MBA1862 5 Side Hustling Habits That Helped Me Quit My Job + Free Ride Friday

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Hey, welcome to the Hundred Dollar MBA show helping you every single day along the business journey with our daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of Webinar Ninja, an independent software company I started with my co founder back in 2014 and today's episode is Free Ride Friday. On Free Ride we give away a lifetime membership to one of our programs. We're giving away ezcourse, our 30 day course on how to build your own online course over at Ezcourse Co. It retails for $500 or you can.

Win it for free.

Just leave us an Apple podcast rating and review and you enter our weekly random draw we call Free Ride Friday. Listen in on Friday just like today to see if you won. It's that simple. We'll be announcing this week's Free Ride Friday winner later on in today's episode. In today's episode, I'm going to be sharing five side hustle habits that helped quit my job nearly 10 years ago. These are five things that really allowed me the confidence and the opportunity frankly from a financial point of view to be able to build a side hustle that I can turn into a full time thing and finally say I quit. I still remember that day when I resigned from my teaching job and when I look back at it, I asked myself, how did I get to that point where I felt confident enough to be able to do that and know that I could land on my feet? Well, it's these five habits. It's five things I did before I resigned, before I quit my job that set me up to have that option. Some of these habits are very little things and some of them are quite big. But the point is, today I want you to pick up at least one of these habits so you can start getting some momentum. The more you get momentum, the more you start to realize being a full time entrepreneur is a reality for you. This is something you can do and are ready to make that leap. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business.

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You will find them where you left them. Investing involves risk, including risk of loss. Fidelity Brokerage Services LLC Member NYSE SIPC Before I share my five side hustle habits that allowed me to quit my job, I want to first talk a little bit about my job, my hours, and how I was able to fit in these habits. So I was an educator, I was a teacher to start with, I was an English teacher. And then the last about six years of my career I was a head of department, I was an administrator. So I managed teachers in my department and I still taught in the classroom. I did a lot of teacher training as well. I had to be at the university at 7am every day. So I got up around 5:30 every morning and I was still rushing in the morning to get ready, get dressed, have breakfast and I had to be out the door by 6:30 to get to the university on time. So I would probably get home around five. So it was a pretty long workday because even though, you know, classes would end around 3:30, I still had a lot of administrative work to do, meetings, plan for the next day, all that kind of stuff. So my job was taking a lot of my time, a lot of my attention, a lot of my energy. So I had to find ways to build my business on the side, get some traction, make some money with these businesses so that I can, you know, start to make an income that was close to my salary so I can feel comfortable to quit my job. But one of the things I realized is that this would not be possible if I didn't have the knowledge or the strategies that I can implement to get to that point. I needed the information, I needed to learn from other entrepreneurs. And for me, I got that from reading. I spent a good amount of time reading books in my free time. So anytime I had some time, whether it's lunch, a break, a commute, I'd either read or listen to a book to get me better, to get me better at business, to get me better at finance, to get me better at marketing. And I just didn't want to waste any time not doing that. I know that it's tough when you're tired. And when I was tired, I probably listened to books more than I read. But I knew that this is the only way I'm going to get out of this situation if I had the information and I was equipped with the skills. So I made it a habit to at least finish one book a month. That's not a huge feat. You could do that. Most audiobooks are about 10 to 15 hours. So even if you do 30 minutes a day, you are done with a book every single month. These days I read about a book a week. But a reasonable goal of one book a month is actually pretty good when you have a demanding full time job like I did, that gave me inspiration, that gave me information, that gave me so much so that I can work on my side hustle with a lot of vigor, with a lot of passion, with a lot of enthusiasm. You know, motivation is a limited resource. You have to continue to replenish that resource. And I got that from books. Let's talk about working on that side hustle. A business is not going to build itself. You have to put in the time, dedicated time. During the week, I would spend about 90 minutes an hour to two hours on building my side hustle. So I'd get home around 5, probably be done with dinner by 6. I would relax for about an hour and then from 7 to 9ish, I would work on my side hustle and then I would move on with the rest of the night, go to bed, start the next day. Very little wiggle room, right? Very little time for dilly dally. I know, but I knew that's what it was going to take for me to be able to build a side hustle that was going to launch me into the next phase of my entrepreneurial career, which is full time entrepreneurship. So I spent about 90 minutes every single day and I spent at least eight hours during the weekend. So either one full day or four hours each day working on my side hustle. The reason why I did it every day and not just say hey, I'm going to spend all weekend long and not do anything during the week is because it's again very important to have momentum to build upon something day after day. If you forget about your business for a few days, four, five, six days, and then jump right back into it, it takes a while to get back into it and to remember where you left off and what to do, you kind of lose focus. So I wanted that momentum. So I spent as much time as I can every day, even sometimes just an hour. But at least I can build upon what I did the next my holidays. Now I got days vacation, but I probably spent only one week a year on holiday. The rest was on my side hustle. This is especially true in the last three years before I resigned. I really fully immersed myself and I was a teacher. So I had a couple months in the summer to really build my business. And that was kind of my boost, my sprint that would take my business to another level of revenue when I would dedicate to it. And it was proof to myself, hey, if I can dedicate full time effort to this business, it has legs and allowed me to have a little bit more confidence so that hey, if I quit my job and I go full time in this business, it's going to help me achieve my goals and be able to sustain me financially again. This is a huge blow on fun time, on rec time, on relaxing time. But when you are looking to make a major change in your life, it's going to take some sacrifice. You're going to be uncomfortable. I didn't like not going on holiday for extended amount of times. My peers in education, my fellow teachers and educators would go on exotic holidays around the world because they would go backpacking around Europe, they have a great time and they'd come back, share pictures and I'd be like, man, I want to do that. But I had to remember what I'm doing this all for. I'm trying to change my life for the good and for good, you know, for a long time, right? For the rest of my life. I told myself I will go on those holidays in a bigger fashion when I get to my goal, when I can become a full time entrepreneur. And I did. I got a chance to travel the world and see so many things. I continue to do so and hopefully after all this Covid thing is over, I'll be able to continue to travel but the point here is you're going to sacrifice a little bit in the beginning so that you can be able to reap the benefits for years to come. So any days off I had, I just hunkered down and worked on my business and saw it as like a test run of this is me full time. If you have two weeks off from work, rent out a coworking space. And now that's your office for two weeks. This two weeks full time entrepreneurship, go for it. See how much you can get done in those two weeks. You're gonna feel so energized afterwards. I know I did. The fourth habit is probably one of the most important habits I ever built, and that is setting deadlines and to implement, to actually do something. So say, for example, I wanted to release a new product in my business. I would tell myself, I'm going to get this product out in seven days and regardless of where I'm at, I have to release it in seven days. A deadline. I would hold myself accountable and I would actually write down what would I penalize myself with if I didn't pull that off. I would promise myself, hey, I would force myself to give money to a charity that I didn't agree with or something like that. Something crazy that would really compel me to take action. Or the opposite. I would say, hey, what will I reward myself with if I complete this? Now, the point here is not so I can get things done. The point here is that I get things done without the fear of failure. The reason why we delay things is because we're afraid it's gonna fall. We're gonna fall on our face and it's gonna just fail. And here's something that I learned. It will fail at some point. Okay? You will fail. That's just the fact of doing business. And I was so glad I did that because I got my failures out of my way. I really started to fail a lot, actually. It was really tough, but I learned a lot lessons in those failures. And I wouldn't have gotten all those failures in or out of the way quickly if I didn't put those deadlines in place. And I started to get comfortable with failure. I got comfortable with learning from my failures. I got comfortable with understanding, hey, it's not going to be perfect every single time. And failure is relative and it's on a spectrum. And some people might even not see it as failure. Be like, hey, at least you put it out there in the world and made a few bucks, even if it was a stellar success. But the Point here is that if you don't hold yourself accountable, no one will. You are in it, man. You have to do this. You are in it alone in a lot of ways. So you got to hold yourself accountable. And don't be afraid to fail. It's okay. Expect to fail and it won't feel that bad.

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It feels good to save big. It feels good to geico. Now to share my fifth and final habit that I built while I was side hustling so that I can quit my job. This one is probably the most impactful, the one that probably makes the most change. And that's. I started to change my friends. I made a habit of meeting new people. What kind of people? Well, people that have achieved the things I want to achieve. People have been there, done that. That means I had to start meeting some new entrepreneurial friends. I started to go to more business meetups, startup initiatives, events, and I just started to make new friends. This means sometimes spending less time with the current friends you have. It's a tough transition, especially when I, you know, I was, you know, in my 30s when I did this. It is not easy to make friends sometimes at that age you're kind of stuck in your old friends. And I just decided, hey, I gotta be around people that have done the things I want to do because then it makes it feel like it's more possible, like this can happen. I know people that have done it or are doing it. You need to see people doing things that you aspire to do so that it can feel normal. For example, it feels normal to have a smartphone, right? Because everyone around you has a smartphone. Now imagine everybody who you surrounded yourself with had a million dollar business. That would just be normal to you to have a million dollar business. I know that sounds strange, but it's actually really, really interesting because you start picking up the same habits they have that have helped them get to where they are. You start learning about the different places they learn things, or different books they've read, or different videos they've watched, or conferences they've been to. You start being in the know. You start realizing, oh, my health affects my performance. I got to improve my health. Wow, I got to change my diet if I want to get a better night's sleep. Start to realize, oh, I Got to learn how to hire people so that I'm not doing all the work all the time. Changing your circle of friends is super important. I learned this early on through Jim Rohn's Talk. I've been a huge fan of Jim Rohn for a very long time, and one of his most famous quotes is, you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. Now, I recognize that this is not easy. This is one of the hardest habits to build because it means having to disappoint maybe some of your old friends, maybe even some family members because you're not spending as much time as you used to with them. You're spending more time with new people, different people, people maybe that they don't like per se. They might not agree with who they are, but sometimes you could just be friends with somebody without having to agree with everything they do or say or how they live their life. But you can learn a ton from them. You can have mutual respect and build relationships on a different level than just hanging out. This one really moved the needle for me because one, it built my network. It allowed me to understand what I should be doing because there are a few steps ahead of me. It allowed me to build new habits that really helped me. It also gave me exposure to new people and different types of people that I never seen before, people I never heard before, people doing things I thought weren't possible before. So this is an incredible, incredible habit to pick up. And again, this takes effort. This takes you getting out there, meeting new people, going to events, signing up to virtual events. And then when you meet them, don't just end it there. Follow up with them, ask them if they want to have coffee, ask them if you want to go to the next event together. And some of these relationships will come natural. You'll just click with some people and it'll be easier than you think. Thanks so much for listening to the $100 MBA show. Hope you enjoyed today's episode and you found a lot of benefit from the five habits that I shared with you that I picked up when I was side hustling and trying to quit my job. Even if you just pick up one, it's going to give you momentum. So go ahead and do that. Well, today is Free Ride Friday, so let's see who won this week's Free Ride. This week's winner is W. Manley. W. Manley says five stars times two. Excellent podcast for solidly running a business. In and out. Thanks W. Manley, for that great review. Your mission is to email me over at Omarz MBA Net so I can hook you up with the lifetime membership to Ezcourse over at easycourse Co. If you want to win a free ride, just leave us an Apple Podcast rating and review and you enter our weekly random draw. Listen in on Friday to see if you won. That simple. Thanks so much for listening. But before I go, I want to leave you with this. Remember, if you're going to start doing things to make time for these new things, you have to stop doing other things. That means kind of getting rid of some of those habits or actions that don't really benefit you. This will happen organically and you'll start to do that just because you're replacing one thing with another. This is good stuff, right? This is something that you should look forward to because this means that you're changing, you're growing, you're becoming who you need to be to be where you want to go. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in Monday's episode. I'll see you then. Take care.

We've all been there. You hold on to a coupon but forget about it and suddenly it's expired. Expired in 2012.

Dang it.

Fortunately, by switching to Geico, you could save about 900 on car insurance without ever touching a coupon.

It feels good to save big. It feels good to Geico.