos or portraits, but they like my edits. So he has really found his distinction or his differentiation, his specific skill, and he's going all out with that. And it seems to be working pretty well. So we'll look forward to hearing what happens next. Everyone, if you'd like to follow along with Daniel, you can check out his site at danielgrovephoto.com.
See some of his amazing cosplay themed artwork, and also check out his new podcast, Visionary Variety, wherever you listen to podcasts. More of these to come. And as a reminder, we also love to hear from listeners, questions, comments, feedback, anything you want to share with me and potentially the whole community, just call our Hustle Hotline. You can leave a short message there. That number is 8449 HUSTLE or 8449487853.
You can also send an email to podcast@sidehustleschool.com. So looking back on this week, I want to talk briefly about a challenge I issued on what was that episode 633, more on that in one second, but also we had two stories about making and importing your own products from China. There was a physician designing plush toys to teach anatomy episode 634, and also a Brazilian jiu-jitsu instructor. I had to practice that word jiu-jitsu, I think I got it, Brazilian jiu-jitsu instructor who is earning $20,000 a month from a creative workout tool that he created, or at least he created this version of it. That was episode 637.
And as a reminder, you can always listen to any episode I mentioned just by going to sidehustleschool.com/thenumber. So 637/637, pretty obvious. You can also see the detailed show notes with links to anything that's talked about in the episode, and sometimes some other resources as well. We also had an artist success story, a Trader Joe's sign artist who has sold more than 3,500 tea stained prints, mostly on Etsy. I thought that was really interesting, he's made $43,000 selling these tea stained prints from royalty free, copyright free images that are in the public domain.
But I also told you on episode 633, the episode of the clothes dryer that changed a family forever. I thought this was just such a fun, inspiring story, this guy who's a government employee and is out of work during the recession and learns to buy and sell, essentially flipping clothes dryers and washers and eventually other appliances and other stuff. And once he gets good at this, he does it full time. And he earns more than $100,000 a year by the time he's really perfected it and mastered it. So if you didn't hear that episode, you might want to go back and listen because I issued a reselling challenge.
And I would love to know from some of our listeners, are you in? Are you up for that challenge? If you have never made money for yourself, apart from your paycheck, or if you're just kind of discovering what is this side of the world, what can I do, well, there might eventually be something more specific that you do. You might actually create a service or a product of your own. But if you need to make money now, if you've never done this before, you just want to experiment, it is totally possible to follow the same model that he used, which you can hear about again in that episode of just buying stuff and then reselling it for a higher price.
And there's also not a ton of risk in it, you know, worst case scenario, if you're buying a clothes dryer, it doesn't work out, then you've got a clothes dryer, you have to figure out what to do with. But again, you're not investing your life savings here. So listeners, if you do that, let me know, send me a tweet, send me an email, give me a call in that hustle hotline, whatever is best for you. Let us know what you're doing and what the result was, maybe as well as what you're going to do next, right? Because there's always a next step.
Coming up on the show, we have another strong week planned. Our team has just been going above and beyond getting all kinds of great stories. I especially appreciate Whitney Karenik, our content manager. She is really out there hustling, as you know, one does, especially when you're on the Side Hustle School team, it's kind of a prerequisite. She is hustling to get us the best possible stories.
And she always wants your recommendations too, by the way. So if you have somebody that we should feature, write to her at Whitney, W H I T N E Y at sidehustleschool.com. But as I said, coming up, we've got a story about something called Cave Day, which is pretty cool. It's a whole experience where you go in and work with people as a group. And one of the founders said, Cave Day started because I realized no one ever taught us how to work.
We all have different and dysfunctional relationships with technology. And we need to be trained in how to use and not use that technology to serve the projects and work we have. It's a pretty cool concept. We've also got a DJ who sells wedding playlists and a New York City based project manager who is starting a line of women's underwear, right? This is what we do on the show.
We mix it up, all kinds of different stuff. My entire goal in telling you all these different stories is so that you kind of see what they have in common. Is there really something in common with a DJ who sells wedding playlists and a New York City project manager who's starting a line of women's underwear? Well, there are some fundamental underlying lessons that might be the same. And if you don't relate to one of those stories, you might relate to the other one.
If you don't relate to either of those two, there's probably going to be something else next week. My goal is that every week, you're going to find at least one story that you're like, wow, had no idea that people can make money doing that. And that gives me an idea that reinforces an idea I already have, or it tells me what my next step should be. Or maybe it's just kind of fun to hear, like all the crazy ways that people are making money and investing in themselves. It's not just about making money, it's about what can you do with that money?
What is the reality of that look like for you? As I said at the top of the episode, you are the reason I make this show. And I actually said in the very first episode, 637 days ago, that if you make the commitment to make this part of your routine, then I too commit to supporting you in your quest to create that new source of income. That's what we're all about. And I'm not the only one here working on the show.
I mentioned Whitney Karinek, our content manager. I also want to give a special shout out to senior producer AC Valdez, assistant producer Sarah Barrett, our community liaison Jed Chiang, and the official show cat Libby Liberia-Gillibo. This is a free listener supported show. If you're enjoying it, I'd be super grateful for a quick little rating and review in Apple Podcasts. It just takes a moment and it helps other people discover the show.
You can also tell your friends, or even better, show them how to subscribe. If you know somebody who needs another source of income, send it to us, we'll take care of them. At the end of most episodes, I mentioned that inspiration is good, but action is better. That's because my greatest hope is that our listeners will take action. I want to feature your story here one day.
It'll be one day soon. I look forward to hearing about you doing that. I hope to see you tomorrow and each day next week with more stories and actionable ideas. Our episodes go online at 601 a.m. Eastern time.
Until we meet again, have a wonderful week. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School.
