The Mystical Solution to Modern Love (and Money)

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

Do you know the mystical solution to modern love? Once more, the mystical solution to modern love. What's up friends, listeners, Side Hustle School community. You're amazing. I'm so glad you're here. My name is Chris Guillebeau. We're going to talk today in our

episode about somebody who makes money apart from a day job. We're going to talk today about the Kabbalah, that's a Jewish tradition or means of interpreting the Bible. We're also going to talk about playing professional poker and running a series of webinars about love and relationships. All right, yeah, now it's not just a seemingly random collection of topics. It all comes together in the form of a side hustle, of course. And this side

hustle developed 100% organically as the guy I'm going to tell you about today just kind of paid attention to what he was hearing. He does this on the side and whenever it fits in with the flow of his life, and he now earns an extra $1,500 to $2,000 a month offering a kind of specialized coaching. It is a form of coaching about love and relationships, and he just kind of offers it from his perspective. So I use that phrase paying attention. Paying attention is a critical skill in life. If you learn to apply what you notice, you can

go far. So here's just one example of that. And also I'll briefly touch on the role of imposter syndrome, something that I hear a lot about from listeners, as well as the qualifications you need to present yourself as an expert. It's not always as complicated as you might think. So stay tuned for the mystical solution to modern love and money. Two good things.

Devin Galladay has worn many hats throughout his working life. He's been an antique store owner, a professional poker player, a travel blogger, and a property manager, which is what he's doing now, the last one property manager. This collection of side hustles is what's kept him going. He's never embraced the one career path mindset. When Devin's wife was speaking at an event and he found himself with a small line of people wanting to speak with him about their relationship frustrations, Devin was confused at first, but he obliged.

It turned out that his wife had been talking about him. She would mention Devin in her newsletter and on her social media page. She described the adventures they've been having around the world and the conversation she overheard him having with their friends. When he wasn't selling antiques or playing poker over the past 20 years, he had been studying occultism and the Kabbalah, all kinds of different stuff about spirituality and love and relationships. And he'd been implementing what he'd learned that evening. Devin spoke with five women and

was still confused by the whole thing at the end, but his wife offered a suggestion. Why don't you follow through and offer your experience as advice. So with that admonition, his entrepreneurial spirit kicked in drawing from experience as a serial side hustler. Devin began with a webinar and ebook to build a list of interested prospects. This kept his startup costs low or almost non-existent. He already owned websites and using the service webinar jam only cost

him $99 for the year. The majority of people attending that first webinar came from his wife's event. He then transitioned to recording a weekly podcast about love. Now this was all free at first because Devin wasn't sure how to charge for relationship advice, but after three months, his wife suggested doing paid classes. It seemed a bit ridiculous, but there was something in this experiment that kept him from walking away. He enjoyed

sharing the mysteries of the Kabbalah as a tool to help others in the world of love and relationships. Since he wasn't sure what the next step should be, he sent out a questionnaire to everyone who'd been on the webinar. He then answered all the questions for the subject of week one's class. And then he kept going from there. The mystical solution to modern love as he called it was born. He said he was shocked when he got his first sale. Who

knew you could create an online class about this topic. He treated his wife to Thai food that night to celebrate because this was after all her idea expanding on the things that he already does for fun and creating businesses out of them has been the best part for Devin. It's what he's done in other areas. And now he's applied it to this one. Love and relationships is a highly personal field with no one size fits all approach. Devin didn't go to school

for counseling. He's really clear about that. And his day job is in property management. However, he's able to secure trust and confidence with his clients. He said if someone finds him, it's likely because they've been recommended through referrals or they've seen him on the webinar or heard his podcast. So the burden of establishing trust is already eased. Group

programs like the webinars also make it safer and provide a place where they can get to know him. Even though this service is somewhat unusual, his experience with other projects has helped. He said he's never had to work past imposter syndrome. He just views what he does as being of service and asking, can I be helpful? He also said getting into coaching can be a great opportunity, but only if you have the right temperament. It's rarely about

dispensing advice or directives. It's more about asking the right questions. The mystical solution to modern love wasn't something that Devin ever thought would become a business, but this relationship coaching now earns him between $1,500 and $2,000 a month. He keeps the hustle going primarily through the webinars and podcast doesn't market it much and says once he got it going, it didn't take him a ton of time to maintain. He just has to keep putting himself out there and being available.

This is the kind of side hustle where he's not trying to build it into a full-time business. He just kind of does what he wants. As I said, it developed entirely organically. He does once and what seems to flow naturally in response to people's questions. As I said, he's not presenting himself as a counselor or a therapist. He's just offering some advice and experience

based on what he studied for decades. Now here's a fun fact for two of them actually. Long ago, Devin and I actually went on a trip together or we ended up on the same trip. It was like a sponsored trip of some kind with Air New Zealand. We ended up in Tonga or Rarotonga in the South Pacific. That's

where I first met him. At the time, I don't know if he was married, but he is now on a journey. He has a quest to marry his wife 100 times in 100 countries. He's on marriage number 21 so far. That is marriage number 21 to the same person. As you can tell, he's

got all kinds of stuff going on. Now my question for you, could there be something like this out there? I don't mean necessarily relationship coaching about the Kabbalah. I mean, could there be something out there that if you paid attention, there is a need that you could meet. There is a problem you could solve. There is a remedy you could provide or something. Something you could make, improve,

fix, develop, and so on, whatever it is. Paying attention is a critical skill. I hope you use that skill, develop it a bit as you go about your day. Inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better. To find the show notes for today's episode, go to www.sidehustleschool.com/745. We'll include

links to all of Devin's stuff as well as that webinar service that he uses, anything else that I mentioned in the episode. With that, I'm going to sign off for the day. Thank you so much. You are a rock star. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School.