Читать книгу Side Hustles For Dummies - Alan R. Simon - Страница 41

When I first jumped into the side-hustle game, I stuck with something very close to my day job as an Air Force computer systems officer by starting a small computer consulting and software development firm. I also began teaching and again stayed with tech topics for the classes that I taught. Then, when I wrote my first book, I once again stayed close to home, synergy-wise, and authored a book called How to be a Successful Computer Consultant (McGraw-Hill).

Your side-hustle adventures may also have a high degree of synergy with your day job.

Jack, the Scottsdale software developer who is doing part-time community college teaching, aimed for synergy with his side hustle, as did Mark, the Boston accountant who is creating a series of small business accounting videos that he’ll try to monetize.

But what about Mark’s coworker Miguel, who will also be creating and uploading videos that he hopes to monetize, but whose videos are about bartending and related topics? Accounting … bartending … nope, not even close!

Your side hustle can be closely related to what you do for your day job, or it can be totally different. Miguel opted for the totally-different fork in the road, as did Cindy, the Seattle mechanical engineer (though in Cindy’s case, she’ll actually be doing bartending).

If you’re trying out a side hustle to experiment with or begin the journey to a career change (see Chapter 1), then “something different” is a pretty good strategy for your side-hustle efforts. Or you may be like Cindy and Miguel, who enjoy their respective day jobs (for now, at least) but just want to do “something different” and make a little bit of money at the same time.

In my case, I eventually got burned out writing business and tech books, but I enjoyed the process of writing. Because I read a ton of fiction when I was a traveling consultant, I shifted my writing efforts away from the technology books to novels. For about 15 years, my side hustle writing business and tech books not only earned a little bit of extra money, but also helped establish credibility in my day job. I reached a point, however, where I had maxed out the career benefit from business and tech writing, so it was time to switch to what I enjoyed more, which was writing novels.

You can follow the same strategy: Have some synergy between your full-time career and your side hustle at first, but eventually shift your side hustle to provide a break from your day job. Or you could head right for the “something different” road right from the very beginning.