Diversify Your Career With a Side Hustle

We can no longer afford to sell 100% of our attention to one company. We have more power than ever before. The world is too big, too connected and too many choices exist to put all of our eggs in one basket. Instead, we the people are holding back portions of our creativity, passion, and innovation to invest into side hustles.

Today, companies should expect that their employees have side hustles.

The company’s offer of safety and predictability has become unreliable. Buy outs, sales, mergers, acquisitions, layoffs, reductions, reorganizations, missing Wall Street’s expectations, stock prices plummeting, governmental regulations, new fees, and fines, financial crisis’s an unstable world event all equal career instability for us.

Secondly, the company’s monopoly dissolved. The company no longer owns the means of production, the distribution channels of trade and access to capital. (Seth Godin- Thank you for showing me this reality). Today, anyone of us with a computer can create and distribute anything we imagine.

We can sell it, share it, outsource it, hire and fire, raise capital and distribute our offering. It reminds me of the Berlin Wall coming down. All of the sudden tremendous possibilities exist for those of us who used to live within the walled city.

People like us are realizing that although we have an obligation from 8 am to 5 pm, the world is our oyster from 5 pm to 8 am. As the big company continues to weaken as the safe haven for predictability and a retirement pension, we will continue to invest our curiosity, attention, and passions into side hustles.

We should borrow from the wisdom of the financial markets

Mutual fund holdings diversify risk by investing in multiple industries. One industry may be up while another is down. Side hustles don’t always produce reliability and financial predictability either. Regardless of financial performance outcomes, they can increase our joy and satisfy our unmet curiosities resulting in a positive net gain.

Don’t sell all of you. You are not for sale. Sell only the portion of you required to effectively produce positive results. Don’t skimp. Don’t fake it. Don’t cheat the system.

Invest the overflow, however small, into a side hustle.

Dispatch: Stand Up Paddle (SUP) MicroAdventures

Stand Up Paddle (SUP) is safe, simple and available everywhere. Rent for $15 to $25. Buy an inflatable SUP for $600 @Costco. Bring your dog, your mother in law and your fly rod. Go with a buddy or make it a double date. Plan for getting wet, but you won’t tip. Ocean SUP: Go early before wind and waves. Lakes: Go to lesser lakes and reservoirs to avoid the big boats.

SUP Dana Point

Tips:
-Leave your phone on shore.
-Bring a sunglasses strap.
-Make it social not a workout.
-Say a Mahalo prayer for Laird Hamilton for making SUP available everywhere.

My girls SUP on Prospect Lake with Colorado Springs SUP

SUP Stories

My friend Kyle and I paddled at lunchtime last summer three miles from our office. Today, before a wedding rehearsal dinner, we will paddle on a Texas lake. My first SUP session was in Kukio Bay on the Big Island of Hawaii. My wife went for the first time and now wants to try SUP Yoga. My buddy Jake took me out for a sunset paddle on Dana Point, CA. My buddy Matt and I met in Denver for a meeting to SUP while getting some advice. Last week I talked to an older woman who bought a SUP and a life jacket for her dog. They now go every week together.

What’s your SUP story?

Get out there.

-Aaron

Do Work You Love

Life is short. Stop doing work that you can barely tolerate and start pursuing what you love. It’s really that simple. I just listened to author Steven Pressfield tell a story about how he wrote for nearly fifteen years before he sold his first book, The Legend of Bagger Vance.

Stories like Pressfield’s remind me that we can do work we love if we will commit to the staying power of grit. Maybe you’re like my friend Elaine who dreamed of hosting a backyard sit-down dinner for thirty friends? She dreamed it, saw it in her heart and set on a twelve-month vision quest to birth her dream. Don’t confuse doing work you love with compensation. Most of the time doing the work for many years precedes any type of compensation.

Too many people never do what they love. Even worse, they don’t ever explore the frontier to find what it is they love. 

Find what you love, invest your emotional energy, your money, and your creative mojo into birthing your dream into a reality. If you don’t, the truth will rot a hole in your gut for the rest of your life. Or as Pressfield says in his War of Art, “our unlived lives”.

Don’t let that be you. Find it. Do it. Love it. 

You’re worth it.

This post is an excerpt from the Field Guide: 99 Ways to Navigate Your Best Life. Download the full guide here.

What Fills Your Emotional Energy Tank?

Do you know what fills your emotional energy tank? I’m not talking about food and your stomach. I’m talking about your soul’s very being. You see there is only one You. You are an intricate creature full of energy and capacity for creativity, conquest, connection, and innovation.

Only you can know what your owner’s manual states for ongoing care and maintenance. But most of us, never take the time to get acquainted with our owners manual. We never stop to wonder what the fine print actual says. What about the CAUTION captions? Have we read those carefully?

I finally had to stop and read my owners manual after I burned out. I discovered some amazing things like Adventure is apart of my DNA and fills my emotional energy tank like an avocado gives me good fat. I wonder what you’d discover about yourself if you quickly wrote down an unedited list of all of the things that fill your emotional energy tank?

Start with when you feel happy and energized.

-Your favorite experiences: That trip to Florida with the kids’ last summer?
-Your favorite people to be around: Your best friend from college?
-Environments: Remember how much you love to be at the beach?
-Type of work you love: You love writing code or teaching people an idea?

You see your owners manual will be really helpful in you becoming a student of yourself. Once we know what type of fuel our engine requires, then we can begin understanding how the engine can optimally perform.

Keep going- Aaron

Emotional Caloric Intake of nutrients. Emotional Calories contain energy to power our emotional energy.

Lessons I Learned From Mergers and Acquisitions

My wife was four months pregnant the first time I interviewed to keep my job. I turned up at 8 am for our Monday morning meeting and twenty of us were introduced to the three suits standing against the wall. “Meet the new owners. We’ve been sold. Each of you will be interviewing to keep your job. Not everyone will be here by Wednesday”.

I learned that when you produce revenue for a living you are valuable to new owners.

Acquisition #2: We sold software that converted a telephone signal into the sound you could listen to from your computer-picture WebEx but in 1999. Our VC money bought us a slushy machine, a Golden Tee Golf game and bring your dog to work day. The new owners came for a tour of our vacant cube farm after the layoff. I remember being advised, “Don’t sell anything right now until we figure out if we’re going to be in business.”

I learned that adding new money couldn’t save a dying company. Sometimes companies should die.

Acquisition #3: I thought television was a safe bet. Over lunch, my bosses pitched me on leading a new digital initiative driven by our new owners. At first, it sounded like a compliment, “You’re perfect to lead this new initiative”. It became clear to me that their strategy was for me to be the fall guy when it went south.

I learned that not every promotion is worthy of accepting.

Failed Acquisition: I helped court a suitor. They liked what they saw, but wanted to move fast or move on. After a lot of peacock feathering, eventually, the suitor called and respectfully withdrew their interest.

I learned those founders who can’t envision what they will do on Monday after they pocket $10 Million is very difficult to negotiate with.

The Science of Happiness

When I worked in advertising. I learned that cover titles are created to sells the most magazines. It’s not the compelling new content that drives the title. It’s the consumer psyche that drives the content. When the same titles are reused every year from one magazine to another, I pay attention.

Here are a few titles you probably recognize,

  • Was Jesus the Christ?
  • The Science of Happiness
  • 5 Best Places to Live

The truth is I’m interested in all three catchy headlines. But why? Maybe it’s because I’m hoping that researchers will confirm the decisions that I’ve already made-confirmation bias. “Confirmation bias suggests that we don’t perceive circumstances objectively. We pick out those bits of data that make us feel good because they confirm our prejudices. Thus, we may become prisoners of our assumptions. ” Psychology Today

When I’m not feeling happy, I sometimes look for a reason that might help me quickly explain why I feel grumpy. My wife sent me this article; New neuroscience reveals 4 rituals that will make you happy. The article punch lines are:

  • Meditate
  • Exercise gratitude
  • Hug someone for a long time
  • Verbalize your emotions
  • Be decisive
  • Everything is interconnected

Wheeehhh. I was afraid the neuroscientists might discover that I should:

  • Argue with my neighbor
  • Be a jerk at work
  • Don’t apologize for your wrongs
  • Push yourself as hard as possible
  • More money will actually make you eternally blissful

As far as the best places to live, I think where we live already is the best place to live. There are adventures out our front door to be explored, exotic characters to meet and bends in the road that leads to new possibilities. Stay where you are.

Finally, last week I heard a great quote, “if the iPhone has a designer-I bet we do too.”

Keep going-
Aaron

The Inconvenience of Dissonance

“Dissonance: A lack of harmony. A tension or clash resulting from the combination of two disharmonious or unsuitable elements” (Wikipedia).

I feel this lack of harmony internally when my actions don’t match my values and beliefs. I shared with a friend that I value freedom of choice and I’m willing to use the currency of certainty to purchase that freedom. When I begin to choose certainty over freedom-my internal turmoil begins.

The inconvenience of dissonance is that I live with a real-time awareness of the gaps between my actions and deeply held beliefs. In the past, I could ignore and push past the dissonance for long periods of time. Which often resulted in finding myself way off-course and disappointed.

As I’ve become more wholehearted, I now more quickly recognize my dissonance. I feel the lack of harmony and know when I’m drifting off-course. I’m beginning to believe that my awareness of dissonance is a reward vs. an inconvenience. The disharmony that I experience helps inform me that my direction of travel needs to be adjusted.

People like us, me and you, value living our life fully. We’re not content to simply amass a large sum of money and call that a success. Instead, we feel obligated as Walt Whitman narrates, “That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.”

Dissonance although inconvenient at times, reminds us to contribute our verse with harmony.

Keep going-
Aaron

Coming Home Again

I plucked ripe radishes from our garden tonight. Our home is a carve out of peace. Salmon is on the grill. Tunes are creating an aroma of Aloha. I doubted my future this week. I thought deeply about playing it safe. I ran scenarios through my head about the future. Like the movie WarGames, my WOPR computer couldn’t find a way to win tick-tack-toe.

And we pulled in the driveway from a two-week hiatus and like smelling sauce to a defeated boxer-I woke up. I walked through our home. I read the mantras on the walls. I felt the love we’ve fought hard for. I drank deep in the atmosphere of peace we’ve created. I’m ready to bet my life on this story trajectory.

People like us can sometimes forget how many assets we have. Yet we know something transcendent, something deeper that we can’t plot on a chart or graph, but our hearts know is true that gives us hope. Our compass needle keeps pointing to true north.

Growing Something New

We planted packaged vegetable seeds indoors in March. In Colorado, it can snow until Memorial Day. Snow and hail make for a harsh environment for new seeds to grow. So we coddled them in a sunlight window in our basement to stage our new dream garden. As part of our life reboot, we envisioned growing fresh food out our back door. I was completely ambushed by the metaphor that gardening creates for growing new good things in life.

I used our garden shoot at our live Reboot experience to share with Rebooters how challenging it is to grow new change in our life. (Photo: Justin Lukasavige)

Here’s what I learned. Growing a garden from seeds is a lot like attempting to make positive changes and start something new in my life. At first, your idea starts as a whisper, a dream- a tiny seed. Tucked into a fold of soil, the dream shows no signs of growth. Wait. Wait. Patience. Time. Continual gentle exposure to the sun and then a glimpse of green appears. Tiny springtime shoots cluster together. As soon as I saw green, I wanted to rush them outside and plant them. But they were too fragile. Too much water, the wind or the sun and they would shrivel.

I was frustrated by this phase like I am frustrated by how long it takes in life to develop a new healthy habit. I can develop a bad habit in a week, but filling in a healthily sustainable shift in my life takes weeks and months. Maybe you can relate.

  • Believing in what we are doing even when we can’t find any new green buds.
  • Not allowing our hearts to be discouraged when growth takes longer than we expect.
  • Embracing that not every shoot of green will mature to produce fruit.
  • Celebrate the victories and choose gratitude for the harvest.

Finding Neverland Again

I played with Peter Pan today. He showed me the inside track on the mountainside Frisbee golf course. Yesterday, I watched him bury live grasshoppers. I hope tomorrow he will tell me more stories. Last night for dinner he ate his two trout caught on power bait in the pond behind Main Street. For income, he pocketed $44 in old-lady cash from pumping gas and washing windows at the Shell station on Tuesday.I wish I could go with him.

For Peter, time bends when he’s awake, summer sunsets extend and misfit lost boys live next door. I asked him if he ever gets bored, “Naaah-there’s always something to do”. He told me sometimes he walks in the woods really far from home but always knows where home is. I spit. He spits. He scampered. I tried to copy him.

Peter Pan’s life is a lot like the book. Everything is big and magical, but void of Captain Hook. His oldest sister is like Princess Tiger Lilly. His mom is a descendant of precious Wendy. The twins are John and Michael. Peter’s middle sister must be Tinker bell.

Finding Neverland again is a choice for me. For Peter, he hasn’t grown up yet. I hope he never will. In case he does, I hope he remembers the things he taught me, to tell stories, believe in magic, smile at old ladies, go fishing with your friends, live simply, boredom is a choice, walk in the woods alone and scamper instead of walk.

Thank you, Peter.