This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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Can you believe it? Here we are literally at the end of 2018. Got one more day actually, but this is the final weekly recap. We've just finished week number 51 and basically 52 of season two on Side Hustle School. Next week only has one day in it, the last day of the year.
So we're gonna roll it into week one of 2019. And wow, welcome. It's Chris Guillebeau, Side Hustle School. I am so excited. I feel so honored to be able to make this show for you every day.
I'm so grateful. And I hope that you have had a good year. If you have not had a good year, I understand. Like I've had some bad years myself. So here's your chance to let's do a little reset, a start over either tomorrow or the next day, or whenever you happen to be listening to this, there's no artificial calendar or arbitrary deadline for when you can start over.
So, you know, new year, new you coming up really soon. For today, let's do something a bit different. I'm gonna talk to you about my top overall lessons of 2018, specifically related to Side Hustles, of course. Now the day after tomorrow, we're starting a new journey, one that I hope you'll join me on season three of the show, the program, the community. In this final recap, I'm gonna give you some specific forecasts, a couple little predictions for next year, but also first and foremost, hear me out on something more big picture, or should that be something bigger picture?
I'm not sure, one of those two. So here's the thing. I got some good news for you as we begin this little recap, looking back, looking ahead, predictions, forecasts, et cetera. Good news, a lot of people out there worry that they need to constantly keep up. I mean, I hear this all the time.
And it's not that you shouldn't pay attention to what's going on. I'm gonna talk about some trends here, et cetera. But really, most of what you need to know about starting a side hustle, and here, I mean, not a hobby, but something that makes money, right? It's an income generating project, something that is profitable, really hasn't changed that much. Like it certainly hasn't changed that much since we started exactly two years ago tomorrow, or two years ago, the day after tomorrow, I guess.
Technology changes, online platforms change, different tactics and approaches, those things change. But many of the lessons you really need to know are timeless. Like I try actually as much as possible to keep this show really evergreen. You can actually go back through the archives, and I hear from a lot of our listeners who do that, go back through the archives and listen to all sorts of episodes. And my goal is that at least 70 to 80% of what you hear is gonna still be relevant.
And that's because the right idea, properly executed, isn't going to depend on you being in the right place at the right time, okay? Like there's enough margin for error. When you find the right idea, and you learn how to execute it or implement it properly, it's okay to get some things wrong. It's okay to be a little bit late. It's okay to not be able to spend as much time on it as you would like to.
Honestly, finding that right idea is so much more important. And I know that some of the stories I tell you do depend on circumstances, that's life, you know, like how we kind of get by in life is dependent on circumstances to a degree. But in the long term, your success isn't gonna come from just being lucky. It's gonna come from being positioned to be in the right place at the right time. So you're not just waiting for something to come along.
You're actively, proactively doing something. So again, this should be good news because I hear all the time about people just being worried about trying to keep up with every single new thing, every shiny object is usually an exercise in futility. Trust me, I've tried it, it doesn't work well. Ideas are far more important. And if you don't have the right idea, no amount of tactics or hacks will help.
And that's a big part of why I think South Central School has found such an active and engaged community because people are looking for ideas. And my goal is to tell you a different idea every day, pretty much, or at least a different approach or method or tip or tweak. And long ago in the $100 startup, I wrote that value is this word that's kind of used all the time and like in entrepreneurship circles, you know, adding value, et cetera. Well, adding value just means helping people. That's essentially what it kind of comes down to.
So many of the stories that you've heard this year are about providing solutions to problems. And that's never gonna change. It's not gonna change in 2019 or 2020 or anytime. It's not even just about going forward. You can look back as well and say, well, I often think about people I met when I was living in West Africa a decade ago.
Like I was an aid worker for several years. That's what I was doing before I started traveling the world more actively. And before I started writing, like before this whole career, I was an aid worker. And a lot of people that I met there, vendors, micro entrepreneurs, families, villagers, they apply these same principles to make money and create a future for themselves, especially when no government or no company was able to help them. So past, present, future, some of these values really are timeless.
You can still do this too, just like so many people that you've heard about. Or if you're just joining us, so many people that you will hear about next year. Actually think that is the most important thing I could probably say today. I'm gonna give you a couple of specific observations and predictions as promised. But I do think that is the most important thing.
The right idea, properly executed, isn't gonna depend on you being in the right place at the right time. 'Cause a lot of this is timeless. So do get to work, but don't worry too much. [Music]
Okay, so that said, here are a few specific observations and some predictions, just some things that I'm kind of noticing or paying attention to myself. The first one is based on what I've been hearing from a lot of you, the greatest help that you need is with marketing.
And so we're gonna focus on that a lot more in season three. I hear from a lot of people that say, okay, I've got an idea now. I've tried to put my idea forward, but I'm really having a hard time kind of breaking through or finding those right people, finding the ideal customer, or maybe going from a small success to that bigger success or the medium success, whatever you wanna call it. So the greatest help that you need is with marketing, or at least a lot of our listeners. And so we're gonna focus on that.
Two, Instagram Stories will continue as the most dominant and relevant platform for many people. Not all people, of course, but many. And when I say Instagram Stories in particular, I see so many people these days who are not even posting on Instagram itself, like not posting photos that stay there in the feed, but they post Stories. And that's their dominant means of communication. You can build an entire business on Instagram, and you can build a community on Instagram.
So one of the things that I'm committing to is to do a better job on that platform next year because I don't try to be everywhere all the time. I know I can't do that, but I think I'm gonna try to keep an Instagram Story going more days than not, if not having like a complete 24-hour story going throughout the year, like a lot of people managed to do. Number three, I think smart speakers are actually going to be very relevant and important going forward. Smart speakers, whether that is the Amazon Echo system, we recently launched an Amazon Flash briefing to all be talking about a fair amount. Now I'm calling it, I'm not actually mentioning that the word, the Amazon starts with an A, the device, I'll call it the Echo system.
The device is actually called the Echo because when I mentioned that the other day, I got some emails from people that said, "You said that word and you set off my device." I'm like, "Sorry about that." It's kind of hard to talk about it without saying it, but the point here is having said that you don't need to worry about the latest thing, here is the latest thing that I do believe in the future is gonna present opportunity, especially for people with a long-term perspective and who are trying to build community. So, as of last week, we now have a daily flash briefing. It's not the same thing as the daily episode. It's like a little one-minute highlight from the archives. It is completely free.
So if you have one of these devices, if you've got one for Christmas or the holidays, or if you haven't really set it up, you can just go to your Amazon, the name of that app and search for Side Hustle School and choose Enable Skill. You might also be able to say to your device, "Add Side Hustle School to my flash briefing." And every day you ask it to play your flash briefing and there we are. One more thing I wanted to mention in this vein in terms of what I'm planning to do in terms of leveling up, I think I'll talk about this a bit more in the days to come, but in the Cytosle Society, like earlier this year, we launched a program in beta, welcomed a lot of people to that program and then closed it for new members. We're gonna be adding more expert help and an all new community forum because again, I'm hearing that people need help with specific things and I'm not always able to advise or be there. So we're gonna add more experts and introduce that new community forum very soon.
I'm hoping it's gonna be available as soon as two weeks from now. So if you're not in that program, if you're curious, if you want to join a community and be able to kind of bounce ideas off of people and get some, not really coaching, but at least some support, maybe some different opinions and answers to questions, you can do that very soon. So fingers crossed, stay tuned for that. [Music]
So speaking of looking ahead in the days to come, we've been saving some really great stories for our first month of our third season. I think even just this week, we got a story about a PE teacher who resells concert tickets for $12,000 a month.
Pretty amazing story. He's actually built a whole community of his own out of that. A story about a woman who makes $4,000 a month selling scrunchies, like scrunchies that you put in your hair, or like some people do, I should say. Well, here's a woman who makes $4,000 a month doing it. Those are just a couple of quick examples that I saw on my list of all the things that are coming up.
Different story every day continuing into year number three. And I can't wait to bring that to you. It's gonna be so good and I hope you'll join me. I very much do. And now before I sign off in this here final recap of 2018, I do wanna say two very special thank yous.
I usually do some shout outs and credits at the end of every weekly recap, just two kind of special ones here today. And then we'll kind of get back to our general roster next week. I wanna say a big thank you to our senior producer, A.C. Valdez. He has been with us almost the entire two years.
He has mixed so many episodes. He has helped with so many things and not just like the technical stuff, but he has helped strategically. He has helped with big picture stuff. He's just been a really great guy to work with. And I am sad for us, but happy for him that he is moving to a new position at I believe it's WAMU 88.5 American University Radio based in DC.
He's actually working on some national programming with people all across the country. It's a great opportunity for him. So we wish him very well. And hopefully we can get him back at some point to do something you never know. If you would like to keep up with A.C., who as I said has been working on this for tirelessly week after week, month after month, you can follow him on Twitter at ACV tweets.
So that's ACV like Victor tweets, T-W-E-E-T-S. I appreciate the rest of our team as well. We've got a new producer joining us next week. So next week I'll give you a new rundown of some folks and what they're doing and how they make this show possible to you. But my last thank you is to you, the listener.
I've been doing this every week, but it never gets old. Like it really doesn't because at the end of the week, I'm always like, how do we do this? We do this because of listeners. And I honestly make this show every day because I know that you're out there listening to it. And that is my greatest motivation to get emails from people that are talking about what they're trying to do and how a story has inspired them or given them an idea or a direction or a tip or a tactic or something in our forum has helped or the side hustle book, anything like that.
It's just however you have come to be part of this world. If you consider yourself part of this world, let's say, I just am super grateful to you. And as I said, my hope is to keep doing this and to get better along the way. So if you want to do something awesome for us, you can give us a little five star rating in Apple Podcasts that always helps new people discover the show and also tell your friends. Say, hey, guess what?
Side hustle school is going into season three. If you miss it before startup in January, join me and join a whole community of people who are just all trying to take more ownership of their lives. People who are trying to create freedom and options and security for themselves, even if they love their job and have no plans to ever quit and become a full-time entrepreneur. So feel free to invite those folks. Come one, come all, continue to be free every single day.
And yeah, I guess that's it. As we wrap up 2018, one final episode tomorrow and then we're gonna start a brand new year. Thank you so much. You are a rock star. My name is Chris Guillebeau and this is Side Hustle School.
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