Why You Need a Side Hustle & How To Get One with Gary Gamp, The Company Doctor #16

After all, all art is experience.

Hello and welcome to The Company Doctor. This episode we're talking side hustles. What are they and why should you have one? Are they quick and easy ways to supplement your income or labours of love driven by passion and interest? Or are they both? Clearly I'm a little bit confused, but luckily I'm joined by the man with all the answers, The Company Doctor Gary Gamp.

Hi George, how are you?

I'm very well, Gary.

How are you? I am really good. I'm looking forward to this episode. It's a little bit different, and we're going to be talking about why do you need a side hustle and how to get one.

Yeah, great, because I think—

I feel like everyone's got a side hustle apart from me, so I want to— I need to jump on the bandwagon, and I need to know how to do that. So, um, Yeah, educate me in the ways of the side hustle.

Well, I've got a question for you first. There's a very famous disco song that refers to hustle, and I need to know what it's called.

Is it Do the Hustle?

It is Do the Hustle, isn't it? An extra point, who's it by?

Oh, is it KC and the Sunshine Band?

It isn't, but it should be, but it's Van McCoy. But nice try. Thanks. But as I was putting together the notes, it just kind of spinning around my head. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think we need to add it to the playlist anyway, because it is— Oh, definitely. It's a pretty cool tune, right?

Yeah, for sure.

It's a good one.

Okay, well, that's, yeah, point of business number one, add that to the playlist.

Add that to the playlist. Do the hustle. And I'm not going to sing, you'll be pleased to know. It's tempting though, isn't it? It is very tempting. So yeah, I think this is an important topic. I think if you think about the market today, the first thing to say to people is what the hell is a side hustle, I guess.

Yeah, that's fair enough.

So what's your take on the side hustle?

Well, I would say a side hustle is something which you do to make money on the side while you also have a full-time professional job. So it's not your main source of income, it's not your main profession. It's something that you do on the side, part labour of love, part a little bit of extra cash. But then I guess also part potentially I'm going to do this, this will be my full-time job one day. So it's sort of growing.

That's it. I'm going home now. You've done the podcast.

Thanks everyone for listening.

Thanks for listening and see you next time. Yeah, I think, I agree. I think it's a bit on the side is what you're saying.

It's a bit on the side, yeah.

And it's interesting actually, because if you do look up definition of a side hustle, it does talk about a piece of work or a job you get paid for in addition to your day job. Right. But today, as always, I have another angle to add. I definitely think we should cover that. Yeah. But I want to add another side to it, which we'll talk about a bit later. But I think perfect time to discuss it. Actually, there was an article in the Express and the Mail the other day about suggesting people should get a side hustle. Yeah, obviously pay tax.

Important to do that, of course.

But yeah, so I think the time is right and it's kind of on the, on the tip of people's tongues right now. So I thought we'd cover it this week. Sounds good.

This sounds great. And yeah, as you said, well, as I said, I think that I've never seen so many people with side hustles. This, you know, I think post-lockdown, during lockdown, people were able to explore their— what they wanted their side hustle to be. They sort of— some people were forced into it and some people had more time to explore it. And as a result, we've got— we're a people of side hustlers now.

We are side hustlers.

And I want to be one.

So, yeah, you want to be one. And it's a great— by the way, there's some great examples. And later on in the podcast, I'm going to share some ideas of little side hustles that people may or may not have considered. So we're going to cover that later. But I think the first thing is, well, now we know what it is. Why might I need one, I think, is the thing I want to cover with people. Yeah. And my opening gambit is, did you ever see the film Jerry Maguire?

I did, yeah.

I love that film. I mean, there's a lot of swearing. Yeah. But swearing aside, it's like, show me the money.

Show me the money.

Show me the money.

Terrific. Amazing scene.

I love that. And it rings true. And so obviously, the first reason why I might need a side hustle would be to show me the money. So, you know, the question, if you're listening now, do you need to supplement your income? And that's, you know, that's an important consideration for people. So we want to make sure we talk about that. And actually, but there's a probably an even more important reason that would help that people are looking for. But let's start with the show me the money, because I think this is— there's an opportunity And by the way, we'll give the health warning at the end about, you know, obviously you only do it when you're allowed to do it at work and all those things. We'll cover that in a minute.

Yeah, yeah. The tease and scenes.

Yeah, we'll set the scene before we stop ourselves doing anything. It's a chance of having an income, what I call an income accelerator. Mm-hmm. Does that sound good?

I like the sound of that. Yeah, yeah, I was going to say. Yeah.

I mean, we're talking about rockets tied to your back last time.

Yeah. And now there are a couple on here which I'm quite looking forward to reaching. The Income Accelerator certainly sounds, sounds tempting, doesn't it?

Well, it sounds tempting. Yeah, for sure. It sounds like a semi-t-shirt.

Yeah.

But what I mean by Income Accelerator is, you know, a chance to take control of your, your salary. I mean, I speak to a lot of people who complain about they're not earning what they want to earn. They go and speak to the boss and, you know, it's kind of never the right time, is it, to speak to your boss about more money? It's like, sure. 'How could you ask me for more money during a pandemic?' Oh, so terrible. Or it's not in the cycle, or, you know, they don't want to tell you you're not worth it. Yeah. Or they don't want to give it to you because they give it to someone else. It's difficult. It's never a good time. And who wants to talk money anyway, right? For sure.

Although we have covered how to do that in a previous episode. So if you are stuck on how to do it, look at—

Go back to the episode. I like the promotion, George. Very good. But we're all about— and for people that have listened to us on a regular basis, you know, we're all about taking control. Yeah. And not being control freaks. You know, we've talked about that. We don't want to be control freaks, but taking control. And a good example for me is I remember a number of— I used to be employed. I mean, obviously I'm unemployable now, but I do my own— I do my own main hustle. Yeah. Not on the side. And we'll talk about that actually, because there was a reason why I do it. But the— I remember once having a conversation with my boss And, you know, I was focused on a bonus. So those of you listening that, you know, you've got this bonus, you kind of spent it before you got it and you shouldn't, you know, you don't know for sure if you're going to get your bonus. But there was a— it wasn't a big bonus, but I just had in my mind that I should, you know, be cautious with it. But I was going to go somewhere on holiday with my family and I planned it out and it wasn't being lavish. It wasn't a big a big place. And then I remember the company wasn't doing so well, and, you know, word got around that we weren't going to get either all of our bonus or any of it, right? And it was near Christmas, and you know what, I didn't get it, and I couldn't afford to go on a holiday I wanted to go on. And I wouldn't say it ruined Christmas because it, it didn't, but it really ruined Christmas, you know? You go back to your— you can't go back to your family and go, you know what, guys, we were going to go away, but Yeah, I probably should have. I shouldn't have overcommitted and we're not going.

Yeah, that's tough.

And that left me with a feeling of, well, I did blame my boss and the company and everyone else, to be honest. But, you know, at the end of the day, this is about taking control. So one of the reasons for having a side hustle, hassle, but a bit of hassle, is maybe you can take control of that bit so you don't have to rely on a bonus. Yeah. And if the salary is not enough, that you have an opportunity to earn more money. It's interesting. I talk to lots of salespeople in my, in my coaching, and, you know, there's a few roles where you have the chance to earn what you want to earn. Yeah. Or it's in your hands. And sales is one of those places where potentially— and it's always as simple as that— if you want to earn more money, then sell more things. If you're in sales, it doesn't work like that in reality. But in some roles, you have a ceiling. And a floor, right? A floor. And if you're claustrophobic, it's nothing. You have a floor and a ceiling. It's interesting, actually. In the olden days, you used to get a pay packet, and on— you used to get a payslip. I don't know if anyone gets payslips. Do you get payslips?

Yeah, they still get them, uh, electronically though.

Oh, how 21st century. And it used to say gross pay.

Yeah.

And I remember thinking, you know what, it really is gross. That is not what I need to earn in order to go on these, to do what I want to do. Yeah, yeah. You with me so far?

So I am.

Yeah. Part of this income accelerator is that you don't have to just rely on what you're earning and you can take control.

Yeah, I like that a lot.

Well, thank you, George. That's very kind of you. There's better stuff to come, but thanks. It's not a bad place to start. Good opener. Good opener. But, you know, then you might be thinking, well, to be honest, I haven't even got time to do day job. I can't do anything else. And I get that. But we're going to cover that. We'll come back to that. But at the moment, let's just wallow in the chance to have more money. Show me the money. Yeah. And you've got a chance to be in control of it. And maybe, you know, you're not going to be a millionaire from it, but you could set yourself a goal to make a few thousand pounds a month or whatever it is. And that would be good.

And that's not in anyone else's hands, is it? You know, you're sort of— I like the idea of you sort of saying, well, if there's going to be volatility in me potentially getting what I feel I deserve working for this particular company, you know, I'll just carry on earning that. But in the meantime, I'm going to make sure that I've got some extra stuff coming in. So as you say, to live the lifestyle that you want to live. Absolutely.

Now, I'm not talking about you're going to have to kind of clean the office to make sure it works. Not that there's anything wrong with cleaning the office, by the way. Sure. I'm not suggesting that, but we'll give you some ideas and open people's eyes a little bit to the sort of things you could do. But here's the second question to you. Beyond the money, because I think it is a bit materialistic but important, what other reasons do you think a side hustle might come in a little bit handy?

I suppose it's an excuse to pursue your passion, isn't it? You know, side hustles often are things which you're passionate about, which you didn't get the chance to go into as a main career. So a bit of a distraction from the norm, maybe.

Absolutely. I mean, as you know, I wanted to be an astronaut.

Yeah. And you were so close in achieving that.

I was so close, but scared of flying. So not a good thing. And then I wanted to be a pharmacist, scared of blood, you know, a lot of scared stuff going on. But a lot of people will have a goal in life when they're younger and then the real world gets in the way and they end up doing something because they need to or they fall into something. And it's very rare for people to do what they want to do, unfortunately. Yeah. I always wanted to own a restaurant, not work in one, own a restaurant. I just think I saw it on a film once. I thought that'd be cool. I can just rock up and pat people on the back and say, thanks for coming, and give them extra wine or something. Yeah, but I got into IT, so that kind of— it didn't quite happen. But I do think that— so we fall into our careers, and therefore our passions go on the back burner. And when I coach people and I go back and ask them, I would say 90% of people I coach will say, I wanted to be a footballer, I wanted to be this, I wanted to be a chef, I wanted to be a writer, I want to be a musician. And they didn't fulfill their dream. I'm not blaming them. They just, you know, the real world got in the way and had to earn money and it was hard and they've kind of lost track of it. So I agree. I think if we, you know, if we can talk about, you know, I'm going to talk about that in this episode. I call it shuffle your skill hustle for the song coming on. Shuffle, I won't sing it.

We're going to have to sing it later.

Eventually you can, you can. But before we get to that, because I'm going to come back to that. The thing I want to cover with people that are listening is in order to get there— we always talk about this— but you've got to have a big hairy goal.

Great! That's what— this is the one I was looking forward to because you say we always talk about it. I've never heard that before so when I saw it written down... You haven't heard of my big hairy goal?

No, never. And interesting enough, again, people don't see us but we're not hairy people, are we really?

No, no, no, no, not anymore sadly.

Not anymore, who needs hair washing though anyway?

Yeah, he's got hairy goals.

So what do you think a hairy goal might be?

Is it just an ambition? Is that sort of not pie in the sky? I don't know, actually. Is it just something which I imagine it's just like a big goal?

It's like a hairy goal.

It's a big hairy goal.

Yeah, it's a big hairy goal, right?

Difficult to find a synonym for it.

Exactly. Hence it's a big hairy goal. So yeah, it's a big goal that's kind of out there. Right. And maybe stretching but hopefully achievable. Achievable, yeah. But it's big enough that it gets you off your rear end. Yeah, okay. And we've spoken about this before, where the goal needs to be big enough. I gave the example of, of my wife who likes to travel but doesn't like traveling, but she likes to go to the places. And the, the goal of going to a place is slightly bigger than the fear of flying. Yeah, the goal has to be big enough to make you do the thing that you don't want to do, or to to overcome procrastination, which is the biggest issue for people. Yeah, I'll do it tomorrow. You know, I'm busy right now. There's loads of reasons. I didn't start my own business for 25 years because I made excuses and I was busy earning good money, blah, blah, blah. I really want to be in my own business. I, I forced myself into it. I took away my excuse. I got— I set up a company, I set myself a bit of a business plan, and I went to find some work. Yeah. So a big hairy goal will drive you to do the things that you— like when you want to be the astronaut, you never did it because— yeah, yeah, the excuses get in the way.

So your big hairy goal was to set up your own company?

Yeah, when I was 15, I wanted to be in my own business. Yeah, I just didn't have the guts to do it. Okay. And I didn't do it until I was 95. I was much older.

10 years ago.

Doesn't matter. Ray Kroc started McDonald's when he was 55. He did all right. So it's good enough for him, it's good enough for me. Sure. So I'm just mentioning that before I talk about the shuffling of skill hustle. Yeah. Because I think without the big hairy goal, then the hustle might just be cleaning the office or being a minicab driver or something.

Not there's anything wrong with that, but it's not a pursuit of passion, is it?

It's not a pursuit of passion. By the way, if you want to earn extra money, you should pursue whatever side hustle you want to. And I've got some ideas that will come later. Yeah. So let's talk about shuffling your skill hustle a bit. And I call it being a career incubator. Okay. It's another one. You've got that look on your face, George, like, yeah, yeah. What the hell?

I know. They've all been quite sort of mysterious so far.

I'm a mysterious kind of guy. Yeah, you are. Yeah. Incubator, you know, the business incubators are where you sow the seed of an idea and you kind of look after, feed it and water it and give it time to have a life. And then it has a life. And I don't think people give enough time to their career, to incubate their career. They just kind of presume that's life and I did want to do this, but the real world got in the way and I'm only okay and I should be grateful. Yeah. And you should, but you don't have to be.

Sure. So there's no sort of sense of urgency, is there? You can just sort of tick along quite happily and, you know, say, oh, I used to be a musician or I used to be a—

Yeah, I could have been. Yeah. I met someone the other day that told me they had the opportunity as a kind of music agent and they had the access to Coldplay, but they decided that they wouldn't, they weren't going anywhere or something, you know, they had an opportunity. Yeah, whatever. It doesn't matter. But they didn't take the opportunity because they didn't have time or whatever it was. Their book was full. But let's look at another angle too. So yeah, so if you can incubate your career, that means that it's not over yet. You can go back and if it doesn't work out, you can carry on doing what you're doing anyway. So there's no risk because it's a side hustle. Yeah. And, and therefore you can focus on developing your career still.

Yeah. So you're saying do, do the two things in tandem?

Definitely. And then you can decide which horse to back.

Yeah, yeah.

Nice. Because if you don't have another horse running, as they say, you can't win a competition unless you enter one, right? Or you can't— I was going to say catch a cold, but no good thing to say, right? So the idea is to like roadmap your career, because you might need, you might not have the right experience to do what you want to do. And this is what happens. So when, when someone's starting out their career, so if someone goes to university, they come out of university, I speak to a lot of students, it's really hard to find work. They go to get, they go to find a job and the people say, well, you don't have enough experience. And they go, well, if you don't give me a chance, how am I going to have experience?

Have you heard of that before? I've been in that position before and it's really frustrating. Yeah.

It's really frustrating. And every now and then someone will give someone a chance. I mean, hopefully you will do that in your career. I've done that because I've seen it before. But always my advice to people that want to get, never mind a side hustle, but to get into the job they want without experience is to go and get some. Yeah. So how would you go and get experience in something?

I suppose you just immerse yourself in that world, wouldn't you? You know, to get to your point, if you wanted to open a restaurant, You'd spend loads of time in restaurants, but you know, you'd talk to— I do. Still doing that research. You talk to restaurateurs, you know, you talk to people in the biz and try and get as much of them, you know, soak up as much knowledge as possible, I assume.

Absolutely. And actually do some of the activities. So for example, if you want to be a designer or, you know, you like copywriting or something like that, then just go and do some free work. Get a reputation, get a portfolio, because then you've got something, you've got experience to show. When I was, when I was 15, a lot happened when I was 15. I used to run a charity for cancer research with 40 young people who didn't really want to do any of this stuff, but we used to run events and it was great. Yeah. So when I went for my first job, I could say, you know, I'd run a big event as a cycling event around London where we had loads of riders and a big jazz band or whatever we did. And that's something to talk about in the interview that makes you stand out. Yeah. And if you want to roadmap your career and you don't have experience, there's not a reason to not do it. You just need to go and get it.

Yeah. Which, you know, it does sound like a simple enough solution, but I think a lot of people, they'll still get that sort of response. You need some, you need more experience and they'll be like, well, that's it. There's nothing I can do. I'm just going to be walking around in circles.

Exactly. So without the big hairy goal, that's exactly what will happen. And most people listening to this won't do it. Even though they want to, they don't want to enough. Yeah, it's like the journey, my wife going to a different country. The pain is bigger than the, the goal, and then they won't do it. So if you're listening to this and, you know, it's not a big enough goal, then, then it's fine. It's not— I'm not being judgmental about it. I mean, it's a— you just won't be an astronaut. What can I say?

It's a real shame.

It's a real shame. And then the, then the other bit is that, you know, sometimes, uh, having a career hustle, a skill hustle, is— gives you some flexibility in the peaks because you might be working a job that is quieter in certain times of the year. Yeah. And it gives you a bit of an opportunity. So it might be a seasonal requirement and therefore you could, you could plug the gap seasonally, either financially or, or for other reasons. Yeah. So that could be pretty good. And then the other thing that's happening in the market at the moment, because the obvious way of side hustle is, is doing another job that either you want to do or you don't want to do. But a lot of people are talking about portfolio business. Okay. Have you come across that?

Portfolio business?

Yeah. I don't think I have, no. Okay. So, yeah. So portfolio business is where I have a portfolio of career activities that I do. I might be self-employed. Not saying it's the only way. And I do some consulting. I might write a book somewhere or do some editorials.

Right.

Okay. I do a combination of activity, all have income streams. Yeah. But it's a portfolio. So I got variety. I had the chance to do things I'm passionate about. Yeah, I'm not saying throw in the job and go and do it, but that's what portfolio business is.

I know a few people doing that, and although they're incredibly busy, they're also having a great time doing lots of different things that they enjoy and making money from it.

Yeah, so they're kind of, they're closer to doing the things that they like doing. And you said earlier, George, I think the passion thing is really important, isn't it? Because if there's something you're passionate about and it's eating away at you, then why should it? Do something, you know, again, if the goal is big enough, go and do something about it because, you know, you should do the things you've always wanted to do. Now, it might not be financially viable to do it. Therefore, a side hustle doesn't have to bring in money. It could just be a thing that you want to do and it makes you happier at work because you're more fulfilled. So I think that's cool.

And I think that you're going to talk about this in a minute, but I think a lot of people are so nervous about either failing or it being too much work that they start making a bunch of excuses for themselves and they sort of say, oh, well, it was never meant to be, or, you know, this got in the way or whatever.

Definitely. And I am going to talk about it. I am going to talk about it. But I do think it all comes back to having a big enough reason. And maybe a lot of people haven't actually thought about doing it. Yeah. And haven't taken the time to look at it. So we'll give some examples. So let me move on to the next topic. So next topic is really how do you become an expert in your field? Mm-hmm. There was a joke about that. It's something to do with a farmer. How do you know if—

no, forget it. Something about outstanding in his field.

Outstanding in his field. Exactly. Yeah. Very good.

Yeah, I remember the punchline, I don't remember the buildup, but yeah.

I'm impressed. Yeah, that's right. But it's interesting actually, how does someone become an expert, an authority?

It's, well, I suppose it's profile, isn't it? You just, you get used to, you know, in the work that I do, we occasionally approach people who exactly like that, people who are experts, people who are trusted figures to give comment or whatever it may be, or to appear in a video. And I suppose you choose these people because they have profile, they've got a following, or they've, you know, you've seen them as a talking head on the news.

It's interesting, isn't it? Because what really makes someone an expert? I mean, is it how long they've been doing it for? Is what people say, what their profile? It's a really difficult thing. And there's a really interesting book for those people interested in becoming an expert in their field. It is a bit of a fake thing. There's a book by a guy called Jim Slater called The Zulu Principle. It's actually about growing a stocks and shares business, actually. But the underlying, the reason for the title is that Jim Slater's wife became an expert on Zulus, hence the title. And the way she became an expert is she genuinely found it fascinating. She loved the whole thing about Zulus, so she read lots of books about it. She wrote articles and blogs about it, but probably in those days it wasn't blogs actually. And then she got invited, because of her profile, onto TV. She went to visit the Zulus to understand their point of view. Yeah. And you know what, she became an expert. She, she was renowned for expertise in Zulus because of the effort that she'd taken. And it doesn't have to necessarily have to take a lot of effort. So if someone wants to become an expert, then they just need to write about it, speak about it, and become renowned for it. Yeah.

And I suppose if it's something which you're fascinated by and passionate about, you're going to know a fair amount about it already, right?

Exactly. Because it's a hobby and it's a passion.

So you can start creating that content, which will then boost the profile, which will then get you invited on the shows and wherever it may be.

Exactly. And I think a lot of people that are listening to this are already experts in their field. Yeah. Because they don't realize what an expert means. It just means that you've got, you spend more time on it than anyone else and you like it. You're passionate about it. Yeah. And then if you do more research and you take more, if you take some action to underpin your taste and your like for something, you become an expert on it. Yeah. Because you know more than anyone else does. Football supporters are classics for that. Yeah. Yeah. Have you ever, have you ever watched the game with, um, with a bunch of experts who, like, I call them armchair experts, where they're talking about, "I can't believe the way they did that," because obviously they would have done a much better job themselves.

Yes, I know a lot of people like that, and I sort of switch off immediately when that conversation starts, but I'm always impressed by how much they know.

Absolutely. So there's only 3 things you need to do to become an expert. Should I tell you what they are?

Please, yeah.

Thanks for asking. The first one is to write about the topic, and we talked about it in every episode. Sorry to be boring, but The more you write about something, the more people think you're an expert. The second one is to speak about it, have the opportunity to talk about it, either not just with friends because you're bored, but beyond your friends. And the third one is to become renowned. And the best way to become renowned is to become a guest on something. Could be a podcast, could be a meeting, you know, as long as it's not boring.

Yeah. So is that sort of, or like a panel show or, you know, whatever it may be.

Yeah. Or a podcast or, you know, someone's got a meeting and the topic's interesting to them. Offer yourself. I mean, it's not something everyone wants to do, but definitely writing about it and speaking about it is, and researching it and getting the point of view of people within that industry, topic, subject makes you steeped in it and then you become an expert.

And you'd probably be surprised by how much of an expert you already are, I imagine.

Yeah, I just said a lot of people that are already listening could probably stand up and talk for 15 minutes on what I know so much about food. Gonna keep eating. I've got really good at doing it. But there's a business angle to, to this. Some people are talking about being a non-executive director. Have you ever heard that phrase? Yeah. Or a NED, as it's called. So basically, again, if you're at the right level and you're, you're looking to act as a catalyst for your career, becoming a non-exec director is a really good way of becoming an expert in an industry. You may or may not get paid for it, but it's a really good thing to do as a career path. Yeah. So I think it's a catalyst for an executive career, to be honest. And then just, just finally on this section, then we'll move on. I want people to look past the part-time job part, which is there is an angle to that, but think about this is more about a path to entrepreneurship and professional growth rather than— I know it's called side hustle and it is, but beyond that, it could be a path to entrepreneurial and professional growth. Yeah.

And I think that is how side hustle, that's how most people view it, right? I think. Most people will see it as a, as you say, this path to professional growth and doing something entrepreneurial. I personally tend to see it in that camp rather than just the, oh, you know, I need a bit of extra cash on the side.

And that's okay though. I mean, if someone's listening and thinking, because I did sell them on the idea of not being in control, then there's nothing wrong with that. And that's fine. So I think there's two parts. It's either you do generally want to supplement your income with something, it's either passion or it isn't because it helps anyway, or you want to pilot your career and build this career incubator, which is a way of acting as a catalyst to make it all happen. And then you've got the path to entrepreneurial professional growth. Great. I know. And then the last section, I'm just going to throw some ideas at people and then I'm going to give you some ideas about how to get a side hustle. Okay, great. Should I just rattle through a list? Is that bad?

I don't think so. No, no, definitely not.

Right. So obvious ones, freelance, anything, whatever your topic is, freelance consultant of some sort. Yeah. You can rent some rooms on Airbnb. Yeah. Don't tell your partner. Manage social media for a small business. Interestingly enough, they're filming down the road to me the next season of a DC series which has gone from my mind, something to do with Alfred from Batman, pre the Batman movie. You can rent out your house for movies. That's what someone's done down the road. It pays really well, apparently. But you could also be a movie extra. Yeah, yeah. My father-in-law, who's unfortunately no longer with us, he used to be a movie extra, became best friends with Tony Newley. But he was in all these movies from the past and made good money and had good friendships. Wow. You can get a part-time job. So that's a real hustle, I guess. Start a blog, write CVs for people, coach people, write articles like freelance copywriting, personal trainer. Yeah, personal chef, interior design. Project management or virtual assistant, to name but a few.

Yeah, nice. I like that a lot. Personal trainer, I think, is the one that I'll pursue.

I think I won't personally. I don't even train myself, never mind anyone else. I'm allergic to exercise, so it'd be difficult for me. But yeah, good. You should do it. You'll be good at it. Thanks. So how do you get a side hustle? Well, the first thing is to try and take away the excuses because I just want to get started. So getting started is kind of half done. And the way to do that is to build yourself a plan for the next 90 days.

Yeah, the importance of planning is just— it comes out in quite a lot of these episodes, and I think it's just something which I always find really useful to remind myself is that important. It is something which you need to have. You need to have a plan. You need to sit down and map out what the next month or the next, in this case, 3 months is going to look like.

And if you're a super duper procrastinator, which most people are, and I used to be, yeah, then I am sometimes, then just get a plan to get a plan. So just say, just write something on a big Post-it note and say, plan for side hustle. Just say that, stick it on your front door and leave it on there until you've done it. Yeah, that would be a good way to get started. A bit basic, but it works. I know, for sure. And I, I think action cures fear. The best way to cure fear— if you're worried about it, you haven't got the time for it— the best way is action cures fear. That's why I think you should do that one thing to make to get it started. Okay. And there's 5 tips for doing this.

5?

Okay, great. Yeah, I know, normally it's 3, but I've got— I thought I needed 5. Yeah. Is that okay?

Of course.

Am I allowed 5?

5, yeah.

I've still got 3 takeaways. I mean, I've got 3 takeaways, Stuart.

Okay, fine. As long as it's 3 of something.

Yeah, okay, good. So here's the 5 tips. The first one is make a list of what you're interested in. I know it sounds odd, but you know what? It's not an obvious thing. And maybe there's some other ideas. Go online, you'll, you'll see loads of ideas. Just type in side hustle and you'll be inundated with ideas. The second one is decide early if you want to invest money, because some things will take investment and that's okay. You may or may not be able to do that. Some things won't. So decide early if you want to invest money. The third one is, you know, and this is my health warning, make sure there's no conflicts of interest. Yeah, it's never a good way. I mean, interesting enough, if you're not making money and you're doing something, it's okay. Yeah. So it's when you're making money on something, then you need to make sure that you've got a clear conscience and that's okay. And obviously pay tax.

Yeah, it can get a bit murky otherwise.

You've got to die and pay tax. I'm sorry, doing your own time, the death thing. Um, the fourth one is schedule time because you won't have time and you'll be able to tell me and be convinced yourself that you're too busy, and you are, and I get it. So Schedule time. I actually schedule 20% of my time for change and thinking. I think I've said this on podcast before. Yeah, that's roughly a day a week thinking, just sitting in the room like a mushroom. No, I don't sit in the room, but I take— I book time with myself always.

Yeah, that's great.

I know I won't have time to do it. That's a really good thing to do that. Yeah. And then the final thing, and it goes without saying, I guess, but I'm going to say anyway, is don't forget about your day job. We're not suggesting you give less to your day job. Yeah, that this is— this may one day become more important, and then maybe you'll have a decision to make. But initially, give 120% in your day job.

Yeah, for sure. And that's like you said, you know, doing both of these things in tandem, because at some point you might be in a position to back one of those two horses. So don't neglect one another, you know, over the other.

Definitely. And before we burst into song, I've got my three takeaways, and then you can sing us out if you like, George. Okay, yeah, I might, I might join you. The first one is, is take control. Now, I'm a firm believer in people taking control If it's going to be, it's up to me. And if you need the extra income or you want to pursue a passion, you should definitely take control and do that. The second one connected is feed a passion. I think there's a— people don't always think of it in this way. You've got a chance to go back to what you wanted to do, even if it's part-time or just dipping into it. You know, we've said on podcasts before that people are better at doing things they like doing, and it gives you motivation. Self-motivation comes from doing feeding a passion. So feed your passion because it'll make you better at work and a bit more cheerful at home, to be honest. Yeah. Okay, not you personally, you're very cheerful. I am. And the final one is action cures fear. Just make yourself do it, force yourself into doing it. You'll feel amazing by doing that. Yeah. They're my 3 takeaways, George.

Great, great takeaways. Do the hustle. I won't do the song. Fascinating stuff. Thank you very much, Gary. I think there's a lot to digest and think about there. So thanks as always, and thanks to you all for listening. We'll see you next time.

See you soon.

If you'd like to get involved in our multi-guest episode, in which we're going to be having 5 guests in leadership roles discussing the hot topic of business shortcuts with the company doctor Gary Gamp, please get in touch by sending an expression of interest to GaryGamp@thecompanydoctor.com. Companydoctor.com. Thanks for listening, and see you next time.