This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
Greetings and welcome back. You're listening to Sados Old School. I am Chris Guillebeau. Here we are with another weekly recap. We have just finished week number 10, and I have just finished traveling around the world. So I just came home from being in Sri Lanka, then Doha, Qatar. A little
side trip to Zurich before going on to London, eventually making my way back home. Next week, I have a Sados Old School workshop in Los Angeles, and then Denver on the other side of that. Maybe I'll even see you at one of those. But otherwise, I'm home for a bit. Been getting lots of emails from people working on different projects. Our listeners are doing really fun things. I continue
to learn from you, and I want to make sure the show supports you. I want to make sure it gives you everything you need. So keep sending in your questions and telling your friends about the show. All those things help a ton. And speaking of questions, in today's recap, we'll do more listener questions, a look back on the week, and a quick little preview of what's to come next week.
Hey, Chris, my name is Michael. First, I just have to say thank you so much for starting the show. I stumbled across Side Hustle School only a few days after you started broadcasting. And this is exactly what I needed and what I've been looking for. Here's my question. I'm noticing a big
challenge for me and getting my side hustle going is changing my bad habits to good ones, specifically as it relates to how I spend my time outside of my eight to five job. I'm striving to spend that time more productively versus just relaxing or "vegging out" before I have to go back to the grind. I know I'm not alone in this area. So I thought this would be a good question for the show. What are some ways you create good habits, remove bad ones, and stay disciplined and organized? Again, thanks so much. And I can't wait to see what else I learned inside Hustle
School. Michael, you are awesome. Thank you so much for listening. Yes, I know this is a common struggle for many of us, myself included. I don't know if you're ever going to get to the point where every moment is productive and you have no bad habits. I'm also aware that most of the people
who listen to the show do have day jobs and they are busy and they have lots of stuff going on. So one thing I've noticed for myself that's helpful, if you only have a short amount of time to work on something, like you've got your job, you're going to be tired when you go home, you know this. But you've kind of set aside this 30 minute block of time or whatever it is to work on your project. My advice is to plan ahead what you're going to do during that 30 minutes. So you're not just kind of sitting down and saying, "Okay, now what?" Because that can be overwhelming.
And so during the day, as you're going about your other stuff, maybe just make a couple of notes and say, "Okay, when I reach that time that I'm going to spend working on my project, I know my energy might be relatively low. I'm probably not going to be able to accomplish a list of 13 things, but here are the two things or maybe even just the one thing that I'm going to accomplish during this time." And if I'm able to do more, that's great. If I get a second wind or if I end up having more time, that's awesome. But if nothing else, at least this one thing is going to get done. So that's a small little tip that's helped me and I hope it's good for you too. Thanks again for
listening. Hey, Chris. This is David from California. I'm a big fan of the show and of your books as well. You've mentioned before that you advocate quitting strategically rather than failing at the same thing until you succeed. My question is, how do you know when to give up on
something and try something else or whether to keep going? David, awesome question. Thank you for listening. This is something that came up a lot on my last book tour. I wrote about that concept of strategic quitting, how I think it's not true that winners never quit. I think real
winners actually give up all the time. Winners are constantly reevaluating and always asking themselves what the best possible thing they can do is. But yes, how do you know when to quit or when to keep going? Here's a very simple framework for you. When you're trying to figure this out, ask yourself two questions. First of all, is it working? Second, do you still believe in it?
And your answers to these questions are going to determine what you do next. So if something is not working and you don't believe it anymore, then I think you should quit. You'll be much more successful trying something else. And obviously, if it's working and you believe in it, then you keep doing it. So you only have to look at it in more detail when those answers are different.
And if something isn't working, but you still believe in it, well, that's great. It's your mission. You just have to change what you do about it because it's not working. So maybe the change is tactical. But it can also be the case that something's actually working just fine, but you don't believe in it anymore. And your heart's not in it. If that's the case, then I think you have
to make a change too. Because in the long term, most of us are going to be the most satisfied, the most fulfilled when we're doing something that not only is working great, but we also believe in it and are very motivated to continue. Thanks again for listening. You guys are awesome. When we look back on this week, a few things stand out. Episode 64 was a story of
belonging where two men with long hair create a side hustle to serve others like them. Now, I love the tagline of their hair ties were guys so cool your girlfriend will steal them. They're really playing up on this notion of identity of shared experience across different people that have nothing else in common other than the fact that they are men with long hair. Episode 65 was about the finance employee who sells more than 200,000 self-published romance novels. I've had a number of requests to look at publishing books as well as the business side of writing a blog or running a podcast. So this is the first of many more stories to come about how
it's still possible to make money doing all those things, creating content and sharing it with an audience you build over time. That story Carrie has made more than half a million dollars from her book so far and presumably a lot more to come now that she has an active fan base. Episode 66, a life of travel leads to a house designing hustle. This is about Brian and Jen, the danger family as they're known. Something like five years ago, they set out to travel for one to two years. They're still on the road and much to their surprise and counter to their
expectations, they actually end up making a good living along the way. In that episode in particular, I loved how deliberate and intentional they've been in terms of choosing what they're going to focus on and the number of clients are going to be able to serve and pretty much everything about building their business. Another very intentional practice was featured in episode 67, the guy who starts what I called a net zero personal finance hustle. In this story, Mike combines the worlds of taxes and finance, which are usually kind of separate. He uses this to help clients as he builds his own practice apart from his day job. In this story, I really liked his
policy of depositing his first earnings in the bank. I think he had a check for $300 or something. And he put that $300 in the bank, opening a new account just for his business. And then from there on out, every expense he had would be drawn from that account. So that was very motivational for him. I don't think everyone can do that because some projects will require more investment up
front. But for him, it's been really valuable. And the next story was not intentional at all. I called it an alcohol fueled idea because it was something that got started at the bar when three guys are drinking and talking. But they came up with the idea of t-shirts with enormous pockets on the front of them called bucket tees at first, and then eventually pocket pioneers.
Now they sold more than 1500 shirts in less than a year. But can you imagine this kind of pitch on Shark Tank, or one of those other silly shows where people go on and ask for money? If you had that kind of pitch, you'd be laughed out of there. We want to make t-shirts that have a really big pocket on them. What kind of market research did you do? Oh, well, the other day we were at
the bar and we were just talking. We thought it'd be fun, right? But obviously it is working for those three guys who started it. And they're also having fun, which is don't forget an important Side Hustle School prerequisite. You already have enough things you have to do for your job, for everything else in life. So do this for yourself and make sure it's something you enjoy.
Lastly, episode 69, New York City jazz musician builds a $40,000 a year blog. As I said, it is possible to make a good living by writing or teaching, especially when you're sharing specialized information. So if you're interested in that whole world, be sure you listen to that episode, check out those show notes and note as well that what Brent did, the guy featured in that story is a little bit different model than most of the stories we feature here because he didn't actually start that project himself. A friend of his started it. He came on as a partner and then his friend didn't have much time for it. So he essentially bought his partner out, took over the
website, made a ton of improvements and has now made it much more successful and profitable. So coming up next week, another set of great stories. There was one story about t-shirts this week. I think a couple of weeks ago, I told you about someone who's actually made more than $50,000 using a platform called Merch by Amazon. Well, next week, we're actually going to have another t-shirt story, which is totally different. This one is someone who makes six figures more
than a hundred thousand dollars selling t-shirts using Facebook ads with no inventory. So that is obviously a pretty big success. There's also a woman who creates a tango tour to Argentina, a college lecturer who develops training courses to help her colleagues, and even a British pub manager who bakes pork pies for profit. Now, I really liked writing that headline, but I promise you the story is even better. Be sure you tune in every day. The show is free. And if you're
listening, you're the reason I do this. I said in our first episode more than two months ago, 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. If you're new to the show, welcome. I hope you enjoy it, but more than just enjoying it, I don't want you to just be entertained. I want to be helpful and useful to you. I want to hear about your success story by the end of the year, if not
much sooner. When you subscribe in iTunes or any other service, the episodes will come straight to your phone, tablet, or computer. Now, speaking of iTunes, if you're enjoying the show, be very grateful if you'd go and leave a quick rating there, just takes a second. And if you want to be extra awesome, you can also write a quick review. It can just be a couple of sentences about why you listen to the show and why you think it's a good resource. I only asked for that once a week so that we can
keep the show focused on the stories and the lessons. You can always say hi or learn more about me or the show, read detailed notes for every single episode at sidehustleschool.com. Remember, as always, inspiration is good, but action is even better. I have to see you tomorrow and every day next week with more stories and actionable ideas. Episodes go online at 601 a.m.
Eastern time every single day. I'm Chris Guillebeau. You're listening to Side Hustle School.
