💸 The Side Hustle Dilemma

This one's for the day job people.

When you look at a screen for 8 hours a day, keep your fitness routine going, and make sure your social life exists, you’ll sooner or later have a realization:

This is fucking exhausting.

I don’t know about you, but for me, it becomes a great reason not to do things. Hence why this is the first email you’ve got from me since December.

I’m not new to office life or the 9 to 5. In fact, getting into an environment where you have access to senior professionals who can mentor you, an environment that promotes growth and learning - that’s a win.

But… And big 🍑 here: Unless you’re getting equity; unless you’re getting that slice of ownership; a share in profits; your entrepreneurial soul just isn’t getting nourished. And yeah, look, that’s cheesy at best, but you, like me, probably have these tendencies - especially if you’re here.

So what do you do about it?

🐶 The Tail Wagging The Dog

When you’re running low on energy, you want to do things that replenish that energy.

❌ The process shouldn’t be:

1. “I want to make some extra cash.”

2. “Let’s find a side hustle.”

3. “Time to power through this in my spare time.”

This is the tail wagging the dog.

✔ The process should be:

1. “I want to have great quality, creative downtime.”

2. “This thing is giving me that. Awesome!”

3. “I wonder if this can be a side hustle?”

This is the dog wagging the tail.

💡 Here’s The Real Opportunity

When you’re pursuing your entrepreneurial goals full-time, especially as an amateur, you hit certain roadblocks - I 100% hit all of these at some stage:

• You lose focus and jump from one thing to another.

• You procrastinate because there is no structure.

• You follow the crowd instead of innovating.

• You take your time because there’s a lot of it.

And you learn to deal with these using systems, experience, and learnings. But when you’re working your day job, you don’t have that luxury.

When you’re working your day job:

• You don’t have unlimited time.

• You never work on something you don’t truly want to work on.

• You become ridiculously resourceful.

When you’re dedicating your free time to something, you’re probably passionate about it.

You and I both know that passion wins. So in effect, what’s happening when you take up a side hustle is that you’re weeding out the weak projects. Instead, you're doing something you love, something that can have longevity, something that you won’t bore you.

And if you can make it work in your free time, it’s the ultimate litmus test.

Something you can make work in your free time will be several factors more successful if and when you decide to adopt it as a full-time gig.

And therein lay the real opportunity.

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🧠 Keep This In Mind

Don’t do something you don’t want to do. Hell, lay around on the weekends. Sooner or later, you’re going to want to do something creative.

You’ll try more than few things until you find something you really like doing - and when you find that thing, figure out how to turn it into a side hustle.

That’s when the fun really begins.

Already have one? Link it in the comments on Substack :)

I want to hear about it, and so do a lot of other people who follow this newsletter.

Talk soon,

Sah