If you are like most people, you probably dream of a day when you have the financial stability and flexibility to do what you want, when you want to.
The reality is most of us have jobs that require us to keep a schedule based on someone else’s needs, not our own. If you work full time, you spend around 260 days each year being told where to be and what time to be there. Why? We do this so we can earn money to pay bills and take care of other responsibilities, and hopefully have a little leftover for some fun if time allows. Money is a significant part of all our lives, whether we want it to be or not.
If the events of the past few years surrounding the pandemic have shown us anything, it is that forces out of our control can pop up with devastating impact to our financial well-being. Although I was fortunate to not have my job impacted significantly, the same cannot be said for many others.
Hustle and Sense has been something I have wanted to start for quite some time, but seeing how badly people have struggled recently has inspired me to stop thinking about it and put those thoughts into action.
THE BEGINNING
To give everyone a bit of background information, I work full time for a company located two time zones away from me. That is a fancy way of saying I am a remote worker that works from home. While I earn enough money to cover my bills and the occasional entertainment outing, I wouldn’t exactly call my financial situation comfortable- at least not as comfortable as I would like.
About five years ago I lost my job. With very little savings to fall back on, I was forced to take the first job available, which was a significant pay cut from the job I had just lost. Needless to say, I had to get a second job to keep up with my bills. It was after weeks of working those extra long days and only making enough to survive that I decided I would find a way to reduce or even eliminate the dependency that I had on my employer to make ends meet.
Fortunately, I earned a promotion within my first 6 months that allowed me to drop the second job. Although I was now able to cover my expenses, I was determined to figure out a way to supplement my income while having the flexibility that a second job just doesn’t allow.
I turned to the Internet and started poking around for ways I could earn a few extra bucks, yet not dedicate all my spare time to the cause. I watched a lot of YouTube videos and read a lot of articles that covered side gigs, passive income, and part time hustles. The initial purpose of this was to just get some ideas on how to turn a quick buck with something that was repeatable and could be done at random intervals, since flexibility was key with this whole adventure.
I started to notice a couple of common themes running through all these videos and articles, which initially was quite discouraging. The first of which was that I did not have the existing skill set for a lot of these ideas. My background is in accounting and tax, and many of the ideas involved graphic design, website design and a variety of other specialized skill sets in technology. The other common theme was that some of these ideas required a significant investment of money, which was something I simply didn’t have. These ideas centered around rental properties, stock dividends, and private lending arrangements. Taking those two categories off the table, it left things such as dog walking or grass cutting, which didn’t really work well with only evenings and weekends available, and introduced having to keep a set schedule, which was not what I wanted.
THE INSPIRATION
It was time to get creative. None of the other options I saw while researching side hustles struck me as something that was sustainable or something I really wanted to do. I stepped away from slogging through YouTube videos and articles for a while to figure out what I really wanted to accomplish from this. I determined that I was ok with working a normal job, as I wanted some sense of stability, so anything I did on the side needed to be purposeful, since I would be sacrificing my valuable free time to make this happen.
During this time of self reflection I was seeing all over the news, social media, and even in my own neighborhood signs of people and small businesses really struggling. One of my favorite restaurants, which I considered to be one of the top places in the area and wildly successful, suddenly closed their doors for good. Several acquaintances on facebook were posting regularly about loved ones or their own struggles with making ends meet because their jobs were cut or their hours were reduced as businesses tried to cut costs.
Eventually, it just clicked. Whatever I ended up doing on the side needed to be for the benefit of others, not just myself. I realized how fortunate I was during this time and I was not going to take that for granted. I am a firm believer in the best way to go through life is to celebrate each other’s victories, but more importantly help pick someone up when they are down.
TIME FOR ACTION
Hustle and Sense was born from many hours of research, self reflection, and a strong desire to succeed. I want to not only be successful personally, but I want to pull others up with me, to allow them to succeed as well. The world is a very big place, and there is room for all of us to do well. Am I nervous about it? You bet! But at the same time I don’t feel like I can wait any longer to get everything absolutely perfect. After all, the only shot you are guaranteed to miss is the one you don’t take.
THE DIFFERENCE
One of the first questions many of you will have immediately is what makes Hustle and Sense different from all the other internet “gurus” out there? A completely valid question and one that is pretty easy to answer.
First, I have no clue if this will succeed. Like a lot of other things you see out there on these topics, I haven’t “been there, done that”. I am not sharing my perspective from the mountaintop of having already reached my goals. My journey will be documented and shared with you. Failures, successes, random thoughts- I want to throw it all out there.
Second, I will not be doing this alone. I invite you to take the journey with me. One of my goals is to create a collaborative community where we share our ideas, troubleshoot our failures, and cheer our wins together. It is very hard to succeed solely on your own. I want to increase the chances of all of us achieving our goals by working together. I’ll happily navigate this adventure, but I will need my co-pilots if this is going to truly work.
Finally, I want to approach this from a slightly different angle than most. My approach with this is I want to be smart about this, hence the “Sense” part of the name. I want to approach this with several ideas in mind. It has to be inexpensive to do, it has to be easily repeatable, and it has to be enjoyable. These ideas have to be accessible to as many people as possible, as flexible as possible, and fun enough to keep people interested.
STAY TUNED
Since I am documenting this journey as I go, expect there to be changes. I have done enough planning and research to get the ball rolling, but since I want you to join me on this journey, I will keep things as close to real time as I can. I have one project already in the works, which will be the one exception, as this project will hopefully be the source of many lessons. Before we dive into the meat of this journey, I will be stepping back and reviewing the steps I took to get me to this point. I hope these early discussions will allow you to focus your vision, inspire you to take that all important first step, and give you a better sense of what I hope to accomplish here. I am still sorting out the details, but since I intend this to be an interactive journey, there will be additional avenues of discussion other than this blog. Stay tuned, the adventure is just beginning!
Brendan
