A quick post for the weekend of January 16-17:
Chris Guillebeau invites visitors to seek his advice.
From the page:
You may well get some published/podcasted feedback AND your gig’s exposure to a very wide audience.
A major thanks to Evan Carmichael for assembling this advice collection from the following:
Considering there have been over 5, 600,000 views since its 2017 posting, I’m thinking this deserves a weekend’s worth of viewing. I know, I know, sounds like a wimped-out excuse for skipping posts for the next two days, but honestly, I’ll probably be running this in the background while I decide what to do with the satellite dish I finally–after three years, maybe four–dismounted from the roof. (I noticed none of the speakers mentioned DISH-removal in their talks. I’m guessing Evan will have a whole separate episode on that.)
Happy listening and let’s see if we can’t all find some room in our lives to apply the advice that best works for us.
I was recently looking for YouTube videos for side hustlers and up came Daniel Pink’s four minutes on How to Persuade Others with the Right Questions video from the Big Think channel.
Key point: “When people have their own reasons for doing something–not yours!–they believe those reasons more deeply and adhere to the behavior more strongly.”
In a side hustling context, say a potential customer is an almost lost cause. Ask him/her ‘What would it take for you to at least hear a 10-second pitch from me?’ or ‘What is the biggest obstacle to your considering my request?’.
And more from Daniel Pink: a quote from his book To Sell is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others
This post contains one affiliate link. If you use the link to buy the Daniel Pink book, I will earn a commission and I’ll be that much closer to buying that unclaimed island in the Caribbean. Thanks. Please don’t ask for the island’s coordinates. It’s mine and you can’t have it.
As I’ve said before, I could probably just hitch my wagon to and pinpoint good stuff from certain folks or sites.**
Copyblogger, Side Hustle Nation, and ryrob.com come to mind.
And then there’s Chris Guillebeau of Side Hustle School whom I’ve followed since 2014.
Because I’ve also dabbled with a journal prototype, I found a recent episode of his podcast even more relevant than usual.
As Chris points out in the opening, you may have no interest in producing and selling a personal journal, but many of the steps–his word, ‘pathway’– apply to other projects.
Here is the direct link to the actual seven-minutes of audio.
His key points:
Here is a three-page PDF of my own journal prototype–two actual pages that I would have duplicated and a page of links.
** But where’s the fun in that?
The year was 2011.
Side Hustle Nation’s Nick Loper had an idea: Add to his existing expertise in the virtual assistant space and build some affiliate income.
And so virtualassistantassistant.com was born.
Year 1: $1000 in earnings. That was enough to convince him this was a viable idea.
His post/outline of his story offers plenty of value, but running the full 46 minute podcast is well worth your time.
Just a few takeaways…
Pete McPherson from Do You Even Blog plays guest-host and steers Nick’s review of the 9 1/2 year process.
Pete’s own takeaways from the interview:
**As always with Nick’s podcasts, if you’re short on time, I suggest using his convenient table of contents to guide your listening.
One of my favorite parts of curating is finding good new ‘stuff’. (Sorry, that word just works for me, no matter how inelegant or generically lame it sounds. Yes, it’s lazy, but hey, it’s one less syllable than ‘content’ and it covers a lot of ground. Okay, in the time it took me to–fancy word alert!–bloviate on that, I could have found a more effective word than ‘stuff’, right? Now that I’ve completely lost you…
It’s always a plus in my day when I come across a new voice with clear, often unique, ideas to add to the curation.
S. Anthony Iannarino of thesalesblog.com has one of those voices and offers this ‘side hustler’s playbook’.
Even if you’ve read or heard these suggestions, I think you’ll find the succinct explanations to be affirming.
Other interesting posts by Iannarino…
Most of us have a favorite book that spurred us to explore this side-gig world.
I went to Quora to track down a discussion of favorite side hustle books and clicked to this afterfivehustle.com page by Sushen Jamwal, where he offers quick summaries and convenient links to previews and to Amazon.
Hovering questions: Aren’t you leaving out [name your favorite side hustle book/author]? Aren’t there more recent titles?
Well, I’m glad you asked that…whoever you are. I’ll further explore.
For now, here are the authors from Sushen’s list: [They’re also listed among my tags.]
In his blog this week, Austin Kleon, author the three books Keep Going, Show Your Work, and Steal Like An Artist, challenges his readers: In order to suck less, practice. [Time out for soapbox time: This guy ranks as one of my three favorite authors–the advice is enduring and invaluable and the format is so accessible. More on him in future posts.]
Okayyyy, so what should you practice?
Here are a few ideas, courtesy of entrepreneur.com. But by all means, look outside your hustle, as well.
This little extra motivation can pay off in big ways. And hey, why not get your kids involved?
More details here. Links to his PDFs are below.
And. if you’re interested, here are copies of mine…
And now, time for book recommendations…or shameless commercialism…or both. Okay, there are definitely book recommendations…
These seven books are go-to sources of inspiration and valued experience. These are affiliate links which, if you use to preview and buy the product, won’t raise the product’s price and will earn me a commission. At that point, I’ll be that much closer to buying that unclaimed island in the Caribbean. Please don’t ask for the island’s coordinates. It is mine and you can’t have it. ;->
These books cut across so many lines of productivity and accomplishment. Whether you use these links or go elsewhere, get your hands on these.
Since January is often about ‘starting’, take a look at Nick Loper’s free six-part video series on blogging.
Even if your blog is well-established, Nick raises salient points and shares worthwhile tips.
The six components:
Added freebie: The lead magnet 365 Blog Post Ideas.
Note: There are plenty of blogging experts out there, including Ryan Robinson of ryrob.com, whom I’ve pointed you to several times.
My bias as a long time teacher: One expert’s approach may fit your needs and learning style better than another’s.
And what you bring to the course at any given time makes a big difference…so again, I’m trying to set the table. It’s up to you to grab a plate and dig in.
Best of luck. I’m in your corner.
Side hustlers are, understandably, driven by goals. And in January, New Years resolutions–whether vilified or acclaimed–top the list of goal-related topics.
I liked this theconversation.com post on keeping your resolutions, though, to ease the pressure, maybe just view them as ‘new week resolutions’.
See how they fit over the next seven days.
This post contains an affiliate link. If you use this link to buy the Atomic Habits book, I will earn a commission and I’ll be that much closer to buying that unclaimed island in the Caribbean. Thanks. Please don’t ask for the island’s coordinates. It’s mine and you can’t have it.
Side Hustle Curator 