225: Rewire Your Mind to Win (Side Hustle to Main Hustle Pt. 1)
Turning Your Side Hustle into Your Main Hustle
We’re entering a new season of this show (Side Hustler’s Perspective Podcast) where I’m doubling down on my focus to bring you the best side hustle knowledge, resources, and actionable steps.
I’m a Creative Side Hustle Coach coaching side hustlers. From a messaging, branding, and marketing approach, the new shift in the podcast name just makes sense—the former name was confusing and not clear of the intent.
If you’re new here, here’s some context for this branding shift.
The Skinny
Here’s the skinny for why I feel qualified to speak on this massive topic we’re about to embark on, as this is by far my biggest and most important series to date.
I’ve drawn my entire life, but I started to pursue this as a semi-serious hobby post-college in 2010-2013.
This semi-serious hobby evolved into a profitable side hustle under the alias Perspective-Collective from 2014–2019. This was built on freelancing, selling merch, podcasting, speaking, sponsorships, affiliates, digital resources, and more.
In 2020, I finally took the scary self-employed leap as a Creative Side Hustle Coach. I’m now on back-to-back years of blowing this up into a 6-figure creative business.
We’re also debt-free and paving our way toward time and financial freedom, and it’s all because of my side hustle pursuits.
To me, side hustling is more than collecting checks for creating dope work.
To me, it’s about the mindset, sacrifice, and drive to bet big on yourself without seeking permission.
It’s about the willingness to fail, experiment, and do shit that makes you hella scared and uncomfortable AF.
It’s about building something you feel is important that goes against the grain of the traditional system and expectations of others.
It’s about becoming the best version of yourself and crushing it in all aspects of life—because everything flows back into your side hustle success.
Side Hustle Freedom Roadmap
My plan is to break down my journey and give you a roadmap and heavy dose of inspiration to carve your own path to side hustle success.
Today, we kick off a 3-Part Side Hustle to Main Hustle Series sharing my rollercoaster “success” story of:
Prioritizing personal development.
Gaining control of my money and not being a slave to debt.
Paving my own path to time and financial freedom.
As I wrote this behemoth of a series, I realized this could’ve easily been broken into 5–6 episodes.
I don’t have the bandwidth in my schedule, so I’m not able to go as in-depth as I’d wish, but know that I’m an open book to:
Answer whatever follow-up questions you may have.
Craft a future episode about anything you wish you I would’ve gone deeper on.
Part 1 today focuses on the power of personal development in terms of:
Rewiring your mind to win.
Making bold decisions.
Motivating yourself to take action.
These are the fundamental building blocks for successfully playing the game on your own terms long-term.
This episode is to show you the future success of yourself, your business, and your net worth all depend on the level of investment you make in your personal development.
The Resistance
The odds are stacked against you…
We’re constantly working against what Steven Pressfield calls in his Book: Do the Work “The Resistance.”
Each day you battle against traditional system thinking…
As well as external and internal critics, dream-killers, and non-believers.
If your mind isn’t prepared to navigate these obstacles, reaching those ambitious results are a far-fetched fantasy.
We’re going breakdown this Resistance into 3 areas of focus to address:
Internal Work
Non-Negotiables
Motivation
1. Internal Work > External Results
One of my favorite quotes from Jim Rohn states, “Your level of success will rarely exceed your level of personal development because success is something you attract by the person you become.”
Most of us are guilty of chasing the external vanity results for the wrong reasons: followers, clients, money, status, etc.
Important Note on Monetization: Please don’t pressure yourself to monetize your craft right from the jump when you haven’t paid your dues by doing the internal work. This is the surest way to suffocate the joy out of your creative dream.
Chasing someone else’s definition of success tends to paralyze us with comparison, imposter syndrome, and burnout.
This then fuels anxiety and allows fear to hold us hostage from making bold moves to better our circumstances.
It’s taken me a while to learn that gaining traction and experiencing breakthroughs manifests from…
Investing your time, energy, and even money into doing the hard, internal work first.
How are you supposed to:
Know who you and who your work is for if you don’t know yourself?
Reach your ambitious goals when you lack systems, routines, and good habits?
Shake off the inner and external critics when your mindset is fragile like an egg?
Again, this is so much more than a surface-level desire to “get paid for a living to create cool work.”
Let’s peel back the layers of this onion a little more…
Can you confidently answer the following:
What are your biggest dreams, fears, struggles, and pet peeves?
What are your greatest strengths, passions, and superpowers?
What are your current limiting beliefs and what past shitty experiences do they stem from?
Where do you contribute the most unique value and impact?
What are your blind spots and weaknesses that you’re ignoring?
Doing the internal work is an endless quest to become the best version of yourself.
Becoming the best version of yourself is crucial for your creative biz pursuits.
But it’s hard AF to accomplish anything in life when you haven’t laid the foundation—knowing who you are, so you can become the person you’re supposed to be.
Doing the internal work before obsessing over the external results helps you:
Gain confidence AND a competitive edge.
Show up as your most authentic, weird, and awesome self.
Build a mental fortress to protect your peace and energy.
It also helps you:
Broaden your perspective and operate from abundance.
Consume wisely and grow at a rapid pace.
Build disciplined habits, systems, and routines for long-term success.
More importantly, it allows you to appreciate your progress and master delayed gratification while you patiently play the long game.
All the internal work you do compounds over time…
Especially when you stack on improving your craft, cultivating community, and practicing self-care.
2. Non-Negotiables
Your side hustle (and life in general) is a game of choices…
Making decisions + coupled with action = progress over time.
Phoenix Suns’ Coach, Monty Williams, is known for telling his players, “Everything you want is on the other side of HARD.”
Pursuing something important to you isn’t supposed to be easy.
Grinding a 9–5 and retiring in your 60’s is hard.
Building a side hustle you love on your own terms is hard.
Choose your hard…
Here are 3 important decisions that are required if you want to turn your side hustle into your main hustle...
Decision #1: Make the decision your creative dream is non-negotiable in your life.
Adopt the mindset of treating your side hustle like it’s your main hustle.
It’s about making the gradual shift from being a hobbyist into becoming a professional.
(I go deeper on this subject back in Episodes 180, 181, and 182 in the 3-Part Blaze Your Own Path Series.)
This requires choosing to show up:
When it’s inconvenient and hard.
For your current and future happiness and purpose.
For those who need what you provide.
Decision #2: Make the decision that you believe and know it’s possible.
“How you talk to yourself matters,” is what my Nutrition Coach Aaron Straker says.
(Listen to his story back in episode 222.)
Mindset is EVERYTHING—your words and thoughts have power.
Use them wisely and speak, believe, and act what you want into existence.
Decision #3: Don’t look for the easy path.
Too many shortcut-seeking souls think the key to getting ahead is to cut corners.
When the easy path doesn’t yield results, they admit defeat…
Sadly, they never truly give themselves a fair shot due to unrealistic and unfair expectations.
Avoid being a part of the herd, go against the grain, and don’t pick the easy path.
The majority don’t have the mindset, patience, or discipline to start and stick with it over time.…
Be the minority!
If you want to win, you have to be willing to make sacrifices and put in the same time + sweat equity your heroes have invested.
3. Finding Motivation
There are a lot of non-glamorous angles to growing a full-time successful creative biz…
Lacking the energy and interest at times is part of the grind outside a day job, family, and life responsibilities.
One crucial lesson I’ve learned in 11+ years is this:
Motivation isn’t always present…
It typically comes from the act of doing.
Hobbyists wait for motivation to start and finish.
Make a choice to start when it’s inconvenient, and you’ll soon find your groove.
Start small in the beginning, so you can simplify and dominate the game.
This helps you stack easy wins, build momentum, and normalize your process, systems, and routines.
Motivation will continue to build as the results start to trickle in.
Profitability + Taxes
I want to make a quick note toward the next steps when you do actually start to monetize.
(This topic could and should become an episode on its own down the road.)
In the early stages, learn the tax game and get yourself a good CPA who can guide you.
Definitely put aside 30–40% anytime you make income as you don’t want the IRS auditing you.
Track your earnings through something free like manually doing it in Google Sheets…
Or do what I do and use Wave Apps which is a free web tool for tracking expenses, income, creating invoices, etc.
I save myself hella headaches from chasing down receipts by connecting my Chase Ink Business Card to this account.
I then categorize each expense, which gives me a lovely expense report breakdown I then hand over to my CPA.
In terms of picking a legal identity to operate under when you’re making cheddar…
I probably became an LLC too quickly, as I wasn’t generating much money.
I honestly showed a loss in terms of net earnings in my first 4–5 years (I also pocketed the majority of under-the-table cheddar).
Instead, I could’ve just submitted my little earnings through my SSN to avoid the recurring costs for the LLC.
Or I could’ve started as a Sole Proprietorship or a DB (doing business as) first.
I’m to the point now where I’m working with my CPA to transition to an S Corp for the tax benefits and setting my business up to eventually make my wife an employee of the company.
The message I’m trying to quickly drive home is:
Get a good CPA who can help you select the best legal identity.
Know the federal and state tax laws with your location.
Make sure to always stash 30–40% of any income into a tax account.
Mindset, Decisions, and Action
To summarize, my goal with this is to over-simplify these fundamentals I wish someone would’ve shared with me early on.
Basically, it boils down to Mindset, Decisions, and Action.
Mindset is the engine that fuels your side hustle.
Bold decision-making and action-taking are what propel you forward.
There’s more that goes into this, but these are the basic building blocks that’ll set the tone for taking your side hustle full-time one day!
And that’s what we’ll get to in the next two episodes of this 3-Part Side Hustle to Main Hustle Series.
Part 2 is all about getting your money right with budgeting, spending, and attacking debt.
Part 3 is all about attaining future financial freedom through saving and investing 101.
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Credits
Music - Blookah
Executive Assistant - Paige Garland
Photo & Video Specialist - Colton Bachar
Social Media Coordinator - Hannah Schick
Animation Specialist - Greg D'Amico