This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hello, hello, what's up, welcome. We have just finished week number eight of season three here on Side Hustle School. I am excited, I am honored, I am glad to be able to bring you daily stories of people who are creating a bit more freedom for themselves, creating opportunity through the form of an income generating project. That is what a Sadasil is all about, helping you do something for yourself, for your future, maybe for some other people that you care about. Also, all good things in the world of Sadasils.
Now in today's update, this is kind of an action-packed update, I've got a bunch of stuff, a lesson from one of last week's stories about how there's a right time for an obvious solution. I really liked this quote from him, I'm gonna share it with you in just a moment. Also an update on the accountability project that I may have mentioned in last week's recap, or at least recently. And also a really fun concept called the reverse bucket list, which I have recently discovered. I wrote about it in my newsletter a couple weeks ago, and I wanna tell you about it today, just because I think it is so cool.
Really, really simple exercise you can do to kind of look back on your accomplishments. And of course, audio update from a previously featured story. So all kinds of good stuff today. [Music]
All right, in episode 773, 773, told you the story of the artistic wedding backdrop that offers an updated photo alternative. This is the creation of two guys in Australia.
One of them is named Ollie Sampson. He actually filled out all the notes for our survey, gave us a bunch of information. And there's this one anecdote he included that I didn't put in the story, but I really liked it. So I wanted to kind of circle back to it here. He said, way back in 2013, I came up with a piece of slideshow software to fill a huge gap in the wedding industry.
The industry at the time was using some really awful flash software that was a decade old. And everyone in the industry was using this software just because there wasn't anything better. I knew it could be better, and I even created a basic version of it with a friend. However, I didn't do anything about it. And at the same time, a developer in the US got word of it.
This is the exact developer I knew would produce it if we didn't. This person took the concept and ran with it. Now he says also, I wanna make it clear, this person didn't steal it. It was just a right time for an obvious solution moment. And this software is now the market leader.
In fact, the only one in the space. So what this taught me was that concept of there being a right time, an ideal time for that obvious solution to a clear problem. And so if you have identified it and are lucky enough to have the front seat to a problem and the know how to produce a solution, which was of course his situation at the time, you need to do it quickly and properly or someone else will. An idea isn't worth anything unless it's actually out in the world. So great story, thank you, Ali.
It's a bit of a twist on some of the stuff I talk about on the show fairly often, but I like the way he phrased it. Sometimes there is a right time for an obvious solution. So if you happen to stumble upon that, don't wait. Don't hesitate because an idea isn't worth anything unless it's out in the world. Okay, quick update on the accountability project as we are calling it.
I mentioned a while back that I have been hearing from listeners asking for help staying on track. I'm just noticing that this is a need that's coming up over and over. Lots of people know what they need to do. At least they know some of the steps. They know how to get going.
They know how to get started, but they really struggle with staying on track. They really struggle with finishing. They struggle with completing that project. So after the recent Side Hustle Society launch or relaunch, I got an idea and I immediately made a bunch of notes and sent them off to our team. We're gonna create an all new totally different program that we're calling Side Hustle Boot Camp.
Now this program will be online. You can do it from anywhere. It takes just three weeks. It's not gonna be a thing that goes on forever. And also to be clear, it's a short commitment every day for three weeks.
We're not doing anything full-time because you already have a full-time life. And it's all about providing accountability to make things happen. Really tight, narrow focus for what we're gonna do with this. So in a true test of accountability, a real world experiment, I'm telling you now that this will be happening soon. Let's say four to six weeks, even though we don't have everything ready on our end yet.
In fact, we don't have much of it ready yet. But everyone who's in the society will hear the details first. And I hope to be able to share them with everyone here soon. So if you have an idea for a project, something that you have wanted to work on for a while, but have been putting off, because like I said, I've been hearing this from a lot of people, putting it off. I need accountability.
You might wanna be thinking about what that project is, what your goals are for it. So we can plan together for a sprint to make real progress. So I'm excited about that. Stay tuned. I will update you each week and there will be firm details very, very soon.
Okay, update from a featured status alert coming up still, but I wanna mention the reverse bucket list. So last week in my newsletter, my personal one, not the status will school one, I mentioned something that a lot of readers found interesting. Now you can get that newsletter. It's also completely free, just like status will school by visiting chrisguillebeau.com and signing up from any page. That is chris, C-H-R-I-S-G-U-I-L-L-E-B-E-A-U.com.
And what I mentioned was this concept of a reverse bucket list. You may know what a bucket list is. I call it a life list sometimes. There may be some other terms for it. It's a list of things you want to do before you die.
Maybe you want to learn conversational Italian or take a road trip across the US or skydive or play the piano or play the piano while you're skydiving, speaking Italian, whatever it could be. And personally for myself, even though I'm very goal oriented, I've never actually had a bucket list like that. When I had my quest of going to every country in the world, I had my list of 193 countries. Every year I do an annual review where I set a bunch of goals for the following year. But generally speaking, if there's something I wanna do, I just kind of plan to do it.
I incorporate it into my process, my routine. So I've never had a bucket list, but that's why this concept is interesting. If a bucket list is all about dreaming of something you might do one day, the reverse bucket list is all about recognizing what you've already done. I sometimes struggle with nostalgia or looking back on things. I don't usually like to do that, but for some reason, I don't know why I really connected with this idea.
So like I said, I wrote about it more in the newsletter, but the short version is that you can just sit down and ask yourself, what am I proud of? What have I accomplished? What's something I wanted to do when I was younger, whether younger means last year or 30 years ago, that I actually made happen? What is something that I actually made happen, a dream that I actually achieve? And just like with the regular bucket list, it really could be anything.
There's no restriction on it. It could be, you know, whatever you want, it's your list. So this is essentially an exercise in gratitude, but also in self-confidence, in kind of affirming yourself and looking back and saying, ah, actually I did some pretty cool stuff. So even if you don't want to do the whole exercise, my encouragement to you, maybe ask yourself today, what are three things I'm proud of? What are three things I can look back and say, I'm glad I did that.
And that was hard, perhaps, or it was challenging. I didn't know if I was going to succeed, but I did. And that's your reverse bucket list. Okay, now let's go to the update from a featured side hustler, our blast from the past segment. I believe today's update is coming to us from Jason.
So let's hear from him. - Hi, this is Jason Lautenschleger from Los Angeles, California. You may or may not remember my side hustle of "Game Night in a Can" as it was featured on episode 242. Since then, my partner Barry and I have expanded beyond Amazon and specialty retailers and have sold "Game Night in a Can" to larger retailers like Barnes and Noble, Tilly's Box Lunch. We also created and launched our second game, "Dr. Biscuit's Radical Road Trip."
It's 60 fantastic games to play in the car and it is currently nominated for a Toy of the Year Award, which is like the Oscars of the toy industry. We've also rebranded the company as Barry and Jason Games and Entertainment. Since we're working on additional offerings, it made sense to create an umbrella brand that spoke to the amount of our personality and character we put into our games. Also, people in the industry were already calling us Barry and Jason, so we just rode that horse in the direction it was already going. As for advice, I would say for us, our focus on alignment with well-respected industry veterans while maintaining that era of disruption has really proven to be the sweet spot.
There's a balance to disruption that is important to strike. Same but different is pretty tried and true. Next for us is creating new games and developing game shows from our existing properties as well as new ones. We're also in discussions to options slash license some incredible properties that we will be making games for, and we're out pitching game ideas that don't necessarily fit under our umbrella to other manufacturers that we would then collect a royalty on. In addition to arriving in new retail stores, we'll also be making some big moves as we get out of the garage and into some office space with some additional employees.
Thank you very much. - Awesome, thank you so much, Jason. Congratulations on all the transition, all the change, and your focus on alignment with industry veterans, same but different. I do like that advice. There's a reason why certain things work, and it's great to create some change and some disruption, but you don't necessarily have to reinvent everything.
So all the best with all that is to come. And everyone, you can follow along with Jason, or I should say Barry and Jason, the two partners by going to barryandjason.com, which like he said is their new name. And also that was episode 242, if you wanna go back and hear the original story. [Music]
Okay, like I said, an action packed recap for you, whole bunch of stuff there. Also, I wanted to mention the title of the week out of all the episodes.
I really liked episode 779. Piggy bank disaster turns millennial into money master. That was fun, and of course we had five other episodes, five other days, five other stories. Much more is on the way, including something about a zen organizer, something about Pizzoli to the people. I might've mentioned that last week.
It's still coming. It'll just be now next week. Good Pizzoli is worth the wait. And of course, so much more. So I wanna say thank you.
First of all, if you're listening out there, you're the reason I make this show, you've been going strong for 785 days, 785 consecutive days for you, for our listeners, for our community, because we wanna support people who identify with the vision of the show. Again, creating freedom for yourself without quitting your job, by using the skills you already have, without spending a lot of money. There is something that you can do. There is something, and that's why I'm telling you all the different stories. Maybe you'll connect with one of the stories and it will get you thinking about what you're gonna do.
So that's my goal. And I'm not the only one working on a show. We got a whole team behind us, producer, Chuck Reed, content manager, Whitney Karinek, editorial review, James Johnson, community liaison, Jed Chang, cat herder, Tina Hart, and the official show cat, Libby Guillipo. Now all of us at Team Scottsville School were part of the Onward Project that is curated by bestselling author Gretchen Rubin. Big fan, she's got a new book coming out soon in March.
I have pre-ordered it and I would encourage you to do the same. It's called "Outer Order Intercom." This is a free listener supported show. If you're enjoying it, it'd be super awesome. If you could go and give us five stars in Apple Podcasts, just takes a second. It does help other people discover the show.
And you can also tell your friends or even better show them how to subscribe. If you know somebody who needs another source of income, send them to us. We'll take care of them. In most episodes, I mentioned that inspiration is good, but action is better. It's because I want you to be able to take action.
I wanna feature your story here, or at least I wanna hear about it at some point. So I hope you'll come back tomorrow and each day next week. More stories, more ideas. Consider this a short daily investment in yourself. Episodes go online at 601 a.m. Eastern Time.
My name is Chris Guillebeau and this is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
- From the "Onward Project."
