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- [00:01]
Nick Loper
Today I want to tackle the important topic of burnout. What it is, what it isn't, how to prevent it, and how to get past it if you find yourself in a state of burnout. So, first of all, what is burnout? Burnout is a state of emotional, mental, and physical exhaustion caused by prolonged or excessive stress. It's not just fatigue. It's not just being tired. It's an actual syndrome that can significantly impact your personal and your work life. So symptoms include feeling emotionally drained, feeling detached from work, and feeling a reduced sense of personal accomplishment. So to me, what separates burnout from merely being tired is there's this sense of underlying hopelessness and maybe helplessness. With burnout, when you're in a really challenging period and you've been there for some time and there's still no light at the end of the tunnel, I think we can all toughen up for a period of time, but how long is sustainable is maybe the root of the issue. And when the advice is, well, if you're going through hell, keep going. When does it make sense to ask, wait a minute, I think I missed my exit. Or maybe it's time for a U turn or a different strategy. And at the same time, you also know that without struggle, there's no progress. Right? That's Frederick Douglass from 150 plus years ago. There was an essay, there was a blog post back in the good old days of blogging from Corbett Barr, where he wrote that everybody wants the big muscles, but nobody wants to lift the heavy weights. You can't expect the result without putting in the work. But how much is too much? There is, or there was, for a certain period of time, this glamorizing of startup or hustle culture. Rise and grind, death before decaf. I can sleep when I'm dead. And I think we've moved beyond that, recognizing that that's neither healthy nor sustainable. In this episode, I want to share some strategies that have worked for me and Side Hustle show guests over the years, both in terms of your day job and your side hustle in preventing and overcoming burnout, should it happen to you. And one question that came up when prepping for this was, well, is burnout a new thing? We never used to hear about this. So when I hear young people, and I'm going to young, say young, as in, like my generation and younger, I consider myself a millennial. My gut reaction when I hear younger people talking about burnout, it's not usually positive. Like, you're 23. How could you possibly be burned Out. Do you even know what work is? It's usually my gut reaction. You know, tough times make tough people. Sometimes you gotta suck it up. This is what hard work is supposed to feel like. That's why they call it work. You better get used to it. And it's hard to imagine assembly line workers from 100 years ago or coal miners or World War II marines, like, at least ever publicly complaining about burnout. Look, this is life. It is what it is. I got a job to do. I'm going to do it. But I also have to imagine those workers and miners and soldiers felt the symptoms of burnout or battle fatigue, and they have forever, for generations, even if they didn't call it that, even if they didn't dare voice their condition. The term burnout was first coined by psychologist Herbert Reutenberger in the 1970s. So it's a relatively new diagnosis, but the causes certainly aren't anything new. So it's more than just feeling tired, more than just feeling stressed, demotivated. It's an actual clinical diagnosis with some real symptoms and consequences. And I'm not a therapist, nor do I play one on the Internet. So while I want to share some strategies and ideas for you, if you're dealing with burnout, I would absolutely recommend getting a professional opinion. We've had betterhelp as a sponsor of the show in the past, and there are other resources as well. So, like most syndromes and conditions, perhaps the best way to beat burnout is to avoid it in the first place. So starting under the umbrella of prevention, prevention is the best medicine. Strategy number one is to find your why. In the words of Luke Bryant from the country song do what you love, but call it work. There's another line from Nietzsche. He says he who has a why to live can bear almost any how, right? How long are we willing to struggle if we have a strong enough why or going to be able to work through that? And when it comes to side hustles, most people say they want a side hustle to make extra money. But extra money is just a tool. Why do you want the extra money? What will that extra income afford you? If it's just extra money to pad your savings, I'm not sure that's going to be motivation enough. When the road inevitably gets harder, my typical recommendation is to go five whys deep to try and find your true, deep seated motivation. And if you haven't gone through it, a couple prominent guests have recommended this perfect average day exercise, projecting out three, four, five years. In five years, what's your perfect average Tuesday this is Jamie Masters from episode 345.
- [04:39]
Jamie Masters
So I used to also think the visioning was super, super woo woo. And then I started interviewing millionaires and it came up over and over and over and over again. So I started looking at the science behind it. It is ridiculous because I used to avoid it. So I'm so grateful that you actually took the time because even if it's just knowing that you're on the same page, it's huge. But science now coming to fruition about the visioning side. So don't knock it till you try it, people. Just so you know, I'm a convert. I completely agree with it now too. But being able to know one of the reasons why we have you do the perfect day is not only so that way you can get clarity on it, but also to see how close you are. This is the thing that was really cool is going, hey, you know what? There's a couple small tweaks that I can do on my perfect day that would actually make my perfect day right now. And it doesn't have to be in five years from now. There's small things that you could be doing.
- [05:25]
Nick Loper
If the five year in the future version of you eats healthier, start eating healthier now. If the five year in the future version of you rides their bike to work, start riding your bike to work now. I think you'll find there are little opportunities to start living your vision today. And maybe not full 24 hours, but it's a spectrum, right? I think we all would love to be in 100% control of our calendar 100% of the time, but that doesn't align with the constraints of our reality. Instead, what we can do is start carving out 15 minutes here, a half hour there, and then use that time to start moving us closer to our vision, to start living out our why. I remember a time when adult coloring books were super, super popular. Like top 100 bestsellers on Amazon popular. And they were promoted as a stress reliever. And I remember thinking, look, if you got time to do an adult coloring book, you're clearly not that stressed. Because there have certainly been days or weeks on a few different occasions when it didn't even feel like I had time to breathe. Like every waking moment was filled with work and obligations and demands. And it is super stressful. I think the first time I experienced this was painting houses in college. Maybe bit off a little more than I could chew, maybe had a few too many projects going on at once and a few Too many fires to put out. But those were some really long days. One of the things that has helped me since then, and I wish I had, the practice at the time was just a nightly gratitude and progress tracker. This is part of my nightly shutdown routine. This is strategy number two in this episode. The first was to do this find your why or this visioning exercise. But strategy number two is this nightly shutdown routine with gratitude and progress tracking. These days I use my own three question journal for this. The third question is what are my top priorities for tomorrow? That way I can wake up and tackle those before going into reactive mode. But I find this super helpful as an evening shutdown routine. Recognizing tomorrow's another day. Whatever stressing me out probably isn't life threatening. Hopefully isn't life threatening. Taking stock of what I did get done, right? Maybe you didn't check off the entire to do list, but I did chip away at it. I got something done. What am I grateful for? Right? It's not all bad. There's certainly some good things happening in my life. And then making a brief plan. How am I going to win tomorrow? What are my top priorities for the next day? Really important practice for me and definitely one I recommend in helping prevent burnout and possibly dealing with it if you're in the middle of it. So that is strategy number two. Number three is to build some sustainable systems, building a manageable schedule and system. So we've talked about the importance of finding your why you can go five whys deep. You're armed with your five year future vision projection of your perfect average day. You've got a positive nightly shutdown routine that includes a reflection and appreciation of the work that you did do, the progress that you made, and what you have to be grateful for that day and your top priorities for the next day to move you closer to your goals. The next thing when it comes to preventing burnout in the first place, is to build some systems and guardrails around your time and your work that feel sustainable.
- [08:26]
Tyler Christensen
I think most of what makes you successful as a product reviewer has remained constant. It's work you have to put in the time. You have to be fairly consistent. There were a lot of people who started around the same time I did, who worked really hard for six months, made 500 videos, made 20,000, $30,000 off that, but then just burnt out. And so I think the best advice I can give anyone now is set manageable goals. You know, do five videos a week, but do that consistently over a period of several months and Then it starts to compound. And if you're only making pennies in the beginning, just know it's a numbers game. And you know, it might not be my, my best product review. I did a review in my first year. I was about and I was starting to figure out what things sold better and what was trending. And I found something that popped off and it made me $17,000. And I have not had that kind of success since then. However, that product still makes me a few hundred dollars every single month. And if I had only done my first 400 videos, I never would have had that product. And so it's just being consistent, looking for different things and improving over time. As far as your product selection, that.
- [09:40]
Nick Loper
Was Tyler Christensen from episode 656. Make sure to go check that one out. If you want to learn more about the Amazon influencer side, hustle, upload little product review videos to Amazon and make some sales commission on that. But it's this tortoise versus the hare. It's slow and steady and consistent. Let your efforts start to stack and compound in a way that is sustainable to you. But this call to find a consistent volume of work, a steady pace that you can maintain, was echoed by Shelley marmor in episode five. 73.
- [10:08]
Jamie Masters
Everyone's schedule is gonna be different. I always tell people like, you can't just like, think you can crank out 18 articles a week forever. Like, it's not sustainable, right? So don't burn yourself out. If your limit is one every two weeks and you can do one really, really, really good blog every two weeks, then that's where you're at right now. And it accumulates. I didn't start at 180. I started at zero like everyone else. But eventually it just, it compounds. So know where your sweet spot is. Know what's actually sustainable for you. That's not going to burn you out. Because if you get burnt out, you don't make it to 180, you don't make it to 4. So be real with yourself. Know what you can do.
- [10:53]
Nick Loper
One of the most important strategies to prevent burnout and protect your mental health is to avoid the comparison trap. Of course, I think you can take inspiration from others and should take inspiration from others, but constantly playing the comparison game is a recipe for dissatisfaction. Right? In the suburbs, it's the Keeping up with the Joneses game. But John Acuff said, don't compare your beginning to somebody else's middle. Comparison is the thief of joy. If someone else in your niche has way more customers, or followers or subscribers than you. There's a couple ways to look at it. You could say, well, shoot, they've already taken up all the market share. Or you could say, look, that's great. Look at all the market validation work they've already done. I know the idea is proven now. Now I just need to get more people paying attention to me. This was in the book the Gap and the Gain as well, which I think is a Ben Hardy book where the author contends that we spend most of our time in the gap, comparing our results to our ambitious goals or the results of other people and dwelling on our inadequacies instead of living in the Gain, which is to recognize and celebrate how far you've already come. Look at the progress we made. When I was a competitive swimmer, it would be easy to get discouraged because I definitely wasn't winning races, and that would be the Gap mentality. But the gain mentality allowed me to get excited about shaving time off my own personal bests and trying to get better every meet. So when it comes to burnout, prevention is probably the best medicine. But what happens when you're already starting to feel it, either in your day job or in your business? We've got some interesting strategies from side Hustle show guests coming up right after this.
- [12:24]
Darina Coolia
For such an important channel like phone, the software powering this important channel was super outdated and clunky. We wanted to make it delightful and make it very easy for businesses to connect with their customers through voice and text.
- [12:38]
Nick Loper
That's Darina Coolia, co founder of our sponsor OpenPhone. Trusted by more than 60,000 customers, this is the number one business phone system that streamlines and scales your customer communications. I like to think of it like a centralized hub to receive and respond to calls and texts in your business. And I asked Darina about who's typically signing up for this kind of service.
- [12:59]
Darina Coolia
We definitely have a lot of folks who come to us and their personal cell phone has become their company phone number and they've hired a team or they're starting to scale their business and they just find themselves as a business owner, as a founder, being the bottleneck. So we see that all the time. And then we also see folks much further along where they're using some legacy, complicated tools that are just not really made for how commun happens these days. We also just recently launched Sona, which is our voice AI agent that can handle any missed calls. If you have clients calling outside of business hours, instead of them going to voicemail, it can go into Sona which is capable to handle any replies and can also take a message. So you are capturing that lead information.
- [13:50]
Nick Loper
And it's a robot like it responds on the fly with some pre programmed responses.
- [13:56]
Darina Coolia
It does such a great job. This way they can handle questions 24 7.
- [14:00]
Nick Loper
Now here's a, here's a scenario for you. So let's say I've committed to a certain business phone number and I've distributed flyers. It's printed on my business cards, it is on my local business listings, on directories throughout the Internet. Like what's the process to now have that ring Open phone system versus the current system?
- [14:19]
Darina Coolia
Totally. So we, we see this all the time. This process called phone number porting. We port numbers from all kinds of carriers. So basically no matter what provider you're using, we can take that number and move it over to OpenPhone. It is free, we handle the whole thing. And if you want to try out OpenPhone, we have a free trial. You can try it out, see how you like it and if you like it, you can then decide to port your existing number over and we handle the whole process.
- [14:46]
Nick Loper
Now openphone has automatic AI call summaries so you don't have to worry about taking notes while you're on the call. But another cool feature is what arena called AI call tagging. Basically allowing you to quickly filter for the calls that were sales objections or customer complaints or requests for a discount. So you can review those and see what worked, what didn't and train team members on the most effective tactics and language in those cases. And it's all in the name of building a better, faster and friendlier customer experience.
- [15:16]
Darina Coolia
I want all OpenPhone customers to have five stars only.
- [15:20]
Nick Loper
Right now, OpenPhone is offering Side Hustle show listeners 20% off your first six months at openphone.com SideHustle that's O-P-E-N-P-H-O-N-E.com SideHustle and like we talked about, if you've got an existing phone number with another service, OpenPhone will port it over at no extra charge. OpenPhone. No missed calls, no missed customers. If you're a startup small business or even part small of a growing enterprise looking to level up your marketing and connect more meaningfully with customers, Brevo has you covered. Our new sponsor, Brevo is the all in one marketing automation and CRM platform that helps you streamline your strategy and drive real results. From powerful email marketing and SMS to WhatsApp chat and advanced automation, Brevo makes it simple to create personalized multichannel campaigns that convert. Whether you're managing a lean team or already operating at scale, Brevo gives you the tools to boost engagement, track performance, and grow smarter with built in analytics and customer insights all in one easy to use platform. Ready to get started? Head over to brevo.comsidehustle that's B R E V O brevo.com side hustle and use the code side hustle to get 50% off starter and business plans for the first three months of an annual subscription. That's brevo.comsidehustleen where better marketing starts so far we've been covering ways to prevent burnout through finding your why, tracking your progress, building sustainable systems, and avoiding the comparison trap. Another super important factor is taking care of your physical health because it plays a huge role in your mental health. That means not neglecting your sleep, your diet or your exercise because it can be a slippery slope. Like Brian Johnson would say, you got to take care of your fundamentals, your fundies if you want to give yourself a fighting chance of showing up as your best self. And of course, it's easier said than done because when you're super stressed, it's also when you're most likely to make poor food choices, to sacrifice sleep, to skip your workout. But be conscious about it and see if getting back to basics getting back to good physical health habits doesn't help the mental load as well. Now I want to shift into how some entrepreneurs have dealt with burnout on the job to see if any of their strategies might make sense for you. First up is Heather Johnson, a hospital worker who had dabbled in in Etsy without a lot of success.
- [17:41]
Heather Johnson
And then January I started posting designs, I told myself, and I remember I actually wrote down a piece of paper. I was like, action plan to make six figures in 2021. But I I wrote in that notebook, you know, post three to five listings a day every day for January and February. And my goal was to create a high volume listing store because that's what a lot of the YouTube gurus were saying at that time is high volume listing stores are what get you more views, more visits on Etsy, and that's how you can rank in the Etsy algorithm. So I started posting like a mad woman.
- [18:24]
Nick Loper
Before long, Heather was earning thousands of dollars a month from her Etsy shop and she shares some of her strategies in episode 5 20, if you want to go back and check that one out. But a couple things stood out to me from that episode. First was she didn't initially have the goal to make it a full time thing. She called it a must needed distraction from her healthcare work and then set the intention of consistency. Three to five listings a day, every day for two months. That consistent action is how you get in the reps, how you get better at your craft, even if you don't see results right away, even if you're just doing it as a positive distraction from a potentially draining day job. And bonus points here. It started as a creative outlet. I'm going to do these designs. This was something I enjoyed doing in my youth. I think she mentioned being an artist or being really interested in art when she was younger. And here was a way to do that as a distraction from her day job and build a consistent habit with it. Now the next clip has got to be one of the most powerful and most memorable lines from 12 plus years on the show. And you're going to know it when you hear it. This is my episode with Saw El episode 359. At this point of the interview, he's been working nine months on his side Hustle Insurance website and he's made something like a hundred dollars. What kept you going during this nine months before seeing any sort of monetization revenue coming in on the other side? And even after that, it's like the amount of effort relative to the payoff still seems very unbalanced. Yeah.
- [19:55]
Sa El
So what kept me going was my fear. I was afraid to stay where I was. That's the biggest thing for me. I'm one of those people where if I start getting afraid to stay where I am, that fear is scarier to me than the fear of trying to get somewhere else. That alone just drove me 100% to say, hey, no stopping. If I could sit up for 16 hours and my whole day. I spoke to one person and I sold them a $35 life insurance policy that they may or may not get approved for. If I could do that, I could sit up and write content all day. There's no problem. I had 125 people at Fincon commit to letting me do a guest post or a podcast or something. That's the type of drive I have.
- [20:40]
Nick Loper
Yeah. I mean, that's how this interview came about. Yeah. I was like, this is a crazy story. Yes, totally. And we'll link to all the money pages that you want. You know, won't even charge you.
- [20:48]
Sa El
Perfect. I appreciate it. So that was one of the drivers. And then the second thing was is that it's a very lucrative space. As an insurance agent, I was still making $100,000 a year. I just hated the time. It took a lot of work for me to make that $100,000 a year. And so that mindset of, okay, well, I'm going to do all this work and I'm going to. I'm not going to make anything right now. That's okay. I'll just keep doing both until one pans off. And once I made that first commission check, I was like, oh, they send the check. Okay, great.
- [21:17]
Nick Loper
This is real now.
- [21:18]
Sa El
Yeah, right? It's real, right? Like, okay, I see online I have $120 coming, but we'll see when I get that check. That check comes. So, yeah, it's like that process. And once I saw it, I said, oh, I can replicate this.
- [21:28]
Nick Loper
Did you catch it? I was afraid to stay where I was. Another guest put it like this. If I don't do something, if I don't take action tomorrow, it's going to look like today. And I think it's easy to get caught up in the idea that somehow something is going to change on its own. And so we keep waiting and waiting, but nothing happens until you make it happen. That's why make something happen has been the sign of on the show probably from almost the very beginning. I like how both Heather and Sa were comfortable putting in the time and the effort in the limited time that they had without seeing immediate financial results because they were learning they were laying the foundation for a side hustle they believed in. It was this balance of persistence plus patience, especially in Saw's case, when you're afraid to stay where you are. If that five year vision is terrifying, you figure out the next steps. Dan from Tropical MBA calls it the corner office test. If you eventually rise the ranks on your current path, you keep climbing that ladder and you eventually take your boss's job, you get the corner office. Is that a win? And if not, you're going to want to stop climbing that ladder. Stop climbing the ladder you're on and looking to start building your own ladder. Now. Heather and Saw took a longer term view. Another somewhat common path for side hustlers is a shorter term sprint to the finish line. This definitely isn't particularly healthy or sustainable, but it can work under the right circumstances, especially if your side hustle already has some traction. Here's a snippet from my conversation with Rachel Peterson when she was building her social media marketing side hustle. Now, the next bit of this challenge is delivering the goods while still working that 8 to 5. So there's selling strategy and selling hands on, like, tactile. I will be posting on Facebook for you. I will be creating your Instagram images and stuff. Is that the kind of work that you signed yourself up for?
- [23:19]
Rachel Peterson
Yep, exactly. I did content curation and creation and posting and strategy and all of that. And as soon as I started signing clients, I realized, okay, I'm going to be hustling pretty hard here. And the moment I signed all of those clients, I realized that I was very close to. To making the same amount of money as my 9 to 5. So I just stepped it into high gear. I said, this is a sprint. This is not a marathon. And if I hustle really, really hard for just a short amount of time, I'll be out of my 9 to 5 and I'll have 40 to 50 extra hours per week to focus on this.
- [23:54]
Nick Loper
This sounds like a pretty intense period. This is the eight month drowning period, or what time are we talking about on here?
- [24:00]
Rachel Peterson
Let's see, that was eight months ago till six months ago.
- [24:03]
Nick Loper
You have two young kids at home.
- [24:04]
Rachel Peterson
Oh, I'm sorry. It was three months ago. So, yes, I have two young kids. So I did not get a lot of sleep during that time. It was only five months. But that time flew by and I felt like I was kind of a zombie. But I just had this goal in mind of leaving. It was all I wanted. And there was this image I had in my head of bringing my daughter to school this fall for her first year of school and picking her up from school. And that was what I kept focusing on. And now she starts school this month and I'll be ready for it. It's a weird feeling.
- [24:37]
Nick Loper
Yeah. Now you have that, like you said, that extra 40, 50 hours a week to dedicate to the business. And if you were used to doing it in a quarter of the time, you got all this time in the world now.
- [24:47]
Rachel Peterson
Yes. So you asked what it felt like to be doing all of that client work while still trying to find clients while still working. In my 9 to 5, it kind of felt like I was drowning while holding a laptop over my head, trying not to get the keyboard wet.
- [25:01]
Nick Loper
Yeah, that's kind of the challenge. But it's interesting. I mean, hey, side Hustle Nation, like, we're used to the hard work, but at the same time, I think a lot of people would try and ramp that up a little bit slower to avoid that, like, drowning period. But to each their own. Hey, you got out. You got out in record time.
- [25:15]
Rachel Peterson
You got it, and I don't recommend that process for anyone unless you can handle a ton of for a short amount of time and you enjoy doing things very quickly and seeing results right away.
- [25:26]
Nick Loper
That is strategy number eight, this short term sprint strategy, if it makes sense for you. If you can see that light at the end of the tunnel, maybe a sprint is in order. William Wadsworth had a similar line. He said, if you're bored walking up the hill, try running up it. Maybe speed can be a secret weapon. And if I'm running away from something I hate, like a toxic job or an angry bear, I can probably sprint longer and harder than I normally could. But every sprint has to have an endpoint. And if you don't have a specific direction and milestone to know when you've made it, I would hesitate to recommend that strategy. One interesting twist on Rachel's sprint strategy was Drew Ackerman's idea of setting somewhat arbitrary quit dates for his side hustle. Here's how he explained it.
- [26:08]
Drew Ackerman
Hey, this is Drew Ackerman. I make Sleep With Me podcast, a podcast that helps grownups fall asleep a little bit like a goofy friend telling you a bedtime story story. I started the show in 2013 just as something as an experiment of like, how. How come there aren't silly bedtime stories for grownups and would anybody listen? Would the idea even work? And one of the most effective things for me was setting quit dates where I was like, okay, I would have a meeting every few months and say, do I want to keep making this podcast or not? And usually it was like, oh, of course I want to. You know, there's a few people listening or it helps these people fall asleep. But in between those quit dates, it really helped not silence my internal critic or the other parts of me that are kind of obstacles a lot of times for getting stuff done. But it helped me say, hey, let's just keep working on this until the next quit date. Because I just have this internal critic that's like, oh, let's. This is a bad idea. This isn't working, this isn't successful. And I would give my critic full voice at those meetings. But in between the meetings they'd say, hey, can we just save this for the next meeting? And that really helped me keep the podcast going over, I think, like three years is really where it started to finally gain momentum. The second thing I did was talk to my listeners about sharing the podcast and just ask them, hey, if you get value out of the show, just share your honest experience with that and Letting them know how incredibly powerful word of mouth is, because I don't think everybody knows that. And then thanking people when they did share the show. And so that's where a lot of growth happened. And then after making the show for about four years or so, or maybe three years, I started a Patreon. I tested out a merchant podcast, merchandise, affiliates, sponsors, and in 2017. So I started the podcast in 2013. In 2017, I would say the podcast became my side hustle. And I slowly started to use up my vacation at my day job and started to cut back my hours at my day job from full time to three quarter time to eventually halftime. And then in 2018, I was able to leave my day job as a librarian and work on my podcast full time. And between Patreon merchandise, sponsorships and a few other things like affiliates and stuff like that, I'm able to do the podcast as a full time job, pay for health insurance, put some money aside for retirement. Very similar to what I would expect if I was like looking for a job. I've also been able to build up a emergency fund, a personal emergency fund and a business emergency fund, because a lot of my goals around finances with the podcast are making sure the podcast is sustainable and high quality and delivered on a regular basis. But it started as something almost like a hobby, an experiment that I just kept going, I kept working at it and trying to make it a little bit better each time.
- [29:07]
Nick Loper
Now, a couple things here. I love Drew's example of scaling slowly back at his day job as the podcast grew. Doesn't have to be all or nothing. And I love the idea of setting a quit date 90 days in the future, six months in the future, helps you avoid the day to day decision fatigue of whether or not you should keep going. And I imagine had Drew come to one of those quit date meetings with himself, by the way, just him. And found he no longer enjoyed doing the show. It wasn't seeing enough traction. He would have had the discipline to say, I'm going to retire this project. I'm going to see if there's another side hustle that makes more sense. So that's strategy number nine. Put a quit date on your calendar. I do this for all kinds of side hustle experiments. Hey, we're going to test out a new content strategy. We're going to give it 90 to 120 days. We're going to see what kind of results or return on investment it generates and we're not going to question it. In the meantime, we're just going to collect the data. We're going to reevaluate it then and see if it makes sense to keep going, to pour some fuel on it or to pull the plug. Now let's say you're running your business and the stress is mounting. There aren't enough hours in the day. What can you do about it? I've got some suggestions for you coming up right after this. Let me know if this sounds familiar. You've got more ideas than you've got hours in the day. And that to do list is never quite done. That's why finding the right tool to stay on top of everything and simplify things is such a game changer for millions of businesses, including dozens of side Hustle show guests that tool is Shopify. One thing I love about our partner Shopify is you don't have to start from scratch. They've got hundreds of ready to use templates that help you build a beautiful online store to match your brand's style. Plus, Shopify makes it easy to create email and social media campaigns to capture customers wherever they're scrolling or strolling. And they're not sleeping on AI either. I'm talking tools to write product descriptions, page headlines, and even enhance your product photography. If you're ready to sell, you're ready for Shopify. Turn those dreams into and give them the best shot at success with Shopify. Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com sidehustle go to shopify.com sidehustlez shopify.com sidehustleen with our partner Mint Mobile, you can get the coverage and speed you're used to just for way less money. And for a limited time, Mint Mobile is offering side hustle show listeners three months of unlimited premium wireless for just 15 bucks a month. So while your friends are sweating over data overages and surprise charges, you'll be chilling. Literally and financially. I've been a Mint customer myself since 2019. All Mint plans come with high speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. You can bring your own phone with any Mint Mobile plan and your existing phone number and your contacts. So join me in ditching overpriced wireless and get three months of premium wireless service from Mint mobile for just 15 bucks a month. This year, skip breaking a sweat and breaking the bank. Get this new customer offer and your three month unlimited wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.comsidehustle that's mintmobile.comsidehustleen upfront payment of $45 required, equivalent to $15 per month. Limited time. New customer offer for first three months only. Speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes on unlimited plan taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details. In my original side hustle, my online shoe business, there would be times I would crank away on that site 10, 12 plus hours a day, maybe even more when Bryn was out of town. Maybe 14 hours a day sometimes it was pretty tedious work. Not quite data entry, but definitely not rocket science either. The challenge that I felt was like every hour I didn't work, it felt like it was costing me money. Especially during the Busy season of Q4. I was problem aware, as they say. I knew I should probably get some help, but I had all the usual hang ups of not knowing how it would work, payment wise or cost wise or tax wise. I was afraid that any assistant I brought on would like steal my ideas. I didn't have the time to train anyone. All the usual excuses. It was 100% a case of being too busy chopping down trees to sharpen the saw. Which is why strategy number 10 is to hire some help. Even though the website itself had leverage, it could make sales. When I wasn't working, I still felt like I needed to work on it all the time. When I finally hired my first assistant, it was a huge shift. And that's not to say everything was perfect right out of the gate. There was a kind of one step back before taking two steps forward kind of thing where it took some time to vet and interview candidates. It took some time to document processes that up until then had only existed in my head. It took some time for training, and no, they weren't as fast or as quote unquote good as me at these tasks. But after that, after bringing on this person, this first assistant, something magical happened. And that magic was work getting done when I wasn't working. That was a big unlock. And yes, it cost some money, which was another one of my hangups. I could just do it myself is always my excuse. But it was well worth having some breathing room in my day and not feeling like I had to keep grinding 10, 12, 14, 16 hours a day. Now to get started down the delegation path, if you've never done it before, my recommendation is to start with a time audit. This is tracking for a couple weeks what you're actually spending your time on. And if you're anything like me, you might find that you've got a lot of hours spent on relatively low level administrative or repetitive tasks. That with a little guidance, a little documentation, a little training, an assistant or another hire could reasonably take off your plate. And there's a couple different flavors of outsourcing. The first, which I just described, is when you take something you're already doing and hire somebody to do it for you. The second is perhaps a little more advanced, and that's to hire for the stuff you don't know how to do. Here's John Jonas from OnlineJobs ph and Nate Hirsch from our episode on hiring your first virtual assistant describing those critical hires. So what I tell most people today for like, when do you know is when, when's the time to hire someone? Because for me at the time, it was like, dude, I don't want to do this. I don't want to do this thing that I'm doing. I hate this. So I had to try and find help. What I'll tell most people is if there is something that you're doing that you could potentially teach someone else, doesn't matter how much work it takes you to teach someone else, it's time to hire someone else. It's time to hire someone else to do it. Because if it takes you a month to teach them how to do it, after that, you'll never have to do that thing again. If you've hired correctly, you'll never have to do it again. And that is the only way that I know of that you can buy time. Yeah, it's kind of this saw sharpening moment where you have to take again, you're already pressed for time, you're already busy and saying, well, now I'm going to take time away from doing that thing to train somebody else to do it in the hopes of never having to do it again. Like, if it's going to take me this time up front, it's this investment in your future, the only way to buy time. Nate, anything to add on that? Like, for when is it time to hire?
- [36:24]
John Jonas
There's really two schools of thoughts. I mean, the first one is exactly what John said. When it's all these things that are just piling up that are taking on your time. And the only way to get your time back is to pass those tasks off to someone else. And how do you get five hours in your week back, 10 hours in your week back? Whatever it is? The flip side of it is I think the average entrepreneur is only good at one to three things, their core competency. Maybe you're good at sales or you're good at content or whatever it is. And as you get farther and farther away from your core competency. Sure, you could take a six month course to become a Facebook ad guru, but you can't do that with every single part of your business. So at some point you have to hire people who are better at doing things than you are. And it could even be the small stuff. I mean, take the bookkeeping for example. I wasn't necessarily great at just transferring information and making sure everything's accurate and, and double checking it. I mean, that was very tedious for me. That's probably not my core strengths. So I take someone else and I put them in it and not only are they doing the job, but they're doing it better than I could have done it originally. So I think that was a big eye opener for me as well. When I would give someone a task, and maybe not right away, but eventually they would do something even better than I could. And that's very liberating. And it makes you want to delegate. It almost makes you want to be a lazy entrepreneur, so to speak. Really just toning in on what are you the best at, what helps you scale your business and finding ways to delegate everything out.
- [37:46]
Nick Loper
Definitely a worthwhile episode to check out in full if you find yourself as the bottleneck in your business. It's episode 343 in your archives. And I know we've re aired it at least once as a greatest hits episode. And I've used several different sites to connect with assistance over the years from JohnsonLinejobs ph to Upwork and Fiverr to more specialty services and even our sponsor. Indeed. But the key is to define the role, to set clear expectations and rip off that band aid. You can't expect to do everything on your own. It's no wonder you're burnt out. Chris Stucker calls it superhero syndrome. So if you want to go fast, go alone. Like the old proverb, if you want to go far, go together, get some help. Really grateful for the team I have in place and all the work they do to get these episodes ready for you. Every week for any given episode there are four or five team members all doing their part. Stuff I used to do all on my own, starting out, but slowly chipping away at the tasks where I'm not adding much value. Now, as your business grows, you might find yourself kind of out of your league. Or what made it fun early on is no longer the case. When I chatted with Justin Tan from Video Husky, he took a really interesting approach in essentially outsourcing himself as the.
- [38:56]
Justin Tan
CEO, I was quite Burnt out. I think the back to back crises made me realize that number one, I did not enjoy management. I'm not really somebody cut out to ensure the day to day and the week to week, everything aligns and we're moving forward in the right direction. And I think doing that properly for a year really taught me that lesson. And so I started considering other solutions. Whether it was just minimizing my own role or while not really selling, just seeing ways that I could step out.
- [39:27]
Nick Loper
Yeah. What was the day to day that was like. So you mentioned, oh, we gotta, I gotta manage this huge team. Am I. You're still, are you still running marketing? Like what's your, what's your role?
- [39:36]
Justin Tan
Yeah, so at that point I was still running marketing and we still had our set of weekly calls that had to happen to ensure things kind of ran smoothly. And I think as we kind of went through more and more of those, as we set like a good weekly cadence, I just realized that there was a pretty big disconnect for me personally between both me and our clients because I personally am not a video creator. I don't know how to film, I don't know how to edit, I don't know how to, I guess promote. I don't particularly enjoy promoting myself or our editors because I don't have the, a creative eye. As I said already, I don't know how to edit. And so I realized that lack of sort of founder market fit and founder product fit was really hindering, I guess, my own ability to apply myself in video Husky.
- [40:20]
Nick Loper
Okay, so you think, well, it may not be sellable where it's at today or I'm not quite ready to let go of it. But I do want to outsource myself from the day to day. I want to bring in somebody else to be the operator, the COO in a way. Is that what happens?
- [40:36]
Justin Tan
Yeah. So it was around, I think beginning of 2021 that I started working with another coach, Taylor Pearson. And so working with him kind of made me realize, okay, this is really not my role. Even though of course at the end of it I am responsible for Radioski. I feel a lot of responsibility for the team that I just could not continue on a day to day basis. And he kind of outlined the consequences of a person running a team when they're already burnt out. And it turns out that this is a thing around the four to five year mark, a lot of founders get burnt out. And the key is to kind of already have a team in place that you can transition to. So that when that burnout inevitably happens, your team is still good to go, your business is still good to go, and they can run without you. Yeah. And so he was the one who outlined kind of like what a sale process would look like and what the multiple would be, which wasn't all that attractive to me just because it's three to four times earnings, five if you're really lucky. Compared to the idea of, let's say, bringing on a general manager, where I personally might earn a little bit less, but it would mean that the business would continue to spill out dividends, which would be enough to live off of, while the GM would have the opportunity to grow the business while reducing the kind of key manned risk that the business was reliant on me, which also ironically makes them more sellable in the long run.
- [41:54]
Nick Loper
Yeah, this is an interesting kind of fork in the road, and I won't name names, but I was talking to some friends at fincon who had gone down not a completely similar path, but they went down the path instead of doing a clean one and done cut me a big check. I'm getting out of here. Sell the business. Exit. They went down the path of kind of bringing on a partner with the hopes, well, maybe the partner can grow the business. I'm kind of in this burnout phase. I don't really want to work on it day to day, but then the partner ends up just tanking everything. So it's a huge risk for you as the business owner. They can take what we've already built and they can take it to the next level, but they could also screw things up. Like, they could also upset the clients. They could also upset the team. They just might not be the right cultural fit. Like, you know, we might have another crisis where 30% of the clients leave again, like it's a risky proposition versus, you know, almost taking the money and just so, you know, washing your hands of the whole thing in a, in a sale.
- [42:52]
Justin Tan
Yeah. And so I think that was something that I was willing to give a shot for. So the way I figured it was the opposite. Worst case scenario is that if it turns out he's not a good fit after 1, 2, 3, 6 months, well, I guess, like I'll step back in and I'm exactly where I'm at. But at least I had a three to six month break, which maybe would be enough kind of fuel to get started again. But while there are downside risks of potentially doing like, worse than what Video Husky was, there was also the upside risk of doing better than what Video Husky was previously doing. And in my head it made sense because at the end of the day, I have limited business experience. I had never managed a team of 50, so I inevitably would have made a lot of mistakes versus bringing on somebody who had that experience who had already worked at a higher level than where I was at. I think there was something to be said about that kind of know how that I really wanted to bring to Video Husky and our team, because not only am I, but like our entire team is just so young that we can either learn from experience or ideally learn from other people's experiences and get to where we want to go faster again.
- [43:58]
Nick Loper
That was Justin tan from episode 540. Really powerful episode on a side hustle that turned into a pretty big business in all the trials and tribulations along the way. Plus, did you catch the part where he said he wasn't a video creator or a video editor, but still managed to build one of the most popular video editing services for video creators? Really cool example of not needing to be the expert to solve a problem, but playing matchmaker instead. So that's number 10. That's the delegation piece. If you're burnt out or overwhelmed, what's one thing you can get off your plate this week? How can you start chipping away at these tasks and start leaning more on your team so the business maybe can start to run a little bit less without you? You start to be a little bit less of the bottleneck and you may not even need to delegate it. I mean, if it's really that important, if it's not really that important, you could just eliminate it. Or you could ask ChatGPT if there's a way to automate it. You might even upload your time, log into Chatty, and ask for some recommendations on what to outsource Next. That's number 10. Hire some help. Number 11 is to sell the business. Like Justin mentioned, if you can make the business less reliant on you, the more sellable it becomes down the road, which might be the ultimate way to beat burnout, cash out, be done with it. This was a fail of mine, holding on too long to the shoe business. In hindsight, I could have exited. It might have been worth maybe half a million dollars if I timed it right. And I could have used that Runway to figure out the next project. Because as entrepreneurs, we're always looking ahead for the next thing. And I've found that having an exciting new project or experiment tends to breathe some new life into an old business. That's why that's number 12 is to change up the routine and spark some creativity. And sometimes that creativity gets sparked just by changing up my routine. Working from the coffee shop instead of from home, visiting a new city, going to a conference, taking some time off with the family because it feels new and different and exciting, even if it's adjacent to what you're already doing. I feel like I attack it with some more energy and enthusiasm than I would if it was just same old same old. And this is super common in startup culture and maybe should be a little more so inside Hustle culture. But it's the idea of a pivot. This is number 13. If you're burnt out and you're not seeing the traction or results that you like in your current business, maybe it's time to consider a pivot. One of the most inspiring and profitable examples of of that from the Side Hustle show comes from Abby Ashley in episode 284. She'd already replaced her day job income with virtual assistant work and even built a small agency at one point. But she had this itch to grow it even more. She just wasn't sure if taking on more clients was necessarily the right path.
- [46:38]
Heather Johnson
I was starting to get a little burnout on client work. So I got actually I got a few more clients because hey, I needed money and I knew how to do that well, I knew how to get clients. So I grabbed a few more clients and started working again. And still just devoting a lot of time to trying to figure out what I was going to do. I actually stumbled upon a podcast in fall of 2016 about discovering your niche. And it was so funny cause I had hired a business coach. I had really like done so much soul searching and this one stinking free podcast like totally just made me think I just need to teach. Like I need to ask my audience and teach what I'm actually good at. Like what's what I've had success at. So rather than creating courses, I had the idea. I didn't just say, you know, what do you want to learn in general to my email list. I said, hey, I have this idea for creating a virtual assistants course. I created this agency. I was able to quit my job doing virtual assistants. I thought up what like the modules for the course would be. I just kind of listed them out and I asked if anyone was interested in that topic. If so, I was going to sell the course at a lower price. It was about half the price around. I think it was like four or $500. Where I knew eventually the course would be probably a $900,000 product. I said, hey, you can get in early. And I had about 16 people buy from my list of a thousand. So I made $8,000 from doing that tactic. Just asking people before I even created the course, is this something you would want to learn? Here's the modules.
- [48:15]
Nick Loper
From doing the thing to teaching other people how to do the thing, here was a low risk, low overhead, pre sale validation. She hadn't recorded anything, she just had outlined it and said, hey, is this something that would be a fit? I think in that episode she goes on to describe that the sales page she used was a Google Doc. Really, really lean startup style. Really cool. So is there something new you could sell or even pre sell to your existing audience or customer base that would reinvigorate you to the business? For me, what's gotten me excited lately is some process improvements, usually powered or assisted by AI coming up with new episode ideas like this new affiliate partnerships to test out or creating new digital products. It was a question that came up lately with a friend of mine. He said, dang, I can't believe I've been doing this show for 12 years. I was like, you know time flies when you're having fun. But he asked if it got boring or felt repetitive and the answer was an immediate no, which I took as a good sign. There are repetitive components to the process, but the individual stories and strategies are what keep it exciting and such a fun creative outlet for me and that creative constraint of six times a month we got to come up with some compelling radio to share and how are we going to fill in those boxes with something that is hopefully helpful on the side hustle front? So that's number 13. Consider a pivot if you're feeling burnt out in your current work. Like, okay, what is adjacent to something we're already doing that we could use the existing skills for? Number 14 is this mindset shift of I get to versus I have to now. This definitely doesn't apply if your burnout is the commuting two hours each way to a job. I hate that barely pays the bills variety, but it definitely applies to side hustlers and entrepreneurs who chose their path right. It's a. It's a privilege to get to be the boss and it might feel like we have to get up and work on our business today, but we get to It's a unique chance to help our customers to learn new skills, to connect with people in a meaningful way and hopefully improve our financial well being. Along the way. Now I remember not being a lot of fun to be around leading up to my TEDx talk, where every spare moment was spent rehearsing in my head. I may have been physically present, but I wasn't there mentally. I was like, you know, stressed out. I was losing my appetite. And at one point my wife goes, just remember, you chose this. And she was right. I volunteered for it. It didn't necessarily make me any less stressed, but it did put a smile on my face and it was an important reminder of get to versus have to. And that's where I want to wrap this one. So to recap, we covered how to prevent burnout and some different tactics that you might find effective in reducing it in your own life. We started with finding your why and go try and go five whys deep. Why is it important to you? Why do you want to do this? Talked about your five year perfect Tuesday exercise, kind of this visioning exercise, and how to start chipping away at that in small ways today. How can I get closer to my perfect average day today? Talked about the importance of a nightly shutdown routine. What do I get done? I'm going to recognize and celebrate the progress that I did make. I'm going to be grateful for the positive things that happen and then I'm going to prioritize my next day. How am I going to win tomorrow? Talked about building sustainable systems. We talked about avoiding the comparison trap. Easier said than done. We talked about the importance of taking care of your physical health, your fundies, your sleep, your diet, your exercise, and the impact that that can have on your mental wellbeing as well. Talked about finding a creative outlet whether or not it turns into a side hustle. Doesn't have to be. Don't put that pressure on yourself. Talked about this balance of persistence plus patience with the example of sio. Hey, I worked for nine months before I started to see any meaningful revenue here, but I was afraid to stay where I was. And that goes back to the finding your why that persistence plus Patience piece. Talked about in certain cases, a short term sprint might make sense if you could see the light at the end of the tunnel. Remember Rachel? Oh, she's like, I felt like I was drowning, but I could see the light. I knew I could get myself out and free up an extra 40, 50 hours a week. We talked about giving yourself a deadline. We talked about setting specific quit dates 3, 6 months in the future to say, I'm not even going to be allowed to question this until then. Or we can address that at the next quit date meeting. We talked about delegating, outsourcing the parts of the your work that don't light you up, Talked about the optionality to potentially sell your business, something I did with a website of mine in 2020. We talked about the idea of keeping your work fresh, changing the routine, sparking some creativity. Talked about maybe doing a pivot where that might make sense. And finally, the mindset shift of I get to versus I have to. If you're battling burnout, don't just think it'll magically go away. I encourage you to seek out some professional help beyond the advice of your friendly neighborhood podcast host. I will also link up the individual episodes that we heard clips from in this show in the show notes for this episode. Just follow the show notes, link in the episode description and it'll get you right over there. As I mentioned, the side Hustle show recently had its 12th birthday. It's almost a teenager and like you heard, there's a lot of gold in the archives. You just got to know where to find it. And to make that easier and hopefully more relevant for you, you can actually get a personalized side Hustle show playlist at Hustle Show. Just answer a few short multiple choice questions and it'll recommend eight to ten of our greatest hits based on your answers that you can add to your device. You can learn what works and you can go make some more money again. That's Hustle show for that short personalized playlist quiz. Big thanks to all our guests over the years for sharing their wisdom on this important topic. Thanks to our sponsors for helping make this content free for everyone. Where do you go if you want to see all the latest offers from our sponsors in one place? Stay with me. Sidehustlenation.com deals is that place. Thanks for supporting the advertisers that support the show. That's it for me. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you're finding value in the show, make sure to text a friend. Until next time, let's go out there and make something happen and I'll catch you in the next edition of the Side Hustle Show. Hustle on the.