This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Welcome back, friends. This is Chris Guillebeau. Happy post-Thanksgiving. We have just finished week number 47 of season two. Myself, I'm now back in the US after about two weeks of travel.
I tried to introduce some new habits on this trip. I ended up hiking all over Hong Kong, looking for green juice in what was a mostly feudal quest, but still had a good time exploring. Then in Australia, I went to the Bondi Beach area for a couple of nights in an Airbnb after staying in my favorite hotel, actually in the world, the Sydney Park Hyatt. I believe it's actually called Park Hyatt Sydney. So it was a fun time.
And of course I was working all along the way, continuing to make episodes and hearing from a lot of listeners. Now I mentioned that this is post-Thanksgiving. I hope you had a good Thanksgiving if you celebrate, if you're elsewhere in the world, or if you just don't care, I respect that too. I wanna encourage you going into the holidays, especially the December holidays, I'm gonna encourage you to use this time to reframe or recast the experience in some way, especially for anybody out there who sometimes has a difficult time in the holidays. And I put myself in that category as well.
Even though I like Thanksgiving, I actually kind of struggle in some of the other holidays. And so just my encouragement to you in both life and side hustling, you can't control every outcome, but you can control your response. You can control your decisions. And that's a lot of what I've been working on in my life this year in different ways. So in life, this means pay attention to how you feel and ask yourself what you want, ask yourself what action you need to take.
In your side hustle, this could mean a couple of different things. So for example, maybe you think you have a great idea, but it's not quite working. People aren't responding the way that you would like. Well, that's okay. Remember, you can't control every outcome.
But what you can do is go back to basics and retool your offer. Maybe you do have the right idea, you just need to tweak something. Or maybe that idea wasn't actually the best idea in the world, but it can lead you to something better. Alternatively, maybe what you're doing is sort of working. Or maybe it's actually working a lot, but your heart isn't in it.
Or you find that your heart is no longer in it. Like it was at one time, but now you're just not excited about it. You're not really motivated to work on the business or to do those tasks that you really need to take to keep things going or to push it forward. This is another opportunity for you to reframe or recast. So for me, every year I do an annual review.
I've been doing this for more than 10 years now. And I spend the better part of a week in December identifying goals and making a plan for the year to come. Now last year, if you've been following me for a while, you may know that last year I got a little bit off track, but I'm eager to regroup myself this time. This time I'm looking forward to it. And if you'd like, I'll take you along with me, at least I mean virtually.
I don't mean physically because I only travel with carry-on luggage. And unless you are a very small person, you're not gonna fit in my bag. But for those who are interested, I might do a special episode here all about the annual review process. And also I'll be writing about it on my blog at chrisguillebeau.com and maybe a little bit on my social media as well, which is chrisgillibo or 193 countries on Instagram. And in doing so, of course, I should say that my whole point of documenting the review isn't so I can be like, "Hey, everybody look at what I'm doing." It's more like an accountability for me and perhaps a jumping point or like a launching off point for other people who like the idea, but aren't really sure how to do it or how to structure it.
So stay tuned for more about that. And then just a quick other final announcement as mentioned last week, we need your stories. We would love to hear from people who are starting a side hustle or have had a side hustle for a while, maybe they started it because of the show, or maybe the show has been helpful in some way, or even if it has nothing to do with us, that's fine too. We'd love to know. Best way to let us know is to just send a quick note to podcast@sidehustleschool.com.
And we'll let you know if it's a good fit and what to do next if we'd like to feature it on the show. But when also it's not just you, if you know somebody you think we should feature, tell them to write us or send us a quick note and maybe we can even follow up with them because we really wanna feature it that's the brightest, the most helpful stories as we continue to evolve and improve. Okay, speaking of evolvements, evolvements, did I just say that? Evolution. Speaking of evolution and improvements, I wanna do a little blast from the past segment as we've been doing each week.
This is a quick little update from someone we've featured previously on the show. I'll just kinda turn it over to them. I believe this is Janine. So let's hear from her. - Hey, this is Janine Halloran from Braintree, Massachusetts.
My side hustle is Coping Skills for Kids and it was featured on episode 166. Since the episode aired, we've been working on creating new products and have branched out from digital products to physical card decks. We launched the Coping Q Cards Discovery Deck in March 2018 and it's our best selling product. That product actually helped us get our first five figure revenue month in May. Over the summer, we launched the relaxation deck and we have plans to launch four more decks in the upcoming months.
We also recently began dipping our toes into wholesale, which is exciting and challenging at the same time. My advice for you is to seek out mentors. I recently started working with a couple of supportive and encouraging mentors. They look at my business through a different lens than I do since I'm in it every day. Working with them helps me to look at the big picture and to think long-term, which is awesome.
Right now, I'm working on another book, Coping Skills for Teens, and focused on creating new physical products like journals, coloring books, and fidgets, all designed to help kids learn about and manage their emotions. - Janine, thank you so much. That's awesome to hear about the transition from digital products to physical card decks. Definitely seems like a smart thing. Reminded me of a special episode we did recently, one of the special ship station partner episodes, about a project called Slumberkins.
And if you didn't hear that episode, it's just a couple of weeks back in the feed. It's called Special Feature, Best Friends Stitched Together $2 Million. So you can go and learn a little bit more about that process. But for Janine, again, well done. Good luck on Coping Skills for Teens and all else.
And I also appreciate those comments on mentorship. Our longtime listeners may know that I sometimes caution them against mentorship, or at least I want to just encourage people to be careful because I think the key part is finding the right mentor and finding the right person to take advice from. I also believe very much in individual agency and empowerment. I think a lot of the answers that we're seeking from mentors we can often find on our own. But that said, it's totally true that there are times when you're just kind of stuck in your own little world, your own little business, and somebody from the outside can say, "Hey, why don't you try this instead?" Or, "Have you ever thought about this?" Or, "Have you ever considered some different idea?" So well done.
And if you out there would like to follow along with Janine, or if you missed her episode, it was 166 way back in the day. You can also check out CopingSkillsForKids.com. More of these to come. And if you have a question or a comment, just call the Hustle hotline and leave your less than 30-second response. You can leave a longer response, but we try to keep it kind of short and tight.
That phone number is 844-9-Hustle, 844-948-7853. Or, as I mentioned earlier, you can also write to podcasts@sidehustleschool.com. I've been way behind in my email recently, but I am catching up. And fortunately, I've got a great sidekick, my side hustle sidekick, Jed Chang, who is helping me with a lot of different messages that are coming in. [Music]
So it is post-Thanksgiving.
Going into December, but we are working on a bunch of stuff, both for December and perhaps beyond. I'll tell you more about that pretty soon. But just a quick little look back this week, my favorite episode, well, I had two episodes that I really liked. I think the one that wins the title award, which I did not write this title, so I can't take credit for it, but I love the title of episode 688, Game of Cones, Two Women Make Architecturally Inspired Ice Cream. That's a pretty amazing success that has really gone on to be a huge business.
And as always, not every side hustle needs to become a huge business, but it's fun and interesting and inspiring to hear about ones that do, at least I think so. And I also really liked episode 691, kind of a bit random, might win the award for the most random side hustle of the week, the dog stocking hustle, which earns a Husky payoff. And to me, this just illustrates that there are all kinds of ways to make money and often it's these things that you never really think about or these super niche or super niche targeted items. You know, this guy found that when he was doing his SEO, nobody searches for dog stockings, but a lot of people or at least enough people search for breed specific dog stockings. So the example in that episode was Basset Hounds.
For every person out there who's searching Basset Hound dog stocking, this guy's got it locked up and presumably a bunch of other breeds as well. So if you're trying to figure out what to specialize in, you can specialize in something pretty specific and pretty small. But if it is a product, if it's something that, you know, the only reason why somebody would be searching for that item is to purchase it, right? And if you do everything you need to do, then you can have a really good conversion rate for anybody who's stumbling on your site, offering what people are looking for. I also enjoyed the Thanksgiving themed episode all about pie, of course, love some pie.
I had some the other day, might have some again soon. And yesterday's episode, Art School Model starts sexually stimulating side hustle. That was a special adults only episode of the show. And hopefully we send her some customers, you never know. Coming up soon, I've got another dog episode.
We're in like the dog days of November, apparently, because something coming up about dog threads, something coming up about the art of play, something about gaming and something about car seats. These are just kind of from my notes here. I'm looking at what's coming up on the calendar. And I always kind of look at this and I'm like, oh, okay, great, what's happening next? Great, we're gonna do sports car seats, dog threads and something about gaming.
Great, can't wait. Now, before I sign off, as I do every week, I just wanna say a quick thank you. I did so the other day as well in our Thanksgiving themed episode, just kind of saying that, you know, it's not a cliche. It's not something that I just say because I have to say it. I don't have to say it at all, actually.
I say it because I really do mean it. I'm very grateful for our listeners, our community, everybody out there who is listening every day, everybody out there who has helped us in some way by leaving us a review, which is always super awesome or telling their friends or just even just listening and applying these lessons. Like it makes me happy to know that people are making progress and are getting inspired or maybe thinking through different project ideas of their own. So going back 693 episodes, in that first episode I ever made, I said, if you make the commitment to make this part of your routine, then I too commit to supporting you and your quest to create a new source of income. Maybe it's something that you've thought about for a while but have not turned into reality until now.
I'm also grateful to our team. It's not just me, it takes a village. So I wanna say thank you to senior producer AC Valdez, content manager Whitney Karinek, community liaison or side hustle sidekick, Jed Chang, and the official show cat, least productive, but most furry member of the team, Libby Gillibow. If you know somebody who should be listening, especially as we go into the holidays, tell them about the show or even better, show them how to subscribe because I continue to be amazed. There's a huge number of people who have no idea what podcasts are or if they've heard a podcast, they've never listened to one or if they've somehow stumbled on one, they have no idea how to subscribe.
So do me a favor, do them a favor, take their phone and subscribe them, show them how it works. We will of course take care of them. All right, that's it. I hope you're having a good week. Hang in there.
Remember to re-envision, recast what you would like to see out of this holiday season. Do something for yourself, not just for others. I think it's important to do both. And whatever you do, I hope you'll join me tomorrow on each day next week for more stories and ideas. Do consider this a short daily investment in yourself or episodes go online at 601 a.m. Eastern time.
My name is Chris Guillebeau once again, and this is Side Hustle School.
