The School of Greatness - 539 Make Money on the Side with Chris Guillebeau

Episode Date: September 20, 2017

"Don't worry too much about the things you're not good at." - Chris Guillebeau If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes, videos, and more at http://lewishowes.com/539

This is episode number 539 with New York Times best-selling author Chris Guillebeau. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro-athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Maya Angelou said, you can't use up creativity. The more you use it, the more you have. Welcome everyone to today's episode.

I am riding high on the Summit of Greatness experience. We just had a thousand people from around the world, 20 different countries, all come to Columbus, Ohio to embark on a journey, to take on self-discovery in a new way and learn from some of the most inspirational speakers in the world. And wow, I am still on a high. If you were there, you know what I'm talking about. And we already sold almost 1,000 tickets for next year. That's how pumped people are to attend in the next year and are so excited about it.

So thank you to everyone who showed up, who came, who danced their faces off. It was amazing. And what an experience we will always have. I'll do a full recap about the things that worked really well, what didn't work well, how the entire event worked, everything, what was profitable, what wasn't, all that stuff. We'll do a full recap another time. But I want to support Chris because he has a book out right now. And for those who don't know him, he is a New York Times bestselling author and modern day explorer. He's visited every country in the world before his 35th birthday.

He's written a few books, The Art of Nonconformity, The $100 Startup, which was a New York Times bestseller and sold more than half a million copies worldwide. And he's written several New York Times bestselling books for entrepreneurs and founded the super popular World Domination Summit. And his new book is all about side hustle. So for those who aren't entrepreneurs, who work at a job or work at a career, and you're happy there, but you want to make more money on the side, this is for you. It's all about what are those things that you can have ownership in to develop your own side hustle to make an extra 500 bucks a month, 1,000 bucks a month, 5,000 a month. Some people sometimes transition completely and they're making multiple six figures with their side hustle. So this is all

about how to choose the right side hustle for you and the entire process for choosing the most popular forms of side hustle, and the benefits of each one, how we all make time for what is most important to us, why you must validate your idea before you actually go and implement, also the role your community plays in your side hustle. Guys, we talk about all this and so much more. Make sure to take a screenshot of this right now on your podcast app. Tag me at Lewis Howes and Chris Guillebeau over on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook and let me know that you're listening to this so I can have a conversation with you over on your Instagram story. Lauren

Bartush posted a review this week along with many of you and she is voted as the fan and review of the week. So I want to give a quick shout out to Lauren, who said, I've listened to a ton of podcasts, and the School of Greatness is the only podcast I listen to every single day. I cannot start my day without listening to one of Lewis's incredible interviews or five-minute Fridays. The variety of people he brings to this podcast

is incredible, and there is something for everyone. I feel the need to tell everyone I come in contact with about this podcast. Thank you for bringing all the incredible interviews and content to us listeners. So Lauren Bartish, thank you for being the fan in the review of the week. And if you guys want a chance to get shouted out on the podcast, make sure to head over to iTunes or your podcast app and leave a review over on the podcast. Okay, everyone who is on their side hustle, who wants to make more money on this side,

or if you're working at a career and you just want to start making a little bit on this side, this is for you. Make sure to share it with your friends, lewishouse.com slash 539 to get the full show notes, the links, the full video interview with Chris, and share it with your friends. Without further ado, let me introduce to you the one, the only, Chris Guillebeau.

Welcome back, everyone, to the School of Greatness podcast. One of my favorite human beings, Chris Guillebeau, is in the house. Good to see you, man. Good to see you, sir. All the way from Seattle or Oregon? Portland, Oregon. But you were in Seattle before? Yeah, I was in Seattle two days ago, but literally last night we were talking. This is a good story. You texted me.

Literally last night, we've been trying to coordinate for this interview and all these different conflicts. And I know you're a busy man doing lots of stuff. And you were like, how about tomorrow? And I was like, tomorrow? Okay, this is like 7 o'clock at night. I'm like, okay. And here I am. It's crazy, man. Yeah. And you're off in like an hour to go to San Diego. So we're going to get him to get his train. He's on the side hustle. That's what his new book is called, Side Hustle from Idea to Income in 27

Days. The New York Times bestselling author, Chris Guillebeau. Now, you've been someone who's generated a lot of different streams of income over many years. You started, from my understanding, with your blog. And then you did these travel hacking guides, other guides as well that came with it. You have a membership site. You did books, courses. You have your famous World Domination

Summit. Far too much, basically. A lot of different things happening, yeah. And you've generated a lot of different revenue streams from a lot of different things. Would you consider everything you've done a side hustle? In one way or another. I think, well, to pick up where you started,

I feel like at a certain point, I decided, okay, I'm going to have this career as an author. I actually really like writing books. I love going out on the road to meet readers and now listeners to my podcast. But before I had the blog, I did 10 years of other random projects. I mean, I sold things on eBay. And then I learned how to do business consulting and freelanced when I was living in West Africa and just all kinds of stuff. So I've been side hustling basically for 20 years and then writing about it in one way or another for eight years. So, you know, last year

I had this conversation with you and then I went out on tour. I went to about 30 cities and talked to people about like how to find the work you were meant to do. And it's kind of a little side note in that talk for like one minute, I would say, oh, and by the way, you should also have a side hustle, even if you love your job. It's just going to be good for you no matter what you do next, et cetera. Little side note. And then I noticed like afterwards, every event, people had so many questions about that. Like that's what they wanted to know about more than anything else. So that's what kind of led us to this. What is the ultimate side hustle? The ultimate side hustle? What is that? I feel like it's whatever you want. I mean,

I feel like the interesting thing about it is people have different goals for their side hustle. And some people are trying to leave their job. And they want to build income high enough or secure enough to where they can do that. Other people are happy in their job, but they love the idea of having a backup plan. Or they like just saving money to pay off debt or to save for a vacation or something that they believe in. Other people want to do something that's creative. Like I talked to this guy last week who's a managerial accountant, and he's actually found a way to make $1,000 a month doing poetry slams.

No way. Right? So the accountant slash poet. So it's a different creative outlet. How is he making money doing poetry slams? He's hosting these workshops and all kinds of things. It's in Dubai, actually. He's working with the government of Dubai. Wow. He's found a way to have a full-time job and

then say okay on saturdays i'm doing poetry slams all day and that's my weekend and that's just one example you know the goal isn't to get everybody doing poetry slams but the goal is to find something that you're good at right um to use the skills that you already have to create a second source of income or a third source of income or whatever so the ultimate goal i think is is, is your goal. Like what do you want it to be? Yeah. Because ultimately it's about options. It's about freedom. It's about, you know, if I have this, you know, thing coming in that's separate from my paycheck, like it's great that I had the paycheck, I had that security, but it's so much more empowering to have something else coming in. And I just see over and over when I talk to people, if they haven't done this before,

like the first time they do it, it just, it just feels so great. Yeah. I made $300. Like they're just so, so excited about it. Right. And it kind of leads to more often. Uh, you were talking about before that you said that Uber is not a side hustle. It's a part-time job. Yeah. Right. Cause I've been telling people like, Hey, go Uber for like a day a week and make some extra cash while you're working on your thing. Sure. Sure. Well, here's what I think about it. I think of it as kind of like first level, like entry point, entrepreneurship. It's not bad.

I'm just kind of picking on them a little bit because they have this whole campaign of like, you know, drive for Uber, start your side hustle. The thing is like, obviously it's better than doing lots of things, but ultimately it is a part-time job because you have the schedule you want. That's good.

That's the main benefit. But otherwise you're living in their entire system. You're living in their ecosystem. They set the rules. They essentially cap your income. You can't charge different than anyone else. Exactly. You can't sell products and services. You're not supposed to sell products or services to your passengers. You're not really building an email list or anything else, no other form of asset. So it's not bad, of course, but I just encourage people, I'm trying to in this book, to think a little bit differently and to say, okay, if you want that same thing, like you want, you need the extra income, what can you create that has a potential to become

an asset for you? Because I think that's more powerful. What are some great examples? You have this new podcast that's been blowing up talking about the side hustle. So you get these stories coming in every single day, right? And when people are submitting stuff. What are some of the most inspiring examples of people that, because we, you know, I know you hear this a lot, just like I do. We're like, well, I don't know what I could do around surfing or, you know, like, I just want to go to the beach every day. That's my thing I love to do. So how do I build a side hustle around this? So what are some examples that would dismantle anyone's, you know, opinions that you can't do what you love and make it real cash. Yeah, it's good. So every day on the show, I'm telling

a different story if somebody does this in different ways, like you said. And my goal is to highlight this range of stories to kind of blow down the objections. So one story, and we were just talking about a starter platform like Uber. Are you familiar with Turo? Turo is where you can rent your car out to strangers

basically. Maybe I've seen the app or something. Yeah,uro is where you can rent your car out to strangers, basically. Maybe I've seen the app or something. Yeah, like the crowd sharing thing for your car. So anyway, here in LA, this guy named Tassir was doing that for a little bit. Anybody who has a car can start this. And so he noticed over time, his car is getting rented out 25 days out of the month, basically. So it's almost full time. He's making $1,000 a month doing that.

But then, here's where it gets interesting. He's like, okay, what can I do next? So he went out and leased another car and then a third car. And he eventually leased a dozen cars. No way. And turned it into this whole business that's like $4,000 a month. This is kind of what people did with Airbnb. They would rent out their apartment.

Then they'd get a second apartment. Then they'd get multiple apartments. And then regulations happened. But they're like, oh, now it's happen. People did this early days with Uber as well. I remember this. When it was just black car service. I remember guys being like, I've got a fleet of black cars. Right. And they get the referral bonuses that are like 500 bucks each time and stuff. So here's another story. This young couple, they go on a cruise and they got a gift certificate from the in-laws or something. And they actually went and had a good time, but they came back and the guy was a copywriter for his day job. And before he went on the cruise, he had all these questions that he

couldn't find the answers to. He's like, can I watch Netflix on a cruise? Like he Googles it, doesn't get really get an answer. So he decides to create a blog, like in the blog consists entirely of answers to questions that people might ask about going on a cruise. Really? He adds Google AdSense to that blog, which anyone can do. It's free. You just kind of put it there in your little WordPress site. And in about three months, it's making $2,000 a month from that. Three months? Yeah, three months. And then within a year, it's like up to $4,000 a month. So this is something like you're kind of curious, right? You encounter a problem.

I'm looking for this information. Can't find it. Am I the only person who's looking for this information? Probably not because a lot of people watch Netflix, like a hundred million people, right? And a lot of people go on cruises. And then if it's Netflix, it's also like HBO. It's also this, there's probably other questions, you know, because like the cruise lines, they have their website, but that's propaganda. And then you have like the forums, you know, where people talk about cruises, but that's like a sea of information. I don't want to go into that. Like, I don't want to read 10,000 posts. I just want to get my answer. So he figures it out. So that's just

one example. But like, you know, every day I'm telling a different story on the, on the show, in the book, like it's a 27 day process on each day. I'm showing a different story. That's an example for someone to take a certain mentality, to be able to apply this side hustle if you're working at a company can you you know is there a mindset that's like some people can and some people can't or can anyone develop a side hustle mentality and great question get a hundred bucks a month extra yeah great yeah i even start with five hundred dollars a month i'm like that's my minimum you know i want you to make at least five hundred dollars a month you know if you read this book or listen to the show um i think not everyone wants it first of all so i think if anyone wants the first you know I want you to make at least $500 a month if you read this book or listen to this show.

I think not everyone wants it, first of all. So I think if anyone wants it, the first prerequisite is you actually believe in this and you want this. Because most people that I'm trying to talk to on the show, they're really busy. They're busy people. They don't have a ton of free time. They might have a family in addition to their job. They might be going to school. They might have two jobs, et cetera.

So really limited time. But I guess they also believe that they want to invest in themselves, right? They want to make some kind of change in their life. And that's probably why they're listening to this podcast. And so even though they don't have a lot of time, they're willing to take what time they do have and put into it. So I think that's the first thing. I think- If they want it. Yeah, they have to want it. Yeah, exactly. They have to want it. And then second, I think curiosity is kind of a common characteristic of people

who do this and curiosity is a skill that can be developed right just kind of being willing to observe different things like the guy who went

on the cruise or the guy who rented out his car and you know story after story it's like curious and then the third thing would be taking action

right like so I'm not just wondering about it I'm actually going to do something about it and not being like overwhelmed with you know I could do 10 different things. So how do I choose, you know, and like, right. Yeah. Someone says that to me, I don't know which one to choose

or they get caught up in the mechanics or the, you know, the technology or whatever it is. And then they never do anything. Yeah. Well, they haven't been trained, you know, they haven't, they haven't, they don't come from that world, you know, so they're really skilled. The managerial accountant is really skilled in, in his work, his work. The software engineer, she's really skilled in her work, but you have to kind of acquire a mindset. As you said, you don't have to go out and learn like a ton of business skills. I mean, the whole idea is to focus on the skills you already have, but you might need to learn to kind of translate those skills or adapt them in a different way. What's this Tinder for side hustle concept? What is this? Tinder for side hustles. What is that? I think that relates to, I have this model in the book called a side hustle selector

for people who are in that position of like, I've got too many ideas. I don't know what to choose. And I think I use this example of like the online dating industry, like all these algorithms that they have. And, you know, their goal is to find like the perfect match, you know, for you to be a satisfied customer, you find the perfect match for whatever you happen to be looking for, right? And so the whole goal is to match you with your right side hustle.

And so it's this really kind of intuitive process that anyone can do in 10 minutes. When you have five ideas and you're like, how do I choose? You're going to write them down and rank them according to some different categories. And then your answer is likely going to emerge from there. So if you have too many ideas of like, I've got all these passions and things I could do, this is a thing you have in the book that teaches you how to decipher which is probably the most likely to succeed or that's going to make you the most money or what's... Yeah, according to your own criteria.

And it uses both like left brain and right brain thinking, which I think is really important. So it's analytical, it's logical, like your side hustle has to make sense, right? It has to make economic sense. There have to be people who want what you're offering, you know, so it can't just be. How do you figure that out? Well, you, you start with looking at the skills you have and you think about how those skills overlap, you know, with what people are interested in. Um, you look for something that frustrates you, some kind of problem. Like people are always asking, like, what's your passion? I encourage people to ask, like, what bothers you? Like, what are you upset about? What frustrates you? You know,

um, that's one thing. And the other thing is like, okay, if you have an idea, you need to turn that idea into an offer. Like your idea has to become a product or a service because people don't buy ideas. So give me an example of that. What's that look like? Let's take a new, let's take a new example. Let's see. Um, I want to talk about candy hearts, but I'm going to save that one. There's a couple, a couple from Canada. Actually, he's from Canada and she's from Nepal originally. They meet in Europe.

It's complicated. They go to Nepal for their honeymoon. Yes. And they go and see, like, they can buy cashmere there. That's, like, the source of cashmere. They can buy it, you know, really affordably. Back in Canada and the States, it's really expensive. Like, there's a demand for it, you know? And so they're like, wonder what we

could do with this. And they also like the idea of like doing something that supports girls' education in Nepal. So basically like short version is they just, they don't invest a ton of money. They're not like trying to jump off a cliff. They invest like a thousand dollars, you know, in cashmere. They come back to Nepal or back to Canada and sell that for like $5,000. Like great. Right. And then they go, so then they start building from there. Right. So at first it was an idea is like, you know, cashmere. Okay. Uh, well the more specific idea is like, I'm going to import cashmere scarves, you know, silk or whatever it is. I'm going to resell it, you know, to this

market and so on. Interesting. Yeah. So I have a lot of stuff like that. I'm trying to try to find stuff that's, that different people can relate to relate to right because not everybody wants to be a reseller you know not everybody wants to do like i have some stories about um people doing t-shirts on on fulfilled by amazon like people who design t-shirts and never manufacture them don't do any of their screen printing it's all done like automated and this one guy's making a hundred thousand dollars a year doing it so it with designs. Just designs. Just designs. Never touches a t-shirt.

How's he getting them out there on Amazon? Amazon has a program called Fulfilled by Amazon or FBA. You can upload your own design. And you can upload like 100 designs, right? And you see which ones sell, and then if 90 of them don't sell, you just do like 90 more. There's a whole lot of people doing this.

It's a whole industry, so I write about that too. You're just constantly creating new designs. How do people find the designs? How do they find the shirts? Well, there whole lot of people doing this. It's a whole industry. So I write about that too. You're just constantly creating new designs. How do people find the designs? How do they find the shirts? Well, there's 200 million people on Amazon. That's the thing, right? That are looking for like artistic shirt or t-shirt this way or whatever. Well, you think about keywords, right? You think about keywords.

You think about something that's in the culture that comes out, some kind of phrase or something. Nirvana, you know. Yeah, right, right. Like you're not supposed to do copyrighted stuff, but people do different, different things. Anyway. So some people are really attracted to that kind of thing. So people are like, Oh, that's cool. Like I'm going to sit at my desk and like get a spreadsheet and like, you know, just kind of download all that stuff. Other people are like, no, I want to go to Nepal and buy something and bring it back. And, uh, and other people are like, I want to be a coach. I want to be a consultant. Other people are like, would never

want to do that. Right. So the whole goal is to figure out, you know, this blend of like what you're good at, what your skills are, and then, you know, what other people are like, would never want to do that, right? So the whole goal is to figure out this blend of what you're good at, what your skills are, and then what other people value and how you can turn that into an offer. What's the first few questions you would ask someone who says, I just want to make 500 extra bucks. What's the first thing you should ask them?

Is it what are your skills or what do you like? Or is that the one question? Yeah, well, I think at first I would ask them about their goals. So you just identified a goal because everybody's goal is different. $500 to $1,000 a month. Yeah, $500 to $1,000 a month.

I think my second thing would be tell me just a little bit about yourself, you know, and we'll see kind of where that person starts. Because when you ask it like that, it's really interesting how people, like, respond. You know, what's the first or second or third thing that they say? And if that doesn't lead to anything, like, immediate, then I start talking about skills. You know, what are you good at? What do you like to do? What do people ask you about? That's a good one.

Because sometimes people don't know what skills they have that are valuable or marketable. They think like, oh, I just went to school to be a dentist or whatever. You know, what do people ask you about all the time? Like, what are you the expert or the authority in? Sometimes people know what your skills and your strengths are like before you do. Yeah. So I start kind of going down that road. And at a certain point, I'm usually talking about products or services.

So there's kind of a divide there of like, okay, are we trying to make a product? Are you trying to provide a service? And it's kind of like a little kind of logic tree. You can go down in 10 minutes. You can usually figure it out for people. Product, service, or software, I guess. But no one wants to really build software. Yeah.

Everybody wants to build an app, but nobody knows how to do it. That's the problem. What do most people do you feel like do? Is it 50-50 product, service, or more people doing services because you don't have to develop a product? Yeah. You can do coaching or consulting.

I think services are probably more common. Teaching lessons or something, right? Yeah. I mean, services are probably more common, but a product could also be digital. It doesn't necessarily have to be like something physical. It could be a course. It could be something.

A course is a product. What about people who say, you know, I'm already working 70 hours a week. How am I going to make an extra thousand bucks on the side? I already don't have the time. How do I manage my time? Do I do this at work? Do I do this in the morning? Of course, of course.

What do you tell them about that? I never want to tell people what to do and how to how to you know structure their time but i guess what i notice is that we all make time for what's important to us and most people probably not all of them but most most people have some amount of free time okay and so i would just encourage you to not spend all your free time doing your side hustle but spend some of it right like maybe watch you know one tv show fewer or something. Maybe get up 20 minutes earlier. I'm not telling you to get up two hours a day earlier,

but I really think like 20 to 30 minutes a day, like over time consistently is a lot better than like, you know, one Saturday a month trying to bang everything out. So I do believe if you kind of, if you have a process, which I'm trying to provide,

you know, the 27 step process, it's meant to be followed over 27 days, right? So day one, day one, you do this day one is like, basically, what's your goal? You know, and then, you know, day two, two through five, we're helping people figure out how to get an idea. And then helping people select, you know, from those ideas, then helping them create everything they need to deliver their product or create their service or whatever. And then it's all about launching it before you're ready. That's like step number four, week number four. That's the most important thing in my mind.

Launching before you. I always try to launch something before I even have created it. Yeah, that's great. I say, this is what's coming out. You're not going to get it for a few weeks. You can get it for, I usually give a discount for people that buy when there's nothing to get. And I say, buy it now. You'll get it in a few weeks. And if no one buys, I don't have to create anything. Exactly. No, that's great. I've had some stories of people doing that. And they,

somebody had like a car guide, like a premium car guide or something. It was really expensive. And, and he was like, you know, purchase it now. But he didn't say like, I don't have it ready yet. Just like, I'm going to see what happens basically. And then three people bought it and he was like, okay, I got to, got to make this. So he wrote to them and said something like, you know, you, you bought this guide and I know you're really excited about it. Want to let you know, like, you know, 2.0, the 2.0 version is coming in like three weeks. So I'll get you that. I'm gonna get you a better version. It's going to be deluxe, et cetera. And if you want your money back now, then you can have that where you can just wait a little bit. I'm going to get you more, you know, and everybody just wait, wait.

I think that's the greatest way to do it. So you don't analyze if it's going to work or not. You just test something and see if people want to even just try to get one client. Right. Right. Don't try to have your whole website designed and everything. Just say, Hey, what's your biggest problem? Okay. Let me help you solve it. That's good. And here's the other thing, like what you learned to be like inside hustling is different from entrepreneurship and a lot of startup kind of stuff. And this is something where people get kind of hung up as well, I think. And so idea validation is another thing. Like, how do I validate my idea? A lot of the like, a lot of the episodes that I feature on the show and some of the stories in the book, there's no way to like validate the idea before you do it. Basically, there's a woman, Jen Glantz from New Jersey, who was asked to be a bridesmaid by two of her friends on the same day. And one of her other friends said, well, you're almost like a professional bridesmaid. And so then she's like, huh? And she wrote a Craigslist ad that same day

and put it up as I'm a professional bridesmaid. She wanted to hire me. And it kind of went viral the next day. She had 200 inquiries from people who wanted to hire her and from women who wanted to do that as a career, basically. So she actually decided to like, let me see how far I can take this, right? And so she actually created this little business around it. No way. Brides Made for Hire made $200,000 in year one. No way. $200,000.

Come on. So how do you validate that idea before you do it? You don't validate. You just do it. You just see what happens. You put it out and you say, Craigslist, hey. Exactly. You've never done it before.

Wow, that's crazy. Was she doing most of the, she made most of the money from herself actually showing up at the weddings? Or was it from teaching the other bridesmaids how to do it? Good question. I think her main service was actually not the showing up or the teaching other people. It was, I don't know, it was kind of like virtual concierge. It was like, let me do some of that bridesmaid stuff, but from a distance. She does actually show wedding

planning basically. Yeah. But it sounds, it sounds better to be like bridesmaid for hire, you know, but essentially she was coordinating all the friends and doing all the planning. Yeah, exactly. So she didn't actually have to show up still. No, you had to pay more if you wanted that. Right. Brilliant. Yeah. So she didn't have to deal with all the drama. Of course. Yeah. Well, I think that was part of the service she was offering. Like if you want me to deal with some dramatic situation, I can do that because that has value to people. I. So she didn't have to deal with all the drama. Of course, yeah. Well, I think that was part of the service she was offering. Like, if you want me to deal with some dramatic situation, I can do that because that has value to people. I wonder if she showed up to any of these weddings and was actually, like, holding, like, the flowers for the person. I know she went to some.

Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. Huh. Interesting. That's kind of cool. Good for her. Yeah. Talk to me about – I want to shift a little bit and talk to me about community because you've built this amazing event world domination summit since 2011 the numbers i have here are 10 000 people from more than 40 countries

came is that right is there more people now i think 10 000 people come to summit of greatness every year right i wish just about i wish you've really crushed it with a thousand this time but so you've had 10 000 people roughly from uh you know all over the world. How important is building a community in order to develop a more powerful side hustle? Okay, great question. I almost see them as, there's a little bit of separation there. I think you don't have to build a community

to make $1,000 a month or even some of these projects that actually blow up and do $100,000 or more. You don't necessarily have to make a community to do that. So it's all about, again, what are your goals? Like what's important to you? To me, community has been very important, increasingly so. And I wrote this book and started the show in response to my community because they kept saying like, I want this essentially, like I need a process to do it. So community is very important to me, but I don't necessarily think that everyone has to be

community focused for their side hustle. So side hustle is essentially your side hustle based on what other people, right? Based on what people said, I need a process for a side hustle. So you said, okay, I'm going to create a new side hustle for this audience. That's good. I need to steal that answer

because people are always like, what's your side hustle, Chris? I'm like, I got 10 projects. I don't, you know, 10 different things. Yeah, exactly. You know, and something you do is you're going on a 100 city tour for this book. Are you coming? I'm going to be there in LA. Great. Yeah, exactly. You know? And something you do is you're going on a 100-city tour for this book. Are you coming?

I'm going to be there in LA. Great. September 20th, 7 o'clock, downtown, General Assembly. Yeah, something like that. Something like that. Why do you go through so much? You know, the people that I know that do something close to this is minimalist. Yeah, they do a great job.

They do a great job. Great job. But why 100 cities? And is that within a year or is that over extended time? Yeah, it's going to job. They do a great job. Great job. But why 100 cities? And is that within a year or is that over extended time? Yeah, it's going to be less than a year. Probably about three months for the first half and a couple months for the second half. So we're going to front load it, of course. It just seems exhausting.

Yeah, it's exhausting and awesome. It's both. It's like a lot of things in life, right? Yeah, of course. A lot of things in life are exhausting and meaningful. What's the most powerful thing that comes – because you've done these big tours for a long time. This is the biggest one, right? Yeah, this will be the biggest.

What's the most powerful thing that comes from doing a tour? Even if only 10 people show up at each event, if you're just starting out, obviously you're going to be blowing up more than that. Some of my first events, I had 10 people showing up. My first book, I went to all 50 states. There's not a lot of readers, at least in mine in West Virginia or North Dakota, you know, for example. Um, but the thing is the most powerful thing, I think most powerful thing is a connection because I still, I still know some of those people from North Dakota from like eight years ago, they're still following me. And I think it meant something in different places to go there, you know, not saying I've changed everybody's

life or whatever, but just like I'm making these connections that kind of follow. And I do think they're closer connections than the ones we make online. Wow. Yeah. What else comes from these experiences of the event? Stories. Also stories. You know, I would say like $100 Startup.

I wrote that book based off of that first tour that I did because first book was Art of Nonconformity. I went to all 50 states. All along the way, I kept meeting these like accidental entrepreneurs, like people that were starting little businesses based off of something they love. And I was like, man, nobody is writing about these people. Everybody is writing about the Silicon Valley model. That's fine for some people, but like nobody is writing about these people in middle America who, you know, just, just kind of create something for themselves. That's my market. That's my, that's my people, you, you know? And so that whole book and that project and that changed my life. So there's just so much that comes out of it.

World Domination Summit came out of that. From touring? Yeah. That's how I got people to come to the first event. I mean, it was on that first big tour. I personally invited everybody. You built an email list from every stop and then you just... Yeah, well, I had to email this, but it was a personal invitation also, right?

It was like, here I am in Lawrence, Kansas. We're doing this thing next summer called World Domination Summit. What is it? I'm not sure, but come next summer and find out. You know, we need you, basically. Wow, and you just sell tickets at all these different stops.

Yeah, we didn't sell tickets. We didn't sell tickets. It was more like just kind of, you know, getting interest. And so I always think about that when people, like you've done very well with your event, but I always think when people come to me, I'm like, how did you, how did you get a thousand people to come or whatever? They think it's easy. Like there's some magic trick. They're like,

here's this blog post I wrote, you know, I'm like, I went to all 50 States. I personally invited them go and do that. And, and, you know, I've done the digital version of what you did for the last year. I've DM people one by one. That's great. Have you got a ticket to the summit of greatness and continue the conversation and send video messages and photos, whatever. So it's the same

similar principle. One by one is what sells tickets for me. Yeah. I mean, and then for events in particular, which are challenging. Why is it so hard to

get people to show up? It's a huge commitment. It's a huge commitment. It's all the money for people, time, energy. It's the travel and like it has to align with their schedule and

all kinds of stuff. And there's a lot of variables that kind of block out a lot of people. For anyone who's thinking of doing an event, whether it be a small event, massive, whatever, weekend event, what does an event need to have to have magic?

Whether it's like 10 people in a room or 10,000 people. What are the elements of curating and captivating magic? Yeah, for us, we've always seen it as 50-50 of like what we do and what the community brings. Obviously, this is like a rough estimate, you know? But so the 50% that we bring,

I think it's important to have a mission and a message and to have like, here's what this is about. We're not telling everybody like what each expression is going to be and like how you should think or whatever. But like, we're trying to put something forward here. We're not telling everybody what each expression is going to be and how you should think or whatever, but we're trying to put something forward here. We're trying to put forward an agenda. So I think that helps.

And then, as I said, the community, it's at least 50%. Really? Getting the right people. Don't you think? Getting the right people together, I feel like there's a lot of magic to that. Do you think you attract the right people

by having the mission out there in front and kind of like the experience of the website? It's circular, right? Yeah, yes. And then maybe next year you attract people because of those people and, you know, vice versa, hopefully. Yeah. That's the goal.

What do you think about every time you do it? You know, you do a big event every year. What do you think about for the next year? Is it, can we, how do we make it bigger and better? Or is it, how do we make it different? Or how do we create something unique that's never been done? What is your process? Yeah, I think it's, I think it's a combination of those things.

It's not so much about bigger. I mean, in the first few years, we were definitely kind of focused on that. But now it is about better. Like what worked? What went well? What do we want to do again? What do we want to change? And I want to make sure that we're always changing.

Like we have to change. I never want to create like an insider's club where it's the same thing like all the time. What do you mean by like an insider's club where it's the same thing like all the time. So what do you mean by that insider's club versus well, insider's club, I guess what I mean is, uh, and this has to do with like increasing the size, which we did from year one to year two. And you guys have done, um, I think you guys have basically doubled or something for the first year. Yeah. Right. So, and when we did that, we had some resistance, you know, from some people in the community, Oh, it's too big. Oh, it's like, you know, et cetera. The thing is, if it's the same people coming all the time, then you're not going to grow. You want the right combination of people

who have like the institutional history. We've always been there. That's good. And the new people, right? You want to reach, you're going to reach new people. You want to, it's not just about you reaching people. You need those people to like bring new life to your event and your community. I think. Absolutely. Who've never experienced it, who are like, oh, I'm seeing this for the first time. And then others who are like, oh, let me show you the ropes. Yeah, exactly. So I guess we think about creating something unique. I try to have a theme each year.

This year, our theme was building a better world, kind of in response to a lot of stuff that's been happening in the U.S. and elsewhere. How can we take active steps individually and as a community to address issues of intolerance, discrimination, et cetera. But how can we obviously still have a lot of fun with our event and, you know, have a positive, you know, affirmative, adventurous message. So that was kind of our focus this year. What was the biggest thing to open up for you or that you took away from that, kind of focusing on that message? Yeah. Yeah. Good question. The biggest thing I took away,

I think for me, I was really happy that it worked, like people responded well to it. It wasn't all about like entrepreneurial making money or something like that. Yeah, but it also was good, like it wasn't dry or boring or, you know, we didn't want to make people uncomfortable in a good way, not in a bad way, you know. Don't want people to ever feel judged or burdened in some way so i think we talked about like creating empathy creating empathy and surviving empathy right you want people to be empathetic and have an understanding for the issues of the world but then like what do we do with it rather than just going away feeling burdensome so i think we we tried to focus on that i think we did a decent job yeah i keep improving yeah it's great man what is something you think about a lot throughout your day-to-day life?

Just something that's on your mind, something that either frustrates you or just you're constantly mindful about. What is that? I tend to worry a lot. About what? I tend to worry about, I don't know, just my stuff, like what I'm making, what I'm doing. Like, am I improving? You know, am I just doing the same things over and over? Think about that. I try to have the same things over and over think about that

I try to have a gratitude practice and we talked about that a little bit in our last conversation and try to like write down several things each day that are amazing and I feel like in my life and maybe most people's lives like every day there's there's some amazing things and I tend to miss them like I tend to not take satisfaction in them and so I'm trying to like do that a little bit. What do you think you're missing? Appreciation for it or just the amazing, just the awareness of it. Like there's that sunset. Oh, great. You know, didn't see it.

Well, oh, well, you know, it's a nice sunset. You know, it's not just the sunset. It's also the email. I got an email from somebody and they said like this cool thing. Like, but am I just kind of skimming over it? And sometimes I just, I have to kind of skim over some things, but like I try to want to let some reality kind of seep in because I feel like, like you and me in particular,

like we have like the greatest jobs in the world and we get to do this amazing thing. I never want to get too used to it. Maybe that's part of it. Like I worry I'm getting used to it. And so I keep trying to change stuff so that I'm, I'm not doing the same thing all the time. And when you went on your journey,

what was it? 10 years you traveled the world? Yeah, 11 years. 11 years to see every country or almost, what's the correct, some country. Every country. Every country in the world, yeah.

Some Providence or something, you guys did whatever, yeah. But every country you've been to, do you feel like you were able to be present in that journey or was it more like just to the next place, next place? Sure, sure. Well, I mean, it was 11 years. So I feel like I don't think I could say like i was present every moment i don't think i could

say it was negative every moment there was just a lot of highs and lows and ups and downs uh with that but i would say overall i was just focused on the on the journey and and all that what would you say is the biggest lesson you've learned this year so far as the year's starting to come to yeah final quarter um what's opened up for you that it is new that you didn't know about yourself or something? Yeah. How long have you had this podcast? How many years? Almost five, four and a half, four and three-fourths. Going on five years. Yeah. Biggest thing for me was last year I was like, okay, I need to catch up to 2005 when podcasts were a thing. And to you, five years later, I need to have a podcast basically. And so I started side hustle school

on January one. And I was like, since I'm late to the party, I need to be a little different somehow. Do it every day. I'm going to do it every day. There's going to be no guests, you know, every day, no guests. And it's going to be less than 10 minutes long. Every day, I'm telling a story of somebody who starts a side hustle without quitting their job. And so there's been a lot of learning associated with that. This whole industry is new to me. This whole medium is new to me. So I've looked up to you and other folks, Jonathan Fields and others who've been doing this a while.

Wow. And so what, you're 250 episodes in now or what? Yeah, however many days we are in the year, it's basically 250 right now, I think. Crazy, man. You've already done half of what I've done in four and a half, five years. Yeah, next year I might catch up. You will, man. You've already done half of what I've done in four and a half, five years. I'm still going to catch up. You're going to get there. Next year, I might catch up.

You will, man. And what's opened up for you from doing the podcast? What's been the biggest thing about that? I was surprised. I was legitimately surprised at the engagement and the response. Amazing, right? It is amazing. Gretchen Rubin told me this last summer.

She was like, when I started my podcast, I didn't know ifchen Rubin told me this last summer. She was like, you know, when I started my podcast, you know, I didn't know if it would really bring me a new audience. People said that, but like, I already have a big audience. She started the podcast. It brought her a whole new audience. And that was the same, same for me as well. I mean, I did, um, started doing these side hustle school workshops like the first month or second month, I think in February. And I overheard people talking at one of them. It was really interesting. And they were like, how'd you hear about Chris? And one of the people there was like, Oh, I've been reading Chris's blog for seven years. You know, I flew in from Puerto Rico or whatever. And then

somebody else is like, Chris has a blog. I didn't know that, you know, like I just heard about it from the podcast, you know, and I'm here. And so just, I've really been legitimately surprised and happy and pleased that it's brought like a whole new level of engagement with folks. That's cool, man. That's very cool. What else do we need to know about the side hustle? Anything besides getting the book? You're doing these workshops as well? Yeah. The workshop's a little bit on pause right now since I have the 100 cities. That's kind of like a mini workshop. Yeah. It is. It is. Yeah. I want people to come to the events. I mean, the book, the tour, it's sidehustleschool.com slash tour.

Sidehustleschool.com slash tour. Yeah. That's for the tour, but it's sidehustleschool.com slash tour. Sidehustleschool.com slash tour. Yeah, that's for the tour, but it's just sidehustleschool.com for the podcast. You're pretty much doing like a little mini workshop at these. Yeah, of course. Yeah, come and hang out. We can have a conversation. I'm going to talk a little bit about this process, the 27-day, five-week stuff. Of course, you can get it online or at your bookstore. Do you create challenges for people too? Is it to make $500 in the first 30 days? Well, $500 a month is just like my minimum criteria, like to be featured on the show or to like to,

when I say like, what's a side hustle? Because people have a hard time like defining that. And so I'm like, side hustle is income generating. It's not a hobby. It's not just something that you do, you know, for fun. It actually is bringing you money. And let's say it's at least $500 a month. And hopefully it's gonna a hobby. It's not just something that you do for fun. It actually is bringing you money. And let's say it's at least $500 a month. And hopefully it's going to be more.

Who's making the most side hustle where they still have a job and they're making? Yeah, good question. Where they didn't say, okay, I'm making enough to just do this. Right, right. So this week I actually had an episode of a guy who's a Target store manager who has a personal finance blog that's doing $45,000 a month. What? Like half a million dollars a year. He still works at Target. That was my question. That was the first thing I asked him. I'm like, so why are you still at Target? And apparently he's going to quit soon, but he's been building this blog for five years. So it's

great because you hear like, you know, half a million dollars a year. Oh my God. But he's been building it. Like he, he has been building this, like he actually started as a target associates. This is kind of like a concurrent path. He starts as a target associate while he's in college. And like, then he becomes like assistant manager and like eventually he's a store manager simultaneously. He starts this blog about personal finance first year, not much happens. You know, second year, he gets to be a better writer. Third year, he's learning more about his community. You know, year four, he's learning a lot more about monetization. Now year five, it's, you know, half a million dollars a year. he's learning a lot more about monetization. Now year five,

it's, you know, half a million dollars a year and he's going to quit that job at Target. So that's a lot. And he's writing about personal finance? Yeah, I don't even know

specifically what he's, but that's a, you know, that's an industry in which kind of lends itself toward various products and services in which you can make money

from. Affiliate marketing. Yeah, exactly. I think he's focused on college students now that I think about it. He's focused on helping college students,

you know, manage their money better. Love it, man. Okay, last couple questions for you. Make sure you guys go get Side Hustle. Check it out, sidehustleschool.com for the podcast, the book, resources, the book tour, everything else.

I can't remember what you said last time on the three truths, so I'm going to ask it again. Maybe it's different. I haven't actually even prepared. So good. Yeah. So if it was the last day and everything you've created is gone.

Okay. So no one has access to any of your podcasts or books. All the hard work for nothing, right? Yeah. But you have a piece of paper and a pen to write down three truths that the world would. Wow. This is like the presidential letter passing it on to the administration. Exactly.

Three, three truths. Three lessons that you've learned in life, three truths that that's all people have to be remembering you of. Yeah, okay. Number one, don't worry too much about the things you're not good at. Because you could spend a lot of time trying to get to like mediocre level or you could worry about what you're actually good at you know and change the world doing that uh number two at some point in your life like if you've had like a rebellious personality you're not bringing like like i did perhaps it's not going to apply to everyone but if you've had that people are going to try to soften it and you might even like feel like you should soften it at a certain point but don't do that you know because that's gonna that's

that's there for a reason it's not to say you're supposed to be out like breaking the law or being rude to people, but that, that personality is there for a reason and that rebellion can serve you well. So that's number one. Number two, man, number three, don't give up, you know, hang in there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, I want to acknowledge you, Chris, for constantly giving. You give to your community. You create great resources for people that help them with a big pain and challenge they have. The books you offer, the podcasts, you make challenging concepts easy for people to be able to implement in their life. So I want to acknowledge you for all the value you bring to the world, man.

You're making a massive impact. Final question, which I've asked you before, is what's your definition of greatness? Don't even remember what I said on our last one. It always changes sometimes. Yeah, that's good. I think I probably said something about like, you know, tomorrow is better than today, right?

You know, I know it's so bad, right? Who knows? What is it now? Is it the same thing? I don't know. I guess, I it now is it the same thing I don't know I guess I mean so maybe that sounds kind of weird but I guess the principle is still kind of there that like the the best is yet to come I do say that a fair often like the best is yet to come like no matter what I've done no matter what I've achieved or you know succeeded in hopefully like my greatest challenges are actually ahead and I think greatness relates to challenge I think

greatness relates to striving and that's why we talked about, like, isn't the tour exhausting? Well, of course it's exhausting. We wouldn't have it any other way, you know? Yeah, yeah. Chris, thanks, man. Appreciate it.

Lewis, thank you. Thank you. All my side hustlers in the house, I hope you enjoyed this episode. Love connecting with Chris. I'm so glad he was willing to share so much. Make sure to pick up a copy of his new book, Side Hustle. He spoke at the Summit of Greatness

and he blew the audience away and sold a ton of copies at the event. So again, make sure to share out this link, lewishouse.com slash 539 with your friends. Tag me on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and tag Chris as well. All of his information is back at the show notes, as I'm sure he would appreciate hearing your feedback on what you learned the most about this interview. All right, my family, I hope you enjoyed this one. We've had some massive podcast episodes over the last few weeks. We had Brendan Bouchard, we had Brene Brown, we've got Chris Guillebeau. We've got some incredible people coming up,

Gretchen Rubin, and some new people I want to introduce to you too, and some new people I want to introduce you to. So thank you so much for being a part of this movement. We are continually bringing in the most powerful and inspirational people in the world for you to learn from, for us to grow from,

and for us to implement their wisdom so we can live a better life. I love you guys very much. And as Maya Angelou said, you can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have. Thank you so much for being a part of this movement of greatness. And you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great. Bye.