How to Start a Side Hustle Without Quitting Your 9-5 (Step-by-Step Guide)

Building a business or side hustle while keeping a full-time job is one of the safest ways to create financial freedom. In this video, we break down how side hustles helped generate additional income, pay off six-figure debt, and eventually lead to building a scalable remote business.

In this video you’ll discover:
✅ How to build a business while still working your 9-to-5
✅ The side hustles that helped generate extra income and pay down $114K in debt
✅ How to choose a side hustle based on skills, demand, and schedule
✅ The simple business foundation you need before trying to scale
✅ Time management strategies that allow you to build a business after work
✅ Signs your side hustle may be ready to replace your job

Whether you’re looking to start a side hustle, create additional income streams, or eventually transition out of your job, this breakdown shows a realistic path that doesn’t require quitting your job first.

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Transcript

The Myth Of Quitting Your Job

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Most people think that they gotta quit their job in order to start a side hustle. That's absolute BS. We have built a business that's done over three million dollars while keeping our nine to five jobs, and we had four jobs in between us while we were doing that. Literally four jobs. If we could do it, you absolutely could too. In this conversation, we're breaking down the exact step-by-step framework that you guys could use to start your side hustle without quitting your job, without losing your mind, and while building income. Let's get it. What's going on, guys? Welcome to another episode of the More Than a Side Hustle Podcast. And if you guys are watching this, you've probably gotten a nine to five that pays the bills, but you know there's gotta be more, right? And maybe you're just trying to pay off some debt. Maybe you want to travel more, maybe you want to you wanna have some options.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

And our credentials. My name is Janoka.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

And I'm Anthony.

SPEAKER_01 0:55

And we, as he mentioned, we work multiple nine to five jobs and side hustles at the same time. So we know what we're talking about, okay? So let us get into it. Our side hustle journey. How do we start off?

SPEAKER_00 1:06

We had$114,000 of debt, and our goal was to pay this off as soon as possible. So we started looking into side hustles that fit our current lifestyle. So we moved down to Texas, and one of the first things we did was we got a dog. So our dog was a little bit shy.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

So we decided to use Rover. If you don't know, that's kind of like when people go on vacation, they put their j dogs in a pet co or animals, actually. Instead, it's in a home. So that's what we did with our dog Blue being shy. I was working from home, so I was watching multiple dogs at home, essentially, while their families traveled or did what they had to do. And that was the first platform that we used was Rover, Dog Watch, and helped him to socialize. I walked them, fed them essentially what you do to walk to keep up with dogs. Sometimes we had as much as three to four dogs. We generally only did like one at a time. But listen, if they asked and there was a uh recurring um client, we did it.

Turo Playbook And Ratings Power

SPEAKER_00 1:55

And you were able to get about$25 a day per dog. So in some instances, we were getting$75 to$100 a day just from watching dogs. Now, looking back, we probably wouldn't do that again. But if you're a dog person, that's which we weren't dog people though. We definitely weren't dog people during that time. We were side hustling. So but you gotta do what you gotta do in order to get to your goals. The next thing we did was we did car rentals. So we put our car on a platform called Turo. So Turo is a peer-to-peer car rental platform where you could just put your car up. And instead of people going to like an enterprise or Hertz or something, they could just rent your car. So we did that for about a year or so.

SPEAKER_01 2:28

Yeah. Both of our cars were on there until mine eventually broke down. And then we used that to help pay off Anthony's car because when we moved down to Dallas, we had got a new car. And once it paid off, we took his car off the platform.

unknown 2:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:41

So we were renting our car out. And we got to the point where we were raising the rate so high because we used our customer service. So our ratings were pretty high. So we became one of the highest rated renters or rental platforms in the area. So we were upwards of a hundred dollars a day for a 2014 Infinity back then. So and eventually we just ended up pulling my car down from the platform. But people were driving it, they were coming in. Now obviously, the downside is this is your personal vehicle, people are literally using it. But the good side is that you don't have to trade your time for money, they're coming to pick up the car and they can use it for a week, two weeks. And eventually we actually got a Nissan Central that we put on that platform just to do that.

Trading Time Versus Scalable Income

SPEAKER_01 3:20

We still have the car now. We have paid it in full, and so it was just easy. So we were doing that up until I want to say 2020, 2021, around there. We were determined to pay this debt off. Okay. So another side hustle that we were doing was we were working at Equinox. We were working at a gym. Anthony was doing maintenance. I actually was doing the front desk. And then you did that maybe for like six, seven months. I think he had stopped after a while. And then I worked there, I don't even know how long, but it was a good amount of time, at least a year and a half, two years, to the point that I became like a team lead at the front desk and everything. And then eventually um we stopped. So that gave us a free membership as well at Equinox. And if you don't know, it's a luxury hotel. I mean, excuse me, but they do have a hotel, a luxury gym all over the country. And so we did that for a bit. And that was only nine dollars an hour at that time. That was nine dollars an hour. We were still working our salary jobs that we had and bringing in a good amount of income because I was working at least over 25 hours a week sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 4:18

This is outside of our nine to five jobs.

Types Of Side Hustles That Fit Life

SPEAKER_01 4:20

Outside of nine to five. All of these is while maintaining a nine to five. Now, if you listen to Rover, you're in the house, not much, you're going to walk your dog, nothing big. Toro, I was working from home. So go ahead, take my car. I'm not, that's nothing serious. Equinox was after work. I was getting off at four o'clock here central, so I was able to work there at five to ten or on the weekends. We didn't have kids at the time, so a lot more flexibility in that. And then what else? So were you doing?

SPEAKER_00 4:45

Also, I was working usually like eight to five. So I would leave my job and then go and work at the gym as well. So we both work there. Another thing we did was online surveys. So online surveys was extremely passive. You fill out a survey, or it is still exists. It still exists, yeah. You can actually check out some of our previous episodes about it. We did um an episode with Seth, the survey plug. He actually teaches people how to do online surveys from home. So these surveys would range from like$100,$200,$300 per survey. Now, all of them are not going to be that high. Some of them were in person. Yeah, some of them were in person. Like we had to do a test tasting in person where I got to taste outs one of the favorite place. My favorite place, nothing but cake. So I ended up doing a$150 survey to eat cake that I already was going to eat anyway. So that's a good thing. You could go, there's tons of places you could look up. Like I said, we didn't we done a previous episode on this. So you can do surveys. That's exactly what we were doing during that time too.

SPEAKER_01 5:35

I also I'm a mental health therapist, so I was doing private practice. So my nine to five job was not necessarily private practice at all. And so I was doing that as well. Listen, I don't know how we're keeping up with all of it, but I was doing that as well part-time. So something that we always say is, even though it wasn't at my job, but like, can you do more of whatever you do? Right? Is there some type of extra work that you can do, be it at your job or somewhere else in the career that you're already in? And that's what the private practice was for. So seeing clients outside of my job.

SPEAKER_00 6:04

And another thing that we were doing was I did uh you're probably like, what the hell? So I was also doing IT contract work back in the day.

SPEAKER_01 6:13

100%.

SPEAKER_00 6:14

So I was doing IT contract work back in the days. So I did information technology as a full-time job. So one thing I did back when we lived in New York was I was doing IT. So I was helping people set up websites, I was helping people set up their computers, literally outside of my jobs. So I took my skill set, both of us took our skill sets that we had and used it to make more money outside of our jobs. And then last but not least, obviously, you guys know, or maybe you don't know, we started a remote cleaning business outside of our jobs as well. So outside of everything that we just said, we also started a cleaning business where we weren't the ones cleaning houses. That's what we eventually used, and all of this helped us pay off our hundred and fourteen thousand dollars of debt, and we tried so many things.

SPEAKER_01 6:51

That's why, yeah, and that's why we tried so many things is we were determined to pay off the debt. That was the goal. You know, we did that in 23 months, and so when you have a goal and you're working towards it, you're willing to do almost anything. Eventually, those things obviously fell off. Like I said, he didn't stay at the equinox long. I actually enjoyed it because I work from home and it was like a way to socialize. So I'm like, I'm gonna continue it. So eventually those things fell off, and then the cleaning business took off, so then it was like kind of like, all right, goodbye. There's the rest of the things. Not all side hustles are created equal.

SPEAKER_00 7:22

So a lot of things we talked about was either going to spend your time or you're gonna spend your money, or is it even scalable, right? So you gotta figure out what best fits you in what season. So Rover wasn't very it was very time intensive because the dogs were out of place, but Turo wasn't, meaning like I don't know if I would consider Rover time intensive because you're just in the house doing what you were gonna do.

SPEAKER_01 7:41

Going to the gym, working at a gym is time intensive. But me just being in the house and I'm just literally looking at them playing.

SPEAKER_00 7:47

It depends what type of dog person you are. We were very active with the dogs. No, yeah, they were just sleeping or so if you're a dog person, you're gonna you're gonna be overly active with them. But like you said, us going to the gym was very time intensive. We couldn't do anything while we were at the gym. So those five hours, we were making the money. We were it was guaranteed income. We were making the money, but we had to trade our time for that versus uh Turo where we rented our car and that wasn't time intensive. We had a lockbox, we had a push to start, we had all these things where you could track the cars, and even the cleaning business, but that didn't require our time to actually go in and do the cleaning. So you gotta decide which route you're gonna go, whether it's gonna be active income or scalable income.

Foundations: LLC, Website, Payments

SPEAKER_01 8:22

But you have to know that you can't do both. You either have time or money, right? You can't say I don't got neither of them, then whatever you're doing, it's kind of not gonna grow or work out. You literally have to have one or the other, or maybe you have both, but you can't say I don't have none of them. And there's no point of side hustling or doing anything if you don't have time or money.

SPEAKER_00 8:41

And the selling problem that came with the hourly work is that we were, like I said, our income was capped by the amount of hours. So you got the gym work or you got the service business, which was unlimited income, quote unquote, because we weren't trading our time for money, versus if you decide to do something like a digital product where your income is not capped by the amount of customers there are or the amount of time you can sell the product, right? So you gotta figure out which route you're gonna go.

SPEAKER_01 9:03

So kind of what you touched on was the different types of side hustles, and the reason why we were able to do all these side hustles because we made it work for our life, I would say. Um, and depending on where you are, then it it makes sense. In this day and age, us going to a gym would not make sense because we have two kids and that would take coordination of paying somebody, and that doesn't make any sense. But so as he was mentioned, there's done for you, which you kind of do the work, where there's consulting or services and things like that, or done with you in that you're teaching others different things like workshops and coaching can be involved in that, or you do it yourself, and where they consume the content, YouTube, digital products, templates, stuff like that, those are different types of side hustles that we would suggest that you can get into. I guess it depends on where you are in your life as well, as to what would make the most sense.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

So, how to pick your side hustle? So we gotta figure out a few things. So, what are you decent at? What do people ask you about repeatedly? What problems can you solve? Does it fit your schedule? And then last but not least, is there a proof of concept? So, what are you good at? So, one of the things we started a side hustle on was like for me, IT consulting. This was my nine to five job. So, what did I do outside of my job? I consulted other people on IT consulting. So, what are you good at? You don't have to be an expert, but remember you're getting paid by a job for something that you're actually pretty good at. You don't gotta be better than everyone, you just gotta be better at the solving a problem than a few people. So that would be an example of that.

Social Proof Over Perfection

SPEAKER_01 10:26

And I think many times you don't necessarily think, you think like, oh everybody's doing that, or and it kind of goes into that saturation thing that I don't need to do that. And I think about people saying, like, oh, we don't need any more trainers in this world, like fitness trainers, because they're like, there's so many people, there's so many options. Which, yeah, that's true. But I always say, you know, we always say there's something specific to you that'll make you connect with people and make people want to work out with you, whatever that may be, whatever that specialty is, whatever you maybe you look like, your body, where you come from, the way you talk, the way you smell. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 10:55

It doesn't matter. I'll give you a tangible example of that. My friend Oz, the way he trains is more organic. He's like, All right, I'm not going to have you give up all your food. I'm going to see how we can mix what you're already eating versus what could be better for you, versus we're gonna do a full-blown workout program when I know you got a bad back and I know you have decent eating habits. So he's like, I'm going to tailor around who you are and what you do, versus most trainers like, you're gonna follow this regimen that I created for you.

SPEAKER_01 11:18

And then the other part of it of figuring out like what do people ask you about repeatedly? That one is a little hard because if I think for myself, I have nothing. What? But what people ask me about repeatedly. People ask you, hold on, then the question becomes who is the people? Is it just like friends and family?

SPEAKER_00 11:33

Doesn't matter. These are people. So, for example, for you, they're always asking you about how to find a nanny, they're always asking you about all pairs, they're always asking you about how do you maintain a household, how do you do all these businesses as a mom, as an entrepreneur, as uh a wife. So then you gotta make a side hustle out of that. It could be. These are things that people are asking about repeatedly, but these are real problems that people are trying to solve as well.

SPEAKER_01 11:54

Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_00 11:54

So you gotta think about it. What is a problem that someone's willing to pay you for?

Simple Tools To Start Fast

SPEAKER_01 11:58

So for example, that's a good point, too, because what you but what you may think people won't pay you for, that's probably not true. People would. Because I know I have that thing as well, like just in I mean, in regards to cleaning business university, that's a big example. We have that discussion of like, I don't think people really care about starting a clean, but I don't think people really really want that. We had started with most people knowing us about debt. So I'm like, that's probably what people want to know about. And no, people are were and are interested in learning about that. So what you think people don't want to pay for may not be the situation, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:28

And is speaking of, is there other people getting paid for that thing as well? Well in this day and age, yeah. Exactly. So it's already proof of concept, it's already proven that somebody's going to pay someone for it. So why not have that be you and does it fit your schedule? So obviously, we got kids, you got family, you gotta decide working at a gym might not be ideal for you. But if you work from home, could it be starting a side hustle while you're there? Like for us, it was our cleaning business where we knew we had these side hustles, but we knew we could run our cleaning business from anywhere. So you gotta figure out is there a schedule around it that can work for your life? Because I believe that everybody could have a side hustle in some way, shape, or form.

Time Audits And Daily Blocks

SPEAKER_01 13:01

And it doesn't have to be, I think, the most popular thing, or what most people would say is the sexy thing. I don't think it has to necessarily be that. I think we see things as maybe trainers or here or content creator, and we're like, well, that's not what my thing is. Sometimes when you are more specific, that makes it even better. Like you have this specific niche. I don't know, you color umbrellas. Let's just go all on a limb. I don't know. But that thing, there's somebody out there that's interested in it, or other people that may do it or never thought of it. That thing that you think, like, well, it's not as big as everything else, that may be your thing. That may be the thing that you need to go all in on.

SPEAKER_00 13:37

100%. So now you found your side hustle idea, and now what? What do you want to do next? And most people jump in immediately and mess up the next part. So depending on how you want to run a side hustle, right? You can do it where you have a business foundation, or you're gonna run it as a complete side hustle. So I would say if you're going to turn this into a full-blown business outside your nine to five, you want to have things like an LLC.

SPEAKER_01 13:56

So, how do you know to do that? Do you do that right away or do you test the concept and then do that?

SPEAKER_00 14:00

I would say test the concept first. So make sure you can get paid from the thing. Or if you're like, I'm going all in and I'm going to make sure this thing works, then get your LLC, the business bank account, and you want to have something like that. Maybe you build a website, don't overcomplicate it, don't make it too sexy, just have something where people can find, book, and pay you. So if you're doing nails, you're doing lashes, or you're doing hair or something like that, I'm gonna have a way to people that can pay you online. It doesn't have to be crazy, it doesn't have doesn't have to be fancy, but you should have these things at least if you're going to do a service-based business like that.

The Paycheck Advantage

SPEAKER_01 14:28

And then your online presence matters in 2026. I know there are there are people that you probably go to, like service-based businesses that you probably go to, like they don't got a website, I still book them. I get it, but in this day and age, you need a website. It doesn't have to be anything crazy, but somewhere that people can see the information, so you're not DMing and emailing like this is my link. They can just go and check out the information and make a decision based off of that. They need, like you said, find you, book you, and pay you. Website, I'm finding it. Now I could book your services because I know what you offer, and then I can put a deposit, put my card down, whatever it is that you have there. It doesn't have to be anything extravagant, and I think now, even more, it's so much easier to make a website than previously, than just eight years ago, even four years ago. There's many places you can find and just and go ahead and do that, and then a payment processor, meaning that you can take payments, you can take card payments, so be that stripe, PayPal, square. You know, you've seen those little square things that people hook up to their phone. Anything simple that you can take money from people from a card or processing, is really not as complicated, I think, as it once was to have a website and take payments. So you absolutely should have that.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

I would say another thing is social proof. So even if you like, I'm not gonna do the whole website thing, you might say, All right, I'm on rover.com. We made sure, just like we built our cleaning business, to get as many reviews from people as possible, which made us one of the highest-rated company and highest-rated people that were watching dogs in the area. So that allowed us to raise our prices, you know, because they're gonna come and say, Oh, this person has 20 reviews, this person has 50 reviews. I see why their prices are higher. Or even with Toro, like I said, when we were entering our car, we had some of the highest rated reviews in the area. Right. So I could now raise my prices. We could charge.

SPEAKER_01 16:15

And then a mistake that we made is spending weeks trying to make things perfect. Now, if you're a perfectionist, you know that's you. I don't think I'm gonna change that for you in this 15-second conversation. But everything doesn't does not need to be perfect, and things go on. You learn as you grow. You literally learn as you grow. We were talking about that, how what show was that Game of Thrones, how they had a coffee in the coffee mug, yeah. They had a coffee mug, whatever, in one of one of their finales or something like that. And we're talking about a billion-dollar uh franchise, right? They made a mistake and they kept it pushing. What they gonna do about it, right?

SPEAKER_00 16:46

Right, nobody caught that.

Managing The Mental Game

SPEAKER_01 16:48

Like, how did all these people on set not see this thing? But that's just an example of it doesn't need to be perfect, and honestly, it shouldn't be perfect. That's how you learn and grow with your business. No business that you've seen out here started with, oh, we got everything right. You know what I mean? Um, that's just part of the process. Uh and I know if you're a perfectionist, you're like, I can't look past that, but it is part of the process, and certain things don't matter. I think we think it does, but it doesn't. We think about fonts, we think about um colors, some details. Now it does depend on the business. I get that, but more than likely the business or side hustle that you're doing, those little details don't necessarily matter, and you're probably just holding on to it as procrastination or excuses to why you can't get it up and running.

SPEAKER_00 17:31

Nobody cares, they just want to know if you could help them. Right. Right. If they know you can help them, then everything else is secondary to that. That overthinking that keeps us in that loop, basically. So a few things that um we already mentioned, like getting cut testimonials from real customers to get out your head. So a few tools to start. So you want to have something that you could communicate people with people with. So let's say you want to have an email, you want to have a phone, you could do Google Voice, you could do Ring Central, you could use um Grasshopper. These are things that actually don't gotta give people your personal phone number. Email, I would recommend trying to get away from the Gmail if you're gonna actually build a business, you know, because it just looks a little bit more professional having a your domain, which is your www.whatever your business name is your side hustle. Cat can fly. Catscanfly.com scheduling, you use Calendly. You could collect payments on Calendly as well. Like you said, payments, you could use Stripe, PayPal, Square. But again, keep it simple. You don't need tons of tools to get started on your side hustle.

SPEAKER_01 18:25

So and then even with some of these tools like project management and stuff, they offer like a free trial or just like depending on the usage and things like that, it can be free. You don't have to pay for everything up front, like, oh, I need all these things. That keeps us in that paralysis and procrastination of doing something because I gotta pay for this, I gotta pay for that, I gotta get it. You know, you don't. You absolutely do not. Do not you actually do not just get started, get the things, get the thing rolling.

SPEAKER_00 18:49

Get started, get fancy later. That's one of my quotes.

When To Quit Your 9 To 5

SPEAKER_01 18:52

So you have the foundation, but here's where I feel like it kind of gets real. You still have your nine to five. Now, how do I manage everything that you told me to build? You just told me to do all these things for my for my side hustle. Now, how do I actually manage it all without burning out? Because it's kind of like you know, and don't get me wrong, there may be times where maybe work is crazy and your side hustle is difficult and crazy as well. That may happen, right? I won't say it never will, but the point is for it not to be a constant thing.

SPEAKER_00 19:23

So we both got out got out of work around four, five o'clock, and we were home around four fifteen, five fifteen, and then we had right went right to the gym. So we had six, five to six hours, six to seven hours before 11 p.m.

SPEAKER_01 19:35

hit. Which is usually when we were like going to bed. And so most people think that they don't have any time. You probably have more time than you think. If you do like a a time audit of like your free time, and I know you may be like, I well, I don't want to work on that after that, but just check it out. You probably have more time. Generally, we're watching TV or scrolling or things like that. So doing an audit of your time even for the day for the week, you probably can find an additional, I don't know, sometimes 15-20 hours in your week. And that includes weekends. Oh, you weekends you have even more time, but um, you probably can find some time in your week, be it early in the morning or after um after work, essentially. And so when we worked together, it was like five to ten together at the gym. And then we also, like I said, we got free membership, we were able to see each other during that time. So that was a way that we kind of kept the connection going. Like turning work time into together time, which if you're working on a business or something with your spouse or a friend or whatever the case may be, that's something that you actually can do. It's kind of like stacking our time. That's a word I hear all the time. Stacking habits, if you will. Um, stacking it efficiently was what we were doing at the time. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:47

And so non-negotiable time block. So for us or for you guys, you might want to block out one to two hours every single day to decide how you're gonna do your business. So even when we talk to students inside of Cleaning Busy University and members, we asked them realistically, how much time can you dedicate to building this business every single day? And it's not like you gotta spend five hours every single day, but realistically, can you put an hour in? Can you put two hours in? Can you use your lunch break? I used to use my lunch break to actually build the business. I used to use my lunch break to build the side hustles. And if you realize you're really just sitting there eating your lunch, doing nothing. It's like, can I pull out my laptop? Can I schedule some interviews? Can I send out some text messages? Can I send out some emails? Can I call some people during my lunch break? And I will come back from lunch with a fully built-out business while most of my co-works was still sitting there talking about the NFL game or NBA game or whatever it was. So there is time in the day we just gotta figure out what it looks like.

SPEAKER_01 21:38

And then just being consistent kind of helps you, like he said, you you got the time now. How do you remain consistent with you being consistent with what you want to do? If this is the side house that you want to do, or this is a business you want to do, how do you keep that up and make sure you keep those two hours in a day, blocking it off from co workers or family members or whatever the case may be and dedicating that time to it? So the nine to five.

Community, Environment, And Growth

SPEAKER_00 22:00

advantage that most people forget is that you have a stable paycheck. Yeah. So we never tell anyone to quit your job in order to start your side hustle because stable paychecks means less pressure. We kept our nine to five for five years while we built our cleaning business. Five years. We were still clocking in at our jobs. We were still running the business and we were still doing the side hustles. One time my boss found out and he was like I saw what you guys do so much. Like why is that? I'm like because I'm limited on the amount of money I can make in my job. But outside the job my income is untapped unlimited. So I can make as much money as I want outside the job. He's like understood and he left it at that but your income will be unlimited outside your job. So keep that stable check and build a side also outside of it.

SPEAKER_01 22:44

And you can take risks, do ideas when you're comfortable when you have the money to do so, right? It's like you're not desperate so you have make better decisions. When we have students come to us and say oh this is my last dollar and I'm going to get clean of business university we say absolutely not because you're going to be moving in that desperation phase and it's it's not going to work. It's going to be friction. It's going to be feel frustrating. So if you have a side hustle we absolutely say keep your nine to five that's what helps you to figure out what works, what doesn't can I tweak here? Can I do this? And your side hustle can grow at your pace, which is another big thing. Like you're not in competition with anyone here. I mean unless you're building the next Amazon and somebody's on your butt about it or the next Tesla or something you're not in competition with anyone when it comes to a side hustle. It's only you. Now I don't say move at snail pace but you can move at your own pace that you would like to do and what makes sense for you financially, emotionally time-wise all those things. And as we mentioned before leveraging your nine to five skills in what you do can, you know, there your nine to five skills are more than likely transferable. Maybe not everything but there's a lot of things in there that are transferable that you can utilize in other places um be it in your side hustle be it in just another extra job to make extra money whatever that looks like like like I said we I did a private practice Anthony was doing IT helping people get their computers up and running. So what transferable skills can you utilize that maybe you can get paid for in a consulting way or just outside of your job?

Five-Step Recap And CTA

SPEAKER_00 24:07

All right so now you're managing your time the business is growing but there's something nobody talks about that almost made us quit. The mental game. So you are doing all these things outside your nine to five and you are now all over the place. So whether you got a business or a side off so you're trying to figure out how to manage it all and you start thinking about what happens if all of this goes away. And all the what ifs all the what ifs start to happen and it starts to flood your thoughts and what if this doesn't happen or what if this breaks or what if this business doesn't go this is normal. You are not alone this isn't you're not the first person who are who's done this and you won't be the last so now it's how you handle hand not you how do you handle the mental game.

SPEAKER_01 24:45

You also kind of feel like you're alone just because not friends or family friends or family are not not everyone's building a business or a side hustle right so it can we understand it can feel lonely. We had each other to kind of talk it through with and then eventually joining groups and just being in different rooms but we totally understand like that fear of what if this doesn't work what if that and we always try to flip that of what if it does work what if it does change your life because it absolutely can right it absolutely can you just never know right um and then you have that comparison. So if there is someone doing the thing that you're doing of you wanting to be in that place or why isn't it working out for you and but be careful what you wish for. You really you don't you know that saying like I don't know what goes on in people home like you don't know what it's taking for the person to get there. You don't know what they did they didn't do finances emotionally what it takes to get there. And remember we're moving at our own pace.

SPEAKER_00 25:40

You're moving at your own pace and it just may look different for everyone right so even in our cleaning business journey we met someone who was doing the same thing and they were scaling way beyond us and we said that we was like wait why haven't we grown that grown that fast and they told us the story behind it and we realized that we didn't want to grow that fast because if it caused you mental anxiety it caused you health issues it caused you to or lose all these things as you're growing the business we don't even know whatever happened to them but we actually probably should do a check-in if we could but it was like we didn't realize all that was going on behind the scenes and we were like we wish we had the growth we wish we had this growth we wish we were doing what you were doing. We realized we didn't want all of that right and you got to be okay with that you got to know what works for you. Some people see us as like I want all of that and it's like do you like this everything you're looking at right here takes time energy and money right and then you post a video or you post your story and nobody watches it you spend an hour and a half of your day hoping it impacts someone and it doesn't. Are you okay with that?

SPEAKER_01 26:38

Yeah you gotta be yeah because it us comparing almost made us kind of quit at eight months into our cleaning business which was a side hustle was a business a side hustle whatever at the time just a side hustle that wasn't worth it. It wasn't true like is it worth it? And then in the next month we had our biggest month I mean I I don't know why it happened that way but had we had stopped or continued comparing ourselves and focusing on that then it wouldn't have been our biggest we just would have ended it and we wouldn't be here today. So you don't know where things will take you I think giving it time is important as well to to let it grow now I'm not saying go broke over it but giving it time to grow or you go at your own risks I know different people are different risk takers giving it time to grow and see the fruits of it and see what it can do is important as well right it's important as well.

SPEAKER_00 27:26

So another big factor is supporting each other. So if you are if you have a family you are you're a spouse you got a wife you got a husband you got kids you got a mom with a dad whatever it is how do you support each other you got to be overcommunicative about everything. You got to make people feel a part of your world if you're like hey I'm going on this journey you got to bring people into that story. It can't just be your story alone in isolation because they're going to want to help you but the more you isolate people from that journey the more they're going to say you know what you do your own thing. So especially in the household you got to overcommunicate everything. So you got to give each other space when needed I know you were pretty I mean you're always good about that but yeah if we're talking about business or not she's gonna be like yo listen we're not talking about business today.

SPEAKER_01 28:05

It's like we're gonna have monthly you know family check-ins every single month we're gonna we're doing it every single week back then but we're gonna find out where we are mentally physically emotionally financially spiritually we're gonna do monthly check-ins weekly check-ins um if you need it because I recommend starting with that and then like I said if if you're solo you find accountability or a community or somewhere that is maybe doing the thing that you're doing or startup entrepreneurs or startup side hustle whatever it may be or kind of just getting in that space I think is important because like we said it can feel lonely and also you have nobody to like bounce ideas off of or talk through things of like this is frustrating is this normal this happened what do I do here so um and then some of the mindset shift that kind of saves us is what you know what if your worst case is better than 90% 99% of people's best case which is kind of like what if it does work I know we kind of get stuck in that um we assume that it won't but many times it can if we allow it to if we put our energy into it if we continue to speak about it and let people know what we're doing and all those type of things it can be something that that you want it to be whatever that you know kind of looks like.

SPEAKER_00 29:14

And also celebrate the small wins. So whether it's your first client or first hundred dollars or first review these are things that keep you going and I know a lot of times even in our situation we got to go back and celebrate wins you just literally did something what yesterday oh I did okay with the the document oh yeah yeah yeah I did do it so we have trying to remember so we have a document where we just outline all of our publications that we've been featuring on on on different podcasts and Good Morning America CNBC articles articles and YouTubes whatever yesterday somebody asked for that document or asked us like where have we been and we pulled up the document and you were just like you know you're that girl and I was like well we're that family but they hold you I was like yeah I was like we're that family but I was talking to my community which is just a woman it didn't matter so it was you know it's just you need those reminders you gotta celebrate those small wins because you're building options you're not escaping your life so always remember that document the document document the wins the lessons then the question I you know you got the business foundation you're managing me you're like all right I mentally know how to manage it the question always is like oh when do I quit my nine to five we'd be like hold your horses wait a minute now wait a minute now I think the answer to that is very personal no matter what you say like we had said to each other okay once we cover salary for a month for two months for six months for a year like it kept stretching and nobody ever left well Anthony actually did leave I should say no he actually did leave which is that three years now I think December's gonna be four years ago uh he actually did go ahead and leave but we were talking about it years before and just never did it.

SPEAKER_01 30:52

So I think that it is gonna be very personal to you on when you make that decision because obviously different things play into it. Financial situation like your job your kids your life health benefits all these things play into you making a decision but this can help you to maybe get closer to it. So let's calculate some numbers so right so numbers don't lie as Jay-Z said.

SPEAKER_00 31:13

So how do you know when you're ready to leave or not right we never tell anyone to quit their nine to five but if you're trying to think through the process is like all right what's your fixed monthly expenses do you have a budget? Do you have a budget? Because if you did you'll see all of it there. Okay so your rent, your food your bills your loans your expenses everything these things that do not change this is your living expenses month after month with what's your fixed number that could be 5k that could be 10k that could be 15 that could be 20 whatever it is what is that number and your side business should be able to cover that number. Now for how long can it cover that number so you're like hey if I make six months of my fixed monthly expenses I'm gonna feel comfortable doing it. Yeah or is it a year or our rule don't quit it unless you're able to do it for at least six months right and then you want to have your emergency expenses so yeah so I would say six months is maybe like a minimum safe net safety net.

SPEAKER_01 32:03

I won't just bang on that especially in the economy that we're in I would say that would be a minimum to say to go ahead and lose you want to have your job emergency fund.

SPEAKER_00 32:12

Now it's not just about your feelings so I didn't leave my job when I got upset on my boss. We're making this money outside of our jobs we don't need to be here. Don't quit your job because of that or you got a bad week or you got a bad month or remember the plan needs to have numbers backing it. So keep that nine to five and build along the way because again it's going to be easier to build this inside hustle until you're like listen my job is now becoming a burden to the business right or side hustle.

SPEAKER_01 32:38

And just having that understanding that I'm gonna I'm gonna this is what it's gonna take to for me to quit. But once again I say even if you have that written it may not go as such because it's such a hard thing but I think it's also important to remember that even if you quit you still have your skills so it don't mean you never could go back to work. A hundred percent I always say that like it doesn't mean that you never can go back like I'm a mental health therapist I'm a mental health therapist. Nobody can take my masters from me. I keep my license um updated I can go back to work in a week next week if I wanted to you know what I mean like it doesn't mean that you never can work again I think that's an important thing to kind of think of if it's like okay I just want to not work for a year or two years and then I'll get back to it. Okay maybe maybe that maybe that's what it looks like.

SPEAKER_00 33:22

But you don't have to be so absolute about it basically sound so business side hustle or business coverage your expenses you have the systems and team in place so you're not doing everything yourself you start turning down work from the side hustle because of your nine to five that's a big one. If you like my side hustle or business is cap because of my job you start reevaluating the time you just spending at your job. So you're like wait if I put the same time into my job or same time that I have in my job into my business will it grow? And I'm going to tell you just because you got 40 hours at work don't mean you're gonna put 40 hours into your business. You might have more you might have less but you got to learn I'm still learning all these years. Yeah I mean three years in I'm still trying to figure out the time in the office time outside of the office and then also the mental capacity you got to think about that as well. And then your spouse and partner are they okay with it do not quit your job because you're like oh we're making all this money outside my nine to five no is your partner are they ready are you guys on board did you have a conversation did you pray on it whatever your religion may be those are things you want to think about and there's no right answer.

SPEAKER_01 34:28

And then like what if you never quit so the goal is options it's not necessarily to quit right the goal is options. If you want to quit be my guest I ended up quitting my job. Yeah yeah yeah the goal is just to have options does it feel good to still have your nine to five income and have an additional 4,000 coming in probably yes yes or an extra 1000 coming in yes that feels great while maintaining your nine to five if that's what you want to do you don't necessarily have to quit your job. So just think about it in that way too I we understand like that's the world that we live in and stuff like that. But if things are comfortable for you if you enjoy it don't you work from home you you know you're fine with it then then stay with it. That's a completely fine which I know in social media it's it's a kind of a different world that they show but we always say like if that's if you like your job and you're enjoying it I see no reason to leave. Make that extra money on the side it's a little different feeling when you're getting that extra money on the side with the nine to five trust me got a little extra dip on your chip. Yes a whole different feeling and different paths obviously are okay. Some people will just build did it for a year close it down some people will do it for five years some people will keep their job some people won't some people you know so whatever it looks like for you I think that's important for as a family to figure out as well what does it look like for us or what does success mean or what does it mean for us to continue to do this I think would make a definite difference.

SPEAKER_00 35:46

Few things we would have got started with sooner if we would have known so getting around different people sooner. So obviously you know if we would have left New York we would have been exposed to different people in spaces or your environment that's a big one we tell people like your environment may be limiting your potential possibilities. If you're around the same people every single day in the same neighborhood doing the same exact thing how are you going to learn? How are you going to grow so getting outside your environment and you can't learn what you can't see. You don't know what you don't know.

SPEAKER_01 36:12

And even that like you said that community of getting around other people because more than likely more you know our friends and family do have nine or five. So like how do you get around and how do you grow does that mean getting a coach getting a community going to events listening to podcasts like those are just some of the things that off the top of my head that you can automatically do to learn more as you get into the space or as your side hustle or business continues to grow.

SPEAKER_00 36:36

Consume content from people who are further ahead of you that is super important. Get around people who are thinking bigger than you super important. There's this quote you are the average of the five people you hang around with yeah they say that's true. I don't know how I don't know so if you hang around you know four millionaires you'll be the fifth if you hang around four broke people you'll probably be the fifth all right so you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.

SPEAKER_01 36:56

And then I would say to try to I don't say cut them off but distance yourself from people that may be negative or may not see the vision. And I think you kind of get an understanding like I have certain friends that I don't talk about certain things with not because oh they can't comprehend it but it's just not their world. You just have an understanding of certain things that people talk about and do and stuff like that. So I think you navigate that and figure that out as well.

SPEAKER_00 37:19

And you don't need anyone perm anyone's permission to start. Hopefully we gave you the permission that you felt like you needed if it was like I've been on a side hustle journey or thinking about it. Hopefully we gave you permission for you to feel like you're ready to go but you don't need anyone's permission to start. If you go to your job right now ask them for a raise will they give it to you if you walk in your boss's office right now and say hey I want to raise they're gonna be like uh go sit your ass back down. Sure. All right but there's always more money outside your job than inside there's always more money to be made in this world and you got to start before you're ready. If you're thinking about I'm gonna be doing uh actions that are going to be perfect it's going to be impossible to get started. So we don't want you to feel like you have to have all the steps in order for you to build something outside your job.

SPEAKER_01 37:58

Just to recap what we spoke about today the five steps quickly one find the right side hustle fits your life that's scalable set up your foundation whatever that looks like LLC S Corp manage your time without burnout handling the mental game of it getting around people that are doing the thing that you're doing like minded people and then knowing when you're ready to leave or not both are valid. So those are like the five quick steps that we discussed today on our episode.

SPEAKER_00 38:22

And you know what's possible when you start so we talked about us paying off some debt we talked about being able to travel and you can do these things while you're building your side us when you're outside your nine to five creating options for yourself and your family and have a safety net. We didn't talk about that having a safety net when your job disappears that's one of the main reasons that you should think about building something outside your job what happens if you walk in one day and say you're fired have a safety net if possible and it allows you to do work you actually enjoy. If you hate your job do something outside your job that you love. If you hate your job don't do the same thing that you hate outside your job. So think about that you guys we appreciate you being here you guys didn't know we help people start remote cleaning businesses without cleaning the houses you could check out the link in the description if you want to learn more we got our free resources as well and hit subscribe if this was helpful. Drop a comment what side hustle are you starting? What's holding you back?

SPEAKER_01 39:09

Let us know and we read in response to every comment and see you in the next video. Peace by