How To Build A Side Business When You Have a Full-Time Job – Episode 3

The Boss Life Podcast answers the question “How do you build a side business when you already have a full-time job?” Learn some key mindset strategies, as well as how to make it happen so you can start living The Boss Life.

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Resources From Today’s The Boss Life Podcast

The Boss Life Find Your Business Quiz

Three Key Boss Points From Today’s Podcast

• Treat your full-time job with respect and as your first investor!
• Take advantage of your free time and work your side hustle every chance you get.
• Create a space at home where you can work on your Boss Life Business!

How To Build A Side Business When You Have a Full-Time Job – Episode 3 Transcription

Hey everybody. Welcome to the Boss Life Podcast. How’s it going Erin?

It’s fantastic. Fantastic. How are you Miguel?

I’m excited. This is an awesome topic. It’s like really, this is kind of where it starts. This is where it starts.

It does start, because I think what happens is that people look at their life. Maybe you’re one of those people, you’re looking at your life and you’re like, hmm, there’s got to be more than working, it’s not necessarily 9:00 to 5:00 anymore. It’s 24 hours a day for somebody else.

Yeah. I think a lot of people are looking for more income for sure, but also significance, working on their passion projects. There’s just, it’s really cool lately to see how many people are really seriously thinking about becoming entrepreneurs. I love it.

I love it too. And what’s really cool is that if you happen to be parents, you get to show your kids a different kind of life. And it all starts with a side business.

It’s so cool. So we kind of want to break it down a little bit into three points. We’re going to talk about your actual job, like what you should do with your actual job. What’s the next point we’re going to talk about?

We’re going to talk about how to make your goals known to your people that are important in your life, like your spouse or your family.

And then also a big one is making the most out of your 24 hours. How to get it done when we all have the same 24 hours, how do we do it?

We all have the same 24 hours?

We do. It’s crazy.

You don’t have more time than me?

Well, I do at the end. I want to share a really cool trick on how you can get literally 21 days out of the same seven days everybody else get.

Right on. I love that.

So that’s cool.

So let’s talk about your actual job. So most of you, if you’re listening to this, maybe you have a full time job and you’re trying to figure out how are you going to manage adding extra time in to build this side business and how that’s going to look like in your everyday life.

Yeah, and I think one of the big things with that is if you think about your actual job, your actual job you have right now, many people think, okay, well what should I do about that? I have this other passion I want to do. The best tip I could give you is do the best job possible that you can for your existing job, your career that you have. Because my parents always used to tell me, I don’t know what your parents, but my parents always told me how you do anything is how you do everything.

And I think if you do a great job at the current job that you’re in, you’re going to get promoted, you’re going to get people cheering you on and, and eventually when you do launch this side hustle, and maybe for you it becomes a full time thing, you end up leaving your other job possibly, what will happen is all those people are going to start sharing you as long as you did a great job for what you were doing.

I think that’s one of the biggest mistakes we see people make is they get excited about their side hustle and then they completely drop the ball on their full time job when they really, you should be treating your full time job as your investment into your side business.

I love that.

Yeah. And one of the biggest mistakes people make is that maybe they stop performing well or they burn really important relationships with people that they work with that could actually become part of their side business or an important relationship in the future.

So one of our biggest tips with that is don’t drop the ball. You still have to perform at your job. And we’re going to show you towards the end of the show what Miguel was talking about, is how to get more practical use out of your time every day.

I think once you start looking at it that way, like picture it, close your eyes for a second only if you’re not driving.

Yeah, no, we don’t want any kind of crashes.

Keep your eyes open. Eyes on the road. But keep your mind on the road as well. But here’s a tip. I got to give you this tip. Once you start visualizing that the job that you have is actually funding this other business, like they are your seed fund, they are your capital, everything starts to change. Because now like you basically have your first person that believes in you and is funding your other dream. I feel like that really kind of helps you to do a great job at that job. But at the same time you start looking at your financials different. You start looking at the money that’s coming in. Maybe you’re making, I don’t know, $1,000, $2,000 a week, whatever that may be. And you start carving out some of that chunk to build this other business.

Because I find a lot of people when they start making that shift, they don’t realize that building a side business is going to take some investment. Like when we started our businesses, we invested a fair bit. And when that money starts coming in, if you can start setting aside whatever it is, $50 a week, $100 a week, whatever it may be, so that you can buy personal development, you can buy courses, you can go to conferences eventually, all these things. Maybe take out advertisements on Facebook. And throughout this podcast we’re going to show you all of our tips on exactly how we built our business. And a big part of that was using seed funding, or our full time jobs, and saving that money that we used to spend maybe on frivolous things or going out on the weekends, that kind of stuff. But for the first couple of years as we built up this business, we really took that money and invested it and built an incredible foundation for us though.

I think one thing that’s really important to mention it in all this is when you want to build something on the side and you have really big goals, sometimes what happens is you are excited and maybe you haven’t shared what that means for you or what that looks like for you outside of work hours with your family or your spouse. And I think where people run into trouble is that when they don’t share what it’s going to look like when I get home from work or what it’s going to look like on the weekends with their spouse, their spouse can get kind of agitated and think why are you spending all this time without us to build something else?

And that was a huge kind of bone of contention with us in the very beginning.

Right, yeah. Because I started this all their business and I knew it was going to rock and roll in it and it started rocking. But I’d never actually sat down with Erin and said hey look, I’m going to do this business. And it’s working out really well. So we did eventually sit down and that really helped a lot. Like saying here’s my plan. Here’s what I want to do. I’m going to go to work and I’m going to invest all the extra time that I have into building this business. I’m not going to watch hockey. I love watching hockey. I’m not going to do that. I’m not going to go out, I’m not going to go out on the weekends. I’m not going to do all these things that I used to do. I’m not going to play video games, whatever it may be for you that you’d like to do. Those are my own personal sacrifices because you can’t come to someone else, like your spouse as an example and say hey, listen, I’m going to build this big dream, but I’m going to sacrifice all of our time and I’m going to keep doing all my fun things.

Right. And I think that’s a big conversation that most people don’t think to have. And the moment that you bring in that person in your life who’s really important to you into what you want to build is the moment it becomes a partnership instead of hey, I’m doing this thing. And the respect that comes from that is life changing.

I think you’re always going to get us hear from people that become incredibly successful, that their spouse whether it’s the male, the female, whoever it was, was supporting them on this journey. I love going to conferences and seeing people win awards and all of these really cool things. But what I love the most is when they win they almost always say, you know what? I couldn’t have done this without my spouse or my family, or the support of all these people.

And so getting them on board, and it doesn’t mean that they have to believe in your dream. I want to be really clear on that. Understand that it’s your dream. I think another mistake people make is they go tell all their friends, they’re like, and they’re all going to be excited for my dream, right? But in reality …

No one’s as excited for your dream as you. And for you to have the expectation that everyone’s just going to jump on board is just super unrealistic. You can want your friends and family to be super excited for you, but you got to be excited for everybody.

That’s so true. So the last I want to talk about today as well as making the most out of your 24 hours. And so one of the big tips that I want him to give you guys today, it’s really key. If you think about it for a second, I’m going to ask you guys a question. Have you ever had a moment in your life where you were super productive for like four or five hours, where you felt like in those four or five hours you just totally crushed it? You crushed the day and you just dominated and you felt like in those four or five hours you accomplished more than you have in an entire day. Have you ever felt like that?

I have.

So that’s a cool feeling, right? So we’ve all been there. And so one of the things that I started realizing over the last couple of years is that one of the things that I do is I kind of chunk my days into like three days. So I have from like 6:00 AM till about noon, which is a day. So for me, I’m highly productive. I set goals for that chunk of time that most people would set goals for an entire day.

To give you an example of that, too many people set their goals way too far in advance. And some people don’t set any goals, but almost everyone says yearly goals, right? This year I’m going to lose weight, I’m going to make more money. And then they give themselves an entire year and then come some they realize they haven’t hit it.

So what would happen if you chunked each day into three days? So from 6:00 AM to noon, you have day one. From noon to 6:00 PM you have day two. And then from 6:00 PM to midnight you have day three. I’ll tell you, I’ve been doing this almost my whole life without even knowing it. And what I realized is that this makes me incredibly, incredibly productive.

And if we look at making the most out of your 24 hours, I work with a lot of women who will tell me I’m so busy, I’m already waking up kind of earlier in the morning, get the kids ready, get breakfast, lunches, all that stuff. And we’re out the door early and by the time I get home I’m exhausted. And how do I fit more time in to build a side business? And a lot of this is looking at your particular life and finding pockets of time.

So maybe you’re not able to dedicate four hours specifically to your new side business, but you are able to cut out that 30 minute television program, that Netflix program every day so that you can put focused activity for 30 minutes. Maybe it is getting up an extra hour early so that you have uninterrupted time. Because that’s what Miguel was talking about. When he does his chunk of time, he has uninterrupted time. He’s laser focused. And that is what it really takes to get this side business off the ground.

I think this is a big thing. And just to explain that a little bit further as well, obviously now we’re full time entrepreneurs so that works for us. But when I started this, I was working, at least myself, I was working 60 hours a week, corporate job, which I loved, doing a great job there, loved it. So my three days was before work, which for me would be like getting up at 6:00 AM and doing something that would really serve my future. Because I would do a great job once I got to work at 8:00 AM but before that, that’s my time.

And too many people, especially people that are trying to become entrepreneurs, but they’re not entrepreneurs yet, they still have that employee mentality. So they get up in the morning and the first thing they do is not for their future. It’s to keep them in the past. Like too many people make decisions based on the things that are going to hold them in the past. I asked someone the other day, they were talking about building their side business and I said, hey, listen, how many times have you said, oh, I can’t go to my kid’s concert because my boss asked me to work today? And they’re like, yeah, a couple of times I’ve done that. I’m also not been able to go to my kid’s hockey game because my boss had me work on Saturday.

Well then I asked them a flip question. I said, how many times you not gone to your kids concert or missed out on hockey practice or a hockey tournament so that you could build your side business?. And I think that really opened, they’re like, whoa. That really opened their eyes cause they were like, wow, that’s so true. And I’m not sitting here saying, hey, you should miss your kids [crosstalk 00:12:10].

No, and that’s not the point either. I think that when we look at the things that you do at the very beginning when you’re building a side business, there’s going to be a lot of sacrifices that need to be made. Sometimes the sacrifices might be a television show or sometimes that sacrifice might be sleep or sometimes that sacrifice might be a night out. So I think that we have to change the way that we look at the sacrifices. Is it going to be something that is putting time aside so you can invest it into a side business?

Because what happens is that most people, they look at their side business like they can take it or leave it, that it’s an option to do or not do. And I think one of my favorite examples is when I’m talking a lot of clients is how many times would you get away with missing a really important conference call at your job? Before you had that conversation with your boss saying, why aren’t you showing up? And when you’re building a side business, there’s nobody telling you, hey, why aren’t you showing up? That’s all on you. It’s such a different mentality.

That’s really true. And I think when you think of it that way, like when when I built my business, the first one, from 6:00 AM to about 8:00 was like my time. So that means for me it meant like driving to work, listening to a podcast. I like reading books. I would read for 10 minutes. So that first day for me it couldn’t be four or five hours. At first it was two hours, that was day one. But I was hyper productive for those two hours because I knew that it had to do a great job in my day too, which was my job. So in that first day I got more done in that first day in two hours in most get all day.

And one thing I just wanted to say with that is that when he was doing that, I was doing the other side of things where, that’s why the conversation with your spouse is so important. I would take over the mornings with the kids. I would make sure they’re getting out and ready to school and daycare and all that stuff.

They don’t get themselves ready on their own?

No, unfortunately they just make more of a mess. But I think that that’s why that was a huge important thing for us is to have those conversations to say like, hey look, I’m trying to build this thing. I need these two hours. And I need your support this way. And maybe like presenting it that way so that they’re very clear on what your support looks like versus you assuming they know what that support looks like.

Yeah, exactly. In another podcast episode we’ll talk about how to set up your home office in that because that’ll be hyper productive, but to give you a glimpse of that, like those two hours getting into that space and having that space, and we’ll tell you how to set all that up, is super, super key so that you can remain focused. You can get stuff done. Because I mean imagine trying to build a business in bed while your kids are screaming and yelling. I mean, it’s just not going to work. You’re not going to have that full day. You’re going to get 15 minutes max out of a two hour period and you can’t do that.

And then while I was at work, I did a great job at work. But at the same time, even then we all have lunch. Hopefully you got to lunch at work. I’d literally run from work to my car. I would shoot YouTube videos in my car. I didn’t have high end cameras or any equipment. I would just use the phone I had it, it was an iPhone 5 or something like that. Prop it up on a couple of books in stacks and record videos on YouTube. And that’s all …

That was high tech back then.

It was super high tech. I was like, and it was terrible. There was underground parking. I still remember some of [crosstalk 00:15:25].

Oh, the lighting was great.

The lighting was just terrible. But I was getting it done. And then whenever I had breaks or whatever, 15 minute break, I would have calls with clients that I was getting and it was working really well. And so that was my day two. And then moving onto day three when I’d come home, to what Erin was saying, she was in charge of the household back then. I was building this thing. And I would basically go and work, I’d go to my space, I would work in my space and I’d get it done. And that was my third day. So I literally had three days of effort.

And then last thing I’ll say, I’ll pass it back to Erin, is if you think about it that way, in one year I’d get, that’s typically about 1,095 days. So in one year I’d get 1,095. Even if I messed up 95 days, I still was productive, hyper productive for 1,000 days that year versus my competition that was maximum productive for 365 days, which usually doesn’t happen to anyways. So that is a big game changer over time.

Yeah, and I mean I want it to be very, very real with you guys. It was not perfect. I mean, like you might think like it was all like sunshines and rainbows and rose colored glasses but we had some pretty big brawls, some pretty big arguments because it’s hard on both sides. And we want to be real with you that when you are already working full time and you are trying to build something, it’s not always going to go according to plan.

That’s exactly it. I think the last thing I wanted to say and then I’ll let Erin close it out is like, I think you’ve got to think about it like how badly do you want your future versus how badly do you want your past? I think too many people, your ask your actual job, we gave you great tips on that. We gave you great tips on setting your goals by talking to your spouse. We gave you tips on how to get the most out of 24 hours. But at the end of the day, none of that’s going to work if you don’t really focus on your future and stop focusing on making decisions based on your past.

So many people don’t get to where they want to go because they’re making sacrifices to stay in the exact same spot that they were last year that they were five years ago. I mean, that’s really why so many people get out of one bad relationship and they end up in another one. Or people will pay off the credit card and then a year later they owe 10 times what they owed before. It’s because they’re not really focusing on the future. They’re so stuck in the past.

And I think that, I hear a lot from people when they want to build their side business is that they kind of want to. They’re not in a terrible position where this is their only option and they are comfortable in their life or they’re kind of okay with just being mediocre in their life. And that’s okay if you wanted to build a mediocre side business. And to what Miguel was saying is that you cannot live the same life over and over again for 85 years and call that a life. That is, you’re just repeating the same mistakes.

So get really honest with yourself and ask yourself am I comfortable right now? And if I am, that’s okay. But that is also my reason why my business might not be be taking off.

So one thing we want to leave you with is a challenge. In every podcast, what we’ll aim to do is give you a challenge for that particular episode.

A challenge.

Yeah, I like challenges.

Challenge accepted.

Well, hopefully you guys do accept this one. And if you are listening to this and you are building a side hustle, my challenge for you is if you have not had that conversation with your significant other or your spouse or your family about what their support looks like to you, my challenge to you is to have that. It’s a difficult conversation and it should be a back and forth one, but that’s my challenge to you.

I love it. Lead with your passion and share it. So remember, ditch the employee mindset.

And start living the boss life.

We’ll see in the next episode.

Bye bye.

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