This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hey, hey, what's up? Welcome to Side Hustle School. My name is Chris Guillebeau. We have just finished week number two of season three. Very, very excited to jump into 2019 with all kinds of plans.
Over here, we've been working quite a bit on the upcoming launch or relaunch of the Sada Soul Society. Let's just put that on hold for a minute and talk about something more important, the government shutdown, or I should say the US government shutdown, but I'm pretty sure that even our international listeners are quite aware that the US government is not working this week. And I don't just mean not working in general, that's a whole other conversation, but not working this week, this past week, ever since the end of the year. Large portions of the federal government are completely stopped and another large portion is sort of operating, but people aren't getting paid. And I just wanna talk about that for a minute, beginning with a shout out to everybody out there, anyone out there who is stuck in the middle of that situation, any of our listeners who are federal employees are family members of federal employees.
I mean, to not get your paycheck, especially when you're middle class, and depending on that from week to week, not much to say about that, except it really sucks, especially considering that a lot of people in the federal government are not just mindless bureaucrats, but they're actually taking care of a lot of important stuff, from national parks to airport security, to answering phone calls about the upcoming tax return deadlines, and so many other things. So first of all, I empathize with you, anybody out there in that situation, I'm so sorry that you have to go through this, for what a lot of us believe is a pretty ridiculous reason. And regardless of what you believe about politics or whatever, I think it still sucks that all these federal employees are not getting paid. So our thoughts are with you, first and foremost. Now, this is also why you need to create something for yourself.
I mean, not only can you not depend on a corporation these days to look after your best interests, you can't depend on a government either. You really can't depend on any large entity or anyone other than yourself, because no entity, even if you have a good job, you love the corporation, you love your government job, organization, whatever it is, no entity is gonna care as much for your wellbeing as you are. Which is why the whole purpose of this show is essentially about empowerment. You know, like I try not to get into like woo woo stuff all the time, but it is essentially about helping you do more for yourself, so that you have more choices, more options. If something ridiculous happens and you don't get paid for a few weeks, then it's just annoying.
It's not the end of the world, or it's not a huge crisis like it is for so many people out there. So that's our whole mission and vision with the show. I know a lot of people know that already, but I just wanted to address it directly here in this challenging time for so many people. And if you're out there affected by this, let me know. My hope is that Silesle School can help in some way, but I also hope the government reopens soon.
I really do. Now, just briefly on Silesle Society, that's what I've been working on over the past couple of weeks. Our team has really been focused on relaunching this online community that we started last year. We started it last spring, and then we completely closed it down for the rest of the year. I wanted to focus on serving our existing members, that inaugural group that signed up, and wanted to make sure we built something even better for when it came time to relaunch it.
So after all this time, it's almost ready, but not quite. I had originally hoped to put it out there over this coming week, but it's just not ready. And I wanna make sure we're bringing you something that is amazing and the best quality that we possibly can. So we're gonna do it the following week, beginning on January 22nd for one week. So for those listening in real time, hang tight.
In another week or so, I'll tell you more about it, but you can always join the wait list at sidehustleschool.com/society. We're also gonna do an open phone call for anybody who has questions about anything. I would love to talk to you and talk to the rest of the group as well. So stay tuned for some info about that. If you're on the email list, on any of our email lists for Side Hustle School, you should hear about that soon.
So from government shutdown to online community, to crickets, cricket nutrition. In today's recap, we have an exciting update on cricket nutrition from one of our featured case studies in Canada. - Hey, this is Alex from Winnipeg, Canada. My side hustle is crick nutrition and it was featured on episode 248. Since then, I've been working 12 to 16 hour days, six or seven days a week in my day job with no cell service or internet.
So unfortunately, there hasn't been much direct growth on cricket sell. But having spent what spare time I've had automating cricks processes as much as possible has helped significantly in keeping the company growing organically. I'd never be able to work in my other business during the day if it wasn't for these automations. And this makes things truly hands off, which allows a side hustle to at least maintain without any input. Even though there hasn't been a direct focus on cricket sell until recently, the things have been growing organically.
And most importantly, it's allowed me to get caught up on a huge financial mistake I made early last year, which almost sent me in the business. And if it wasn't for this main day job that I have going, cricket sell would never have existed without having to go full startup mode right from the very beginning. And we don't all have the resources to do that. So it's really important to remember not to jump to full time too fast. Keeping cricket as a side hustle has also been important because it's allowed the company and even more importantly myself to grow and learn what was needed.
So I could be part of scaling up the business when the time was right. And that time is now. So I truly have the confidence, knowledge and connections that are needed to take that next big step. Whereas I didn't before when we were just getting going and things might have fizzled out or I could have made even bigger mistakes that sunk everything. Some advice is to trust your gut.
Take advice, but always compare it to what you know intuitively about your business 'cause nobody knows your business and your market as good as you do. And grow slow, don't rush it. And especially don't compare yourself to the competition because you don't know what's going on behind the scenes and things aren't always as good as they look on social media. And right now I'm working on getting our apparel line made up. I use my customers to help us decide on designs and make a deal with a print on demand company so we don't need to carry a bunch of inventory.
We're adding a couple new products and we're gonna start advertising this month for the first time to do a big push, move out all our remaining product left. So we have some really good numbers to pitch investors starting October and take things to that next big step. Thanks guys. Reach out if you have any questions any time. Awesome, thank you so much.
Alex, appreciate you calling in from Winnipeg. And if I'm not mistaken, I believe it is the coldest capital city in the world. In any case, you know, whatever it is, at least Alex has got his quick nutrition to keep him warm. And in case you missed the context, that is indeed a protein shake powder that is made out of crickets, all right? This is a thing and Alex is kind of riding that wave.
And there was a lot of good stuff about updates about automation, which is also something we're gonna look at in our online community about reducing risk, about not jumping to full time too fast and how a day job and a side hustle can work together. They do not have to be opposed or at odds. So good luck with the next big step, Alex. It sounds like the timing is right after you've been through a lot of different process. I'm gonna have to go and order myself a crick nutrition t-shirt.
I'll be excited to see when those print on demand options are ready. And everyone you can follow along with Alex's project at cricknutrition.com. Go and check out the world of cricket protein. [Music]
More of these updates to come throughout the year. We realized that they were an especially popular feature among listeners last year.
So we're gonna keep doing them and we're also gonna feature listener questions and comments. We've been saving up some of them and we're gonna do a whole episode about them actually. So if you wanna be part of that, you've got a question or comment, just call the Hustle hotline, leave a short question. It's 844-9-HUSTLE 844-948-7853. Or you can do it directly on the website on the sidehustleschool.com/about page.
You scroll down and it says something like, leave us a voicemail message. I know we try to be really obscure with these things. You can also email us at podcast@sidehustleschool.com. Always love knowing what our listeners are up to and what you're working on. [Music]
Two more things before we wrap up today.
I wanted to briefly talk about that concept of there being another way, an alternative, et cetera. But as I was preparing some notes about that, I also realized I had a quick practical tip for you as well. So practical tip is make sure your website dates are current, especially with a new year. These days, some software will automatically update the date each year, which is great. I think WordPress does that.
I used to, every single year, try to remember on January 1, or at least shortly thereafter, to update the copyright date at the bottom. I was looking at one of the case studies websites and I noticed that they had a Christmas special. It was a Christmas special where you could save something like 20%. And I was thinking, you know what? Christmas was a couple of weeks ago.
So you probably want to make sure that any specials or any discounts or just any references are current. Okay, so yesterday I got to thinking about this, just kind of my overall philosophy is like there is another way. There's something else you can do, whether it is in life, like a big picture thing, life, education, relationships, spirituality, I don't know, exercise, fitness, wellness. There's always like this prescribed path and sometimes the prescribed path works great. And other times it doesn't.
Or it may not work well for you, which is critical. It doesn't matter if it works well for somebody else. What matters is what works for you. And so to kind of break this down and go from the top level 50,000 feet to the practical level in all the different stories that I share, at least in a lot of them, path and then an alternative path. Or you can see when a person has a problem encounters a difficulty, maybe it's a disaster.
We're gonna talk tomorrow about a pretty amazing story that had a pretty big disaster. How do you get out of it? How do you recover? How do you rally? And so I was thinking about it in yesterday's episode, actually 742, which you may have heard recently, the Louisiana vegan community becomes a big deal.
In that episode, they had a challenge. It wasn't a disaster, but it was a challenge of how to serve alcohol at these dinners that they were producing. Because they had a permit to serve food, but apparently the permit to serve alcohol was more difficult or more expensive or bureaucratic to obtain. And I'm sure they could have soldiered through. I'm sure they could have figured it out.
But instead they came up with this alternative creative solution, which was to have volunteers at the host or somebody else basically bring bottles of wine and then people who want to have a glass of wine pay a suggested donation of $5 a glass to that person who brings the bottles. And apparently that is completely legal and a perfectly acceptable workaround to the whole issue. And so I just thought, well, you know what? This is reflective of a broader principle. When you have a challenge like that, there's often another way.
So just ask yourself, this year, as you're working on your ideas, as you're going from idea to action, and hopefully from idea to action to income, when you encounter challenges or when you're trying to get to market, what is the alternative approach? What is the other way? With Alex and his Prickett update, he had some issues with having to work full-time, not having access. He had to automate his business or it just wouldn't work. So he figured it out.
He got smart. He didn't just work hard 'cause he was already working pretty hard at his day job. He worked smart in his side hustle. And now it seems like he's being rewarded for that. So that's some quick encouragement for you here on this second weekly recap of season three.
Much more is coming up, including an episode I briefly mentioned tomorrow. It's actually, I'll tell you the title. It's "Pranked Musical Greeting Card Earns $36,000 a Month." And of course, some more coming up later in the week, including something called "The Mystical Solution to Modern Love." How about that? So this week on the show, you're gonna hear about that "Pranked Musical Greeting Card and the Mystical Solution to Modern Love," among, you know, what, five other topics? So I look forward to sharing all of that with you.
I wanna say thank you to our production team as we sign off for the week. Our producer, Chuck Reed from Los Angeles, California, content manager, Whitney Karinek, community liaison, Jed Chang, flash briefing coordinator, Tina Hart, doing some other stuff as well, and the official show cat, Libby Guillipo. I also very much appreciate our sponsors. I appreciate our partners at Cadence 13, our new network for 2019. I appreciate Gretchen Rubin, who is the head founder, curator of The Onward Project, of which Side Hustle School is a founding member.
And I appreciate you, our listeners. Thank you so much. You're the reason we make this show. I love to hear stories of what you're working on. Love to know that it's being helpful to you in some way.
That is ultimately what it's all about. I want this to make a positive, meaningful, and practical difference in your life. And if you appreciate what we're doing, the best thing you can do to help is tell your friends. The best thing you can do is help us spread the word, spread the message. We don't do any advertising.
Everything is completely organic. All of the growth on the show, which now reaches a lot of people all over the world, comes entirely from our listeners. So thank you for your help with that. We really appreciate your five-star ratings and Apple podcasts, as well as helping people who don't understand what podcasts are, who don't listen to them, showing them how to subscribe, which is a thing. I know it sounds weird to you probably because you listen to podcasts, but still a lot of people don't know how to do it.
So thank you for your help with that. I'm excited to come back with you tomorrow and every day next week with more stories and ideas. Consider this a short 10-minute-a-day investment in yourself, and our episodes go online at 601 a.m. Eastern time. Be sure you're subscribed.
My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
