How to Manage Side Hustles and a Full-time Job

Let’s talk about something that hits so close to home: managing multiple side hustles while working a full-time job (and still having a life).

In this episode, I’m sharing my personal journey—how I turned one of my “little side hustles” into a seven-figure business while working full-time in the dental industry. I also open up about the messy middle: the late nights, the missed events, and the deep-rooted why that kept me going when it felt easier to quit.

If you’re building something on the side (or want to be), this one’s for you.

I’ll walk you through:

• How I schedule “CEO time” in a real-life calendar with real-life kids
• Why I never hated my 9–5—and still haven’t left it
• My go-to resource for outsourcing without breaking the bank (shoutout to Upwork)
• Why loving your job doesn’t mean you can’t build your dream on the side
• How to stay motivated when you feel stuck, tired, or like it’s all just… too much

💡 I also wrote a blog post that goes even deeper. Click here to read “How I Manage Side Hustles and a Full-Time Job” on the One Wild Brand blog.

👉 Explore my services & resources: www.onewildbrand.com

📸 Follow along on Instagram: @onewildbrand

Transcript

Episode 5
===

Hello everyone. Welcome back to the One Wild Brand Podcast. I'm Amanda Demora. Today's topic really. Interests me and I definitely will be speaking from the heart on this, and that is how I manage side hustles and a full-time job. And for as long as I can remember, well, maybe a little bit less I suppose, but at least for the past 20 years, I have always kind of maintained.

A job or in a career, but also explored other things and quote unquote side hustles. Now, I actually really don't love the term [00:02:00] side hustle, and that is because I feel like. People never seem to take them seriously or you know, kind of when they ask you about it, it's, oh, how's your little side hustle going?

And you know, over the years I've definitely had some that weren't as successful as others, but I have turned a side hustle into a seven figure business while maintaining. A career or , in full-time job. So I consider myself to be somewhat of an expert in this field, but there's a lot more to it than that I think.

So I'm really excited to dive into that today. on a personal note, I am getting ready to go on vacation. With my family and it should be quite interesting. We are headed to Newport, Rhode Island, and that is [00:03:00] one of my favorite places in the country, I guess. And I would love to retire there or own a home there someday.

It's drivable for us, it's about two hours away and as soon as we kind of roll into town, I just this sense of like peace and calmness comes over me. It is really, really interesting and I don't get that feeling a lot. . So I'm excited to go and my daughter is six months old now and you've probably heard me talk about her being a little bit of a tricky baby, so I'm curious to see how this is gonna go.

We also have an almost 4-year-old and he is very active , he does not wanna be slowed down for any infants that are around us. So I have a feeling we're gonna be dividing and conquering a little bit, but. My son has been asking about when are we [00:04:00] going to Newport? I wanna go to Newport for like a year.

Every time we leave our driveway, he thinks we're going there, and we go every year or at least a couple times a year sometimes. And I am not positive. He really even remembers going before. So it will be interesting. That's what I've got on the agenda. I have absolutely zero things packed and you know, packing for a family always entails a lot.

So after this recording I should probably get on that, get on some laundry and organizational things. So back to managing side hustles while maintaining a full-time job. I think as an elder millennial, we sort of like, or at least we think we did, invented this term and I, I. feel like I've never really been able to sit still creatively. I have worked in the dental industry for my entire career and still do, but always just had something [00:05:00] else brewing on the side and that has been many different things that's been, dental related and not dental related obviously.

So. Sometimes it was helping another dental office with admin work or marketing or spreadsheets. sometimes it was a cozy little at home bakery or picking up freelance work. , And at one point. I was probably juggling four things at once. But the thing is I always loved it. It was a challenge. When I was younger, well, I don't even wanna say when I was younger, 'cause I'm still very curious.

When I was younger, I was a bit more scrappy, but determined to create something that was mine and I finally turned. A side hustle into something much bigger. And that was my dental billing company. if you've heard me talk about that before, that was, you know, my original ambitious goal was making a thousand dollars a month [00:06:00] and that.

Unfurled into a seven figure business with a pretty big team and a lot of clients across the country, and I did all of that while maintaining a position, a practice manager position at a dental practice. I'll Beit I kind of cut down my hours a little bit while I was in full growth mode, , but still so.

As wild as that journey was, it didn't really end there because after I sold my billing company, I really, well, while I had my billing company, I fell in love with branding and marketing and design. And after I sold my billing company, I was doing a lot of business coaching. I still do a little bit of that now, but what I was seeing with the business coaching is.

It was really just turning into me telling my business coaching clients, like how to really show up online, , and market [00:07:00] themselves. And I was doing a lot of like social media audits and website audits and then that kind of segued into me making their websites and me making their content. And I just became really good at that and really loved it and hence.

One wild brand was born. So, While that all sounds lovely, I won't trigger code it. There were a lot of late nights, there were a lot of missed family events. There was a lot of. Mini meltdowns of me wondering why I was putting in all this work if maybe I wasn't seeing results right at that time.

But it also taught me how to build momentum, even with a full-time job and one or two children running around. So today I'm kind of sharing my strategies on how you can do this and how to make it work for you. And also a a little bit about how it looked for me too. [00:08:00] I feel like right now at least a lot of the stuff that I am consuming is really giving nine to fives a bad name, and it's almost poisonous, I would say, because.

There is this whole, you know, glamor to working for yourself and making your own schedule, and you're not out there working for the man and, and all of these things. But I really have been lucky enough to. I found a job when I was in college at a dental practice. Again, forgive me if you have heard me tell this story before, but for those of you who haven't, I started working at a dental practice in college and I thought that was gonna be just this small little part-time thing.

And it was obviously at that point, but I'm still at that practice today, almost 20 years later, the reason I stayed. Because there, you know, have been many [00:09:00] times and you know, maybe still to this day where financially I suppose I do not have to stay, but I just love it there. I've grown up there. My bosses that I work for, I.

Really, really care about a lot. And there's a lot of other employees that have either watched me grow up because they're a bit older than me and have been so supportive and family-like, or they're about my age, you know, and they're kind of, that's like my friend group and we've grown up there together from.

Being in our early twenties and younger and single to getting married, buying houses,, having kids. And we're just super close. So every day I walk in the door, it really feels like home to me. And of course, like I said, I'm the practice manager and there's a lot of. Headaches and things that come along with being a practice manager of a dental [00:10:00] office or any kind of office or company.

But those are all sort of like small potatoes in comparison to the joy that I get from working there. So I'm just not quite ready to move on and. I do remember working with a business coach a couple years ago, and you know, we had on our agenda that , I forget what the year was, but it was like, okay, January 1st, we're gonna do a pulse check and you're probably gonna be given your notice at your practice to leave and, really take on your other endeavors.

And when that time came, I just couldn't do it. I was not at a point. Mentally where I was ready to leave and I'm still not. And that is fine. So that is kind of what I, wanna go over today is what that process looked like for me and why it worked for me. And I feel like these days people are starting to get shamed for wanting to have a nine to five or work for someone else, [00:11:00] and that just.

Like I said, I, I don't think it's healthy and it's a little bit toxic. So the very first tip I have for how to make side hustles work for you is scheduling time, like it's non-negotiable. So. If you're waiting for free time to work on your side hustle, it's not going to come. I had to learn early on that the only way I was gonna make progress was by scheduling it in my calendar, like it was a doctor's appointment or something.

So blocking out some evenings. During the week I kind of joke 'cause I still do this to this day, but like I say, I'm working my seven to 11 job now. The nice part about that is. I'm not always working seven to 11 or if I wanna take nights off, I certainly can, but right now I love the work that I do on the side and I love, you know, making websites and content and all of those things so it doesn't feel like [00:12:00] work to me.

So, while I may be putting in a lot of hours. It's enjoyable so it doesn't feel so daunting and draining. but of course there's times where I need a little break and guess what? Working for myself, I get to do that. Previously when I had my billing company, you know, I always had Fridays off, so that was a big day for me, scheduling meetings with my billing company team and, and things like that.

This also looks like working during nap times if you are a mom to little kids who are still home with you and maybe not in school all day long, or in daycare or anything like that. my kids kind of take two hour naps in the middle of the day. So that's the perfect time to, you know, throw in a load of laundry and then get to working on a couple things.

But also stealing some quiet hours during the weekend when everyone else is asleep. I mean, also I have learned, it took [00:13:00] me a little bit, but sometimes the only way to get things done is to wake up before everyone else in the house is up. So this is when I wake up and workout. I'll get up at quarter of six and get outside and exercise, and that's just the only time that's gonna happen.

Or, you know, maybe if I'm not, I'll crack open the laptop , and get a little work done. This always doesn't go as planned, but you know, making the efforts and dedicating those windows really helped me. And I also kind of wanna mention that you're probably not going to get your best work in, in small, like 20 minute increments.

So if you're thinking, okay, well I'll just, you know, I'll just work for 20 minutes here and there. if there's a big project you're working on or something that you really want to come out good. I would say definitely dedicate some set aside hours to that, whatever those might be, at least two at a time to start going [00:14:00] through things and getting your best work done.

Second is asking for support and not being afraid to do that. I talk about this a lot, but I would not have been able to be successful without the support of my husband and family. my husband is my biggest support system, you know, from wrangling the kids so I could work uninterrupted to being my soundboard after a client call.

, He kind of shows up in every way and. Also our extended family, my mother-in-law, babysitting for us when we needed, and things like that. All of those building blocks kind of had to be in place for me to be successful. So whether it's a partner, a parent, a friend who's checking in on you and helping you progress, you gotta lean on your people a little bit here or AOT bit.

Number three is outsourcing [00:15:00] within your zone of genius. So another game changing thing that I did was letting go of the stuff that I did not need to do. Or I didn't have like the bandwidth to wrap my mind around learning something new to do this because as an entrepreneur, you're gonna see that all of a sudden you're wearing a lot of hats and you're learning a lot of things that you probably never thought you would learn.

You're learning. How to do your own bookkeeping. You are learning how to be your own IT person. You are learning how to put out social media content and learn SEO and set up your Google Analytics page , and network. I mean, there is just so, so much that when you're early on in your entrepreneurial journey here, you have to do it yourself because you don't have the budget in the beginning to, to outsource just any and everything.

So. The outsourcing might come [00:16:00] a little slowly, but it doesn't always have to be expensive. I use, and I love Upwork, and Upwork is a freelancing website. You can find any kind of freelancer you want on there from attorneys to people that edit your podcast. I have an amazing podcast editor. This is one of those things where.

I just don't have the time or like really the want to edit my own podcast audio. So I would much rather outsource that. And there's been many other things that I have outsourced over the years too. SEO is a big one. Again, I didn't have to invest a ton of money into that to find a great SEO person. And I am currently doing that this day.

To this day, I have a wonderful. SEO expert who is working on my SEO every single week, [00:17:00] she sends me reports on, you know, where different pages of my websites are ranking, my website, health score, all of that stuff. Stuff that I just. Don't have the interest in doing so, I kind of get it off of my plate.

Also, I mean, accounting not my strong suit. I keep my own books and track expenses and things like that. kind of like for my own record. ' Sometimes when someone hands you a spreadsheet and you didn't make that spreadsheet. I find it hard to like make that work for you. So like I have my own bookkeeping spreadsheet and that works for me.

I let my accountants and bookkeepers do their own thing because they're the professionals and they're gathering all my tax information and helping me file my taxes and all that stuff. But I like to do a little bit of that myself too. In the beginning, you're bootstrapping like crazy, right? So once you're able to [00:18:00] start delegating, your energy is gonna be one of your biggest assets, and you will learn that you do not need to do everything.

So that is a big tip of mine. Once you're able to start with the things that you do not like to do, or they are not bringing you joy start. Looking to outsource those.

Number four, it's okay to break down. Just don't quit. Entrepreneurship is hard, and as I'm saying this, I really need to hear it too.

Yes, I've built a seven figure company I already mentioned that came with many meltdowns and, and wondering like, what the heck I was doing and why was I even doing it? And it was so stressful and there were a lot of ups and downs and. You know, sometimes when you're not [00:19:00] seeing anything come to fruition, and maybe that means different things.

Maybe it's financial or you know, maybe you have content out there that's not getting any engagement, or you have a free download that nobody's downloading or whatever it might be. It's easy to wanna quit. And I have been there many times, many, many times, and I will continue to. I think that is just part of this journey here.

But you always kind of have to come back to your why, like, okay, why did I start doing this? And in the hard times, that is when most people. you feel too stuck. And just giving up is way easier. But my why, my why was really always my future, but more importantly, my kids' future. It was, you know, financially, what did this mean to the rest of their [00:20:00] lives?

This is something I've talked about in other episodes too, but. I wanted to be able to give my kids things that maybe I didn't necessarily have. And that means a lot of things. That's not just, , monetarily, but owning a business and having income. Obviously a lot of that has to do with monetary reasons and.

Aside from emotional things maybe that I didn't have growing up, I wanna be able to take my kids on memorable vacations and I want to. Be able to let them play any expensive sport or do any expensive activity. I mean, I'm saying expensive. They're not allowed to have million dollar a year interests.

But, you know, within good reason here. And I don't want money to ever be an issue or to be able to hold them back , from doing those things. And I wanna be able to help them a good deal with college,

should they decide to [00:21:00] go and all of that stuff. So that was really my why is once I had kids, it really kind of changed the game.

It wasn't just me and my husband anymore, it was two other little beings depending on us financially for their future. . So in my moments of, in my moments of weakness and self-doubt, I always kind of would come back to that and remember that that was my why. But before they were around, I always had a want to earn more.

And I think that is because just kind of growing up and especially right around like the economic downturn of 2008, I only lived with my dad and I watched him struggle quite a bit, and at the time I was only in college, so I was relying on him. For a lot to even [00:22:00] still being in college. I did have a part-time job at the time, but I watched him really struggle during that time and I think that, you know, unintentionally sort of like lit a fire within me to.

Never want to have to worry about finances or think about bills or things like that. I don't love having financial conversations. Even to this day, I just don't, and I don't like to. Look at prices of things. I mean, of course I do, but like sometimes my husband, like if I go to the grocery store or something, he'll be like, how much was like that?

Or is it cheaper over at this store? And I'm just like, I have no idea. I don't wanna have to compare prices of milk. I just don. And I think that's my prerogative and that is kind of what I've worked so hard to be able to not do. So before my kids. That [00:23:00] was my push then was to have a little more financial freedom and independence.

, Than I sort of grew up surrounded by. So. Remembering your why is gonna bring you, I think, back to your center and get you going on that right track again.

Number five, you can love your job and still build something on the side. I already kind of talked about this quite a bit, but you know, one thing I wanna make very clear is I didn't start.

Side hustling because I hated my job. It was actually quite the opposite. My full-time role at the dental practice always felt like home, and I have been very lucky to work for people who valued me and supported my flexibility over the years. The work is really meaningful there. You know, the pay is solid.

The team feels like my family, and I'm not trying to escape. I'm just someone who has always [00:24:00] wanted more. So if you are in a similar boat, I think you need to hear this. You don't have to quit your job to pursue your dream. You just have to get creative with your time and be clear about your priorities.

And of course, if it ever does get to the point, and like I mentioned with my business manager, us setting a date on the calendar where we were gonna do a check-in and say, okay. You know, on January 1st we're gonna check in and we're gonna see, you know, how are we doing financially. And maybe depending on that number, we will be reevaluating your role at your job, your nine to five job, and you staying there or not.

So I recommend maybe doing something like that too. And. Maybe you're gonna be like me and that day is gonna come along and you're not gonna wanna leave. Or maybe that day is gonna come along and you're gonna say, you know what? [00:25:00] Financially it's time. And I think I'm ready to make the leap here and just work for myself.

And that be , my only job going forward. I think there's a lot of benefits to staying at a job too. I mean, my husband and I kind of experienced this with him. We're both, we're both kinda guilty of having nine to fives and then side hustles. My husbands were a little bit more physically demanding.

But, my husband had a job for many years where he worked either, you know, three to 11 or four to midnight, and he's a general contractor too. So he would do construction gigs and, you know, be doing renovations and additions and things all day long. And then he would go to his real, quote unquote, job working for a company.

At night until 11 [00:26:00] or midnight. And we did that for years and years. And we did eventually decide once we had kids, that it was time for him to only have one job. And that ended up being , his own construction business. And even with that, I think there was a bit of a wake up call after he left as to what that looked like financially.

you know, for example, our health insurance, Working for his company was only $400 a month, and that was for a family. And once we were seeking out insurance on our own, it was more like $2,000 a month and, and with a very high deductible and not being a good plan. So don't get me started too much on that, but.

Also, you know, there was 401k contributions and matching and all of the things that come along with having a job and what your employer is also able to contribute to on your behalf. So [00:27:00] really thinking about those things is important and you know, there's just a lot of benefits to working at an employer.

As opposed to working for yourself too

so really thinking about the pros and cons, making a very clear list financially about. What it looks like for you to leave your job versus work for yourself. And those are all really big thoughts to have is, okay, well now I am seeking out health insurance on my own. I am contributing to a 401k or Roth ira, or whatever it is on my own.

And what does that look like? I highly suggest meeting with a financial planner. And your accountant to see, you know, what does this all look like and what makes sense for me?

So, final thoughts here. It is called a side hustle for a reason. I, At [00:28:00] least I haven't seen it, but anyone kind of telling you about passive income side hustles? I haven't seen it. And I have yet to really meet anyone in person who has passive income. I think a lot of times when people are talking about passive income as a side hustle, there was a lot of legwork that went into that ahead of time, so.

Maybe they've created a bunch of templates or things that they sell. maybe, yeah, they have some kind of shop, but a lot of things go into those like ahead of time. And even if the income is passive, there is so much work that goes into promoting things and making content and showing up online that it really is not truly passive.

So. I think I have stressed enough that there was so much hard work that has gone into all of my businesses [00:29:00] and you really have to have the heart and the drive for that and not everybody does. , I don't say that to be discouraging. I just say that to be real,

also being a business coach. Over the years I've seen that, you know, not everyone has it within themselves to just be working 80 hours a week and working themselves to the bone to make something happen, and that is totally fine. But whether your goal is a thousand dollars a month or a business that transforms your life, it's all valid.

So keep showing up one hour at a time and you will see that needle move.

Thank you so much for listening, everyone, and I will catch you on the next episode.