side hustle highschool

Have you hit the wall yet?

Not sure what I mean, then read on.

You know, starting a side hustle is like going to highschool all over again.

Let me explain.

You will go thru a few stages of development.

You will deal with drama that seems like the end of the world when its happening, but after you get thru it, you realize it was minor and petty.

So, lets start with your freshman year.

In the beginning, you are excited! You found something to help you make more money.

Its a new beginning, and all of the problems you had before (in middle school) is over!

You are now a mature adult! (lol)

You think about all the cool things you will buy, or maybe the one important thing you need the money for.

You are nervous to start something new, but you know that you have to do this, and you are looking forward to the adventure.

You figure all your money problems are solved, as long as you do your new hustle, things will be fine.

You may even picture leaving your day job to do your side hustle full time when you “graduate”

(when you make more money in your side hustle ten you do in your day job)

In this excitement stage, its easy to get your self motivated, and to put in a lot of effort.

You see that the upper class-man in your industry (people who’s done this for a few years) are bigger, and can be intimidating, but they are also inspirational.

You strive to be one of them one day. You bug them for help, and sometimes they help, but not always.

You swear that you will help others when you are in their position.

You also rely a lot on your teachers for help and motivation.

Next comes your sophomore year.

Now, you’ve done this side hustle for a while.

You understand the basics pretty well, and you made some money.

You made some embarrassing mistakes, but they were not that big of a deal.

You have a routine that works, and things are okay.

You aren’t making the money you wanted to, but you are making some, so you keep going.

You start to realize there’s more to your business than you expected, and you start to realize there’s a lot you don’t know, and that you probably can do more to get better results.

You also see freshman (new people getting started in your niche), and you remember what its like to get started out, and you offer help when you can.

You rely less you on your teachers, since you already went thru whatever course you took that thought you about the industry.

You also attend your first few seminars, and meet others in your industry.

The seminars are more focused on your industry, and the basics. (you may have attended them in your freshman year and not your sophomore year)

Now, you enter your Jr year. You’ve been doing this for a while.

You started to scale up a bit after your sophomore year….so you can get a lot more work done in a shorter amount of time.

The problems you get are no longer the basic problems, but problems that would have made scared you away from the industry if they happened to you in your freshman year.

You are now officially good at this side hustle, but now good at this side hustle, but not great.

You can officially start tutoring freshman with confidence, but their “silly” questions feel like a waste of your time.

(oh how quickly we change!)

We have much bigger fish to fry…and you figure that the sophomores will answer those basic questions.

The money you make is pretty good.

If you were able to go back in time to tell your freshman self about this money, you know you would flip!

However, the money still isn’t what you expected.

Your perspective has changed.

You were able to use the money on things you wanted, but you didn’t realize how it would effect your taxes…a lesson you learned in your sophomore year.

Since this is your Jr year, you are looking toward the future.

That could mean leaving your day job, or that could mean figuring out a way to automate the business so you don’t have to do much of it anymore.

So, like SAT prep classes, you spend money or seminars and training, but they are not about your industry, but general things like self development, sales, marketing, and dealing with taxes.

You are a bit over confident in your skills, and as you try to learn more skills, you may neglect the business a bit.

Maybe you aren’t as diligent as you used to be, or you try to do to much with too little effort.

Either way, you were expecting a bigger year, but because you divided your attention, it wasn’t what you were hoping.

You do see a way to scale up even more, and the money you can make seems endless, you just gotta start doing things in a different way…you just need to get out of your comfort zone.

That takes us to your Senior year.

You got a handle of things now.

You are now making a good living from this.

You no longer need to work your day job (but maybe you still do for comfort reasons, or you like your co-workers)

The money you are making now is greater than anything you ever expected when you first started out.

You now start to eye other types of business opportunities and investments.

Why?

Because you know you have a nice business that will take care of you, but the challenge and thrill is over.

You want to get even bigger, but for that to happen there’s more to learn.

You have to go to college.

So you prepare for your exit out of high school trying to figure out how to do more with your business. 1

You are ready to figure out how to take advantage of other business opportunities, so you start to act more like a CEO.

You delegate more tasks, and streamline operations.

You are on cruise control now, and you just have to figure out whats the next move.

Hire employees to scale?

Use the money from this side hustle to fund other ventures?

Just chill and be lazy?

Only you can say what you will do after high school.

The question is, where are you in your highschool life?

Will you become another highschool drop out?

There are many of those in the side hustle world…but many stop before they make any money (their freshman year)

The point of this is to let you know you have to keep going!

You will make it through if you never quit.

The homework may be annoying, the tests can be hard, but that high school diploma (the money you make and ht business you created) will be worth the effort!