This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hello, what's up? It's Chris Guillebeau for Sadistle School, bringing you the weekly recap. We have just finished week number 46 of season two. I am recording this week live in Australia, pretty much my favorite country in the world. I always feel so very fortunate when I'm here.
I'm actually heading back to the US pretty soon in a day or two, but it's been a great visit and I didn't do any public events this time, but next time I'm here, I will be back with a new book and I'll be going to all kinds of cities, not just in Australia, but all over the world. And that's still some months away, but I look forward to sharing it with you. Also a quick little note at the top of the show, we need your stories. We would love to feature more stories from our listeners, more stories of your own side hustles, more stories of anyone you know. If you know somebody that should be featured on the show to our growing audience, tens of thousands of daily listeners, the show gets multiple millions of downloads each month.
And I would love to tell more stories to more people. We often hear after we've featured somebody that they've made all sorts of connections or they've had really good emails from listeners or they've made some money and all that stuff is great. So if you have a story, if you know somebody with a story, please don't be shy. Couple of different ways you can reach out, you can come to sidehustleschool.com/about. Just on that about page, there's a link that says submit your side hustle story.
We'd love to hear about it there. Or if you just wanna send us a quick note, you can email Whitney, her email is Whitney@sidehustleschool.com. Pretty simple, that's just Whitney, W-H-I-T-N-E-Y, that's sidehustleschool.com. Let us know what you're doing and she'll know if it's a good fit for the show and she'll tell you what to do next. So we'd love to feature more stories, let us know.
Next, here is a quote from Alex, featured in episode 683 this week, one half of the Aussie couple who logs six figures selling wellness diaries. Thought this was a great quote, I've been thinking about it myself while I've been traveling. She said, "How boring would it be "if everything went exactly to plan "and you achieved your goals without any hurdles?" The hurdles are what keeps things interesting. They make us better, more resilient versions of ourselves. Man, I love that, I was thinking about it because in particular, just to be in Australia, the last time I was here was actually in January, January 2018, so I guess about 10 or 11 months ago for those listening in real time.
And on that trip, or at least the months preceding it, I had been having a pretty difficult personal time myself. I don't really talk about this too much on the show because it's not super relevant, but I've just been going through kind of an extended depressive phase, lots of anxiety, lots of just personal stuff. So even though it was great to be here, I was also kind of worried because it's always been this special place to me and I thought, "Oh, maybe I don't want to go there." Well, I'm having a hard time, but I'm glad I did. And I was almost like right after that that I turned a bit of a corner and made some changes. Just started being more intentional about stuff and here I am now like all these months later and it's fun to kind of come back and say in the same hotel, look out at the same view, I'm recording still just like I was then, but there have been some changes in my life.
So I'm grateful for the hurdles, I'm grateful for the challenges, just like Alex says. And at the same time, this brings me full circle to what this show is all about. I also believe in saving yourself some trouble. And so that's a big part of what I'm trying to do with the show is save you some trouble, right? And I might not be able to help with all your personal problems, but if there's something I can do to help you with this goal of creating extra income for yourself, then that's great because you don't have to make the same mistakes that everyone makes.
You have to make your own mistakes, like you can't avoid every mistake, but you don't have to make all of them. And so my hope is that through all these different case studies and the examples and quotes and ideas and tactics, all that kind of stuff that you hear, you're gonna gain some knowledge that's going to help you advance, maybe help you advance more quickly, maybe help you advance in a different way than you would have otherwise. So, you know, hurdles are important, they keep our lives interesting, but at the same time, wherever possible, save yourself some trouble. I've got an audio update from a previously featured side hustler. Speaking of telling stories and folks that we've had on the show, this new blast in the past segment that I know a lot of our listeners have been enjoying, we're actually gonna start doing more of them at some point.
But first I just wanna give a little quick shout out. I got a note from Aaron, who is a listener in Mexico. And I liked Aaron's note, he sent me a long note, so I don't wanna read the whole thing. But he said, "I'm currently serving as a missionary in Mexico with my wife for the foreseeable future. We do not live off of donations, like some other missionaries and humanitarian workers, but off of a contract I picked up on Upwork with a company that has me working with him long-term." And he goes on to talk about the situation in Mexico and some different ideas he has for micro-employment and micro-finance there.
But the point was, I just thought it was cool that instead of living off of donations, like some of his colleagues are doing, he's found a way to support himself through creative entrepreneurship, which is essentially what Side Hustle School is all about, broadly speaking. So thanks, Aaron, glad you're out there, keep up the good work. And now let's hear a quick little update from, I believe this is going to be from Jen. Jen was previously featured on episode 83. - Hello world, this is Jen Glans from New York City.
My Side Hustle is being the CEO of Brides me for Hire. And you heard a little bit about my story on episode number 83. Since then I faced the challenge of having close to 30,000 people apply to work for my company, and that's a lot of people. While I've hired a small team to work for me, I also had to figure out how to turn the rest of those people into my customers. I started an online course to teach anyone anywhere how to start this exact unique business.
I charged $249 for the course. And once you take it, you have all the tools you need to start your own professional bridesmaid business, or just weird business in general. After launching it this year, I've had a good amount of people take it and love it. My advice to other listeners is to think of a crazy idea and find a way to connect it to your audience. You never know what will stick.
Next up, I'm planning on doing a book tour for my book, "When You Least Expect It," which includes stories about what it's like to be a hired bridesmaid for strangers. Talk soon. Bye. - Woo-hoo, congratulations, Jen. 30,000 applicants is, you know, a lot of applicants.
Well done. Now, Jen's story famously is about becoming a bridesmaid for hire and building a really creative business around this. She got a lot of press and worldwide exposure for this idea, which led to all those applicants who, people who wanted to work for her. But of course, most of those people are not gonna become her employees. So she created this course and has been selling that in addition to many other things.
So I like what she said here about how if you have a crazy idea, I think she even called it a weird idea, which I love that phrase because so many of the ideas you hear about on the show are kind of weird, yet they work. Find a way to connect that idea with your audience because you never know what's gonna play out. You never know what is going to be successful. I also saw on her website that she is now living in a different city every 30 days. So that is fun too.
Everyone, if you'd like to follow along with Jen, you can do so at JenGlance.com. That's J-E-N-G-L-A-N-T-Z.com or G-L-A-N-T-Z.com, I suppose. We will link that up in the show notes as well, JenGlance. More of these to come as we continue to revisit some of the case studies from what is now more than 680 episodes of the show. It's always fun to see what people have learned or experienced along the way.
And we'd like to include you as well in some fashion, as I mentioned earlier, if you've got a comment or question, if you know a story, whatever it is, a couple of different ways you can reach us, you can email podcast@sidehustleschool.com and send a note from the website. Call our Hustle hotline, leave a short message, 844-9-HUSTLE, that is 844-948-7853. Been getting lots of great listener emails recently and it's really fun to see what different people are doing. And of course, as always, the best is yet to come. [Music]
My favorite episode this week was number 681.
Kick things off on Monday with the farmer who makes tater tats for all your produce tattoo needs. That was a spud-tacular story. I loved how she was able to peel off those profits. Think I meant to say that in the episode, but I forgot about it, so I saved it for now because I can't let that one go. And among others, I also enjoyed episode 685, comic book curator creates custom create subscription.
There's all kinds of things you can do to make money. That's why I'm telling you a different story every single day. Looking ahead, we've got more coming up, including a special adults only episode of the show. I was actually working on that script recently and I was like, okay, great. Can't wait to tell you about this one.
I will provide a little content warning at the beginning of that one because I know we have families listening to the show. Also, multi-million dollar ice cream sandwiches. Do you like ice cream sandwiches? Do you like a million dollars? Well, those two things go together, apparently, in this episode that is coming up soon.
Lots of good stuff. And before I sign off for the week, I want to say thank you. Thank you for being part of this. Thank you long time listeners in particular. I continue to get emails from people who say they have heard every episode of the show and I am always amazed.
You guys are awesome. I don't know if I could remember every episode myself. So, well done. But even if you have just joined us last week, even if you're just kind of skipping around, you're like, what is this thing? You know, I'm glad you're here.
This is a community. It's a global group of people who all want to do something better for themselves. They don't necessarily want to be a full-time entrepreneur, but they understand that they want to take more responsibility and create a new source of income, not rely on their employer, even if they love their job. They want to do something for themselves. That's what it is all about.
It is listener supported. We have a whole crew working on the show. It's not just me, even though I'm the only voice you hear. We have a senior producer, AC Valdez. As mentioned, Whitney Keurinik, our content manager, community liaison, Jed Chang.
Tina Hart's doing some work with me now. Need to get a title for her, still working on that. And also the official show cat, of course, Libby Gillibow, least productive, most furry member of the team. If you want to do something small and meaningful to help us, you could tell your friends and say, hey, check this show out. It's called "Sawdessle School." It is completely free.
And every day you're going to hear a different true story of somebody who makes money using a skill that they already had, or something that they even never really thought about perhaps, but then they decided to follow that path and now their life is better because of it. Perhaps not every story is as spectacular as the one on Monday. But if you listen over time, I really believe you're going to learn something. And my greatest hope is that you will apply what you learn. Whether you've been here from episode one, or you just showed up today, I hope you'll join me again tomorrow and every day next week with more stories and actionable ideas.
Do consider this an investment in yourself, a short 10 minute a day investment in yourself. Our episodes go online at 601 a.m. Eastern time. Once again, I'm Chris Guillebeau. I'm in Australia, but I'm coming back to the States soon.
And this is Side Hustle School. [Music]
