Don’t quit your day job: new book looks at how to start a side hustle
Posted June 22, 2019 11:39 am.
Last Updated October 18, 2021 12:03 pm.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – From a woman who teaches people how to bake bread to a man who sells homemade candles online, there is no shortage of ways you can make some extra cash these days. Stories like these are contained in the new book, 100 Side Hustles: Unexpected Ideas for Making Extra Money Without Quitting Your Day Job.
Chris Guillebeau is the author of the book and the host of Side Hustle School, the podcast 100 Side Hustles is based on. “If you look through the book or listen to the podcast, you can get all these different examples and you might not necessarily do exactly what you read about or hear about, but it very well might provide kind of a jumping off point.”
He makes clear a side hustle is not moonlighting or a second job, it is something you control. “What I’m trying to help people do is to create something that has a potential to earn passive income for themselves, to be able to go to bed and wake up in the morning and see, ‘Oh, I’ve got this PayPal notification for this product that I made or this service that I created,'” he explains. “That’s much, much more powerful.”
LISTEN: NEWS 1130’s John Ackermann interviews Chris Guillebeau, the author of 100 Side Hustles
The first step is figuring out what your side hustle is. “What are your skills? What are you good at? I encourage people to make an inventory of [their] skills,” says Guillebeau. “‘Here’s everything that I know how to do. Here’s everything that I have expertise on, even if it’s a topic that I’m not sure, like, what the connection is to making money.’ Often from there that’s a little bit of clue.”
One success story is Jeremy Enns of Vancouver. In 2016, he was a landscaper who listened to podcasts as he worked. He had gone to school for audio editing and production and realized he could start a side hustle freelancing these services to local podcasters. Today, he has his own full-time business, Counterweight Creative, making far more money than he ever did landscaping.
However, many people will come up with an idea only to stop short of doing it. Guillebeau says if you’re stuck, try to visualize your side hustle in action. “Just think ahead a little bit. Think ahead a year from now. Just imagine how it feels. I really, really do believe that if you take the next step, you’re going to feel better than if you didn’t.”
100 Side Hustles is available from 10 Speed Press.
