Some Side-Hustle Ideas to Help You With All That Money Anxiety

I’m beyond thrilled to be featured in The Cut – talking all things side hustle. Their rise in popularity, the why behind the ones that work and many ideas for folks to start thinking about how to launch their own.

Read the article and get your side-hustley juices flowing…

Some Side-Hustle Ideas to Help You With All That Money Anxiety

I had so much fun contributing to this article and full transparency was brimming with ideas about the potential of having more than one revenue stream in these unstable times.  

Avoid this job searching mistake

With the mass layoffs in certain sectors right now, many of my clients and job seekers in my workshops are making bigger shifts than they have at other times in their careers.

Their resumes and their LinkedIn profiles are focused in one sector with progressing titles within that industry.

Yet – they’re looking at job postings for new opportunities within another sector. They’re connecting the dots in their heads, so they’re assuming when they apply (often cold without a contact) others also will.

Sorry, but they won’t.

Applying to job postings on LinkedIn without a contact is ineffective when you’re applying within the same industry you’ve worked in for the last 5+ years.

It’s even worse, dare I say, a total waste of time when you’re applying in a new industry.

Please stop doing that if that’s how you’ve been spending your unemployed days.

So, what should you do instead?

Talk to people and ask for help.

This is the way successful career shifters make it happen.

Get your story down. Build the bridge from your strengths to the role you want.

Set a goal or and ask for the conversation.

Do it again and again.

You will get better and sharper and more dynamic in how you tell your story.

And people want to help you.

Even if you haven’t spoken to them in ten years. Even if you never met them, but they went to the same college or worked at the same company or grew up in the same town.

The biggest job searching mistake people make is keeping the search to themselves. A shameful little secret they don’t want to burden others with.

Another way to see your search is as - a problem or puzzle to solve. An adventure where you can learn something new.

Which way sounds more fun to bring into conversations?

If you’re struggling with how to have these conversations, check out my Elevator Pitch Mini Course. At its core, it gives you the language to go out and start connecting with people…today.

So, get talking and asking – and I’ll be here when you need support.

How you can help others right now

This is a moment in time when many of us are feeling helpless. 

Colleagues, friends and workers across the country are losing jobs without notice, without any cushion of even one more day’s pay. 

If you’re like many in my network,  you want to  support these talented employees in critical sectors with deep expertise who are feeling lost and panicked, but you’re not sure how. 

So, guess what. 

I have a way. 

I know something you can do right now that will not take a lot of effort on your part AND will be invaluable in the life of someone else. 

When someone who has lost their job in one of the career tracks decimated by this administration gets up the courage to  reach out to you on LinkedIn–write back. 

Even if you don’t know them. 

Even  if they’re not in your industry. 

Even if you’re not sure how you can help them. 

If you can jump on a 30-min zoom call, that would be great too. 

And if you can make intro’s to others who could open doors for them–that would make them feel like they are not alone. Their careers and their expertise have meant something. And still mean something. 

I’m always blown away by the generosity of my network and how they show up for my clients with informational interviews and coffee chats. I’m so grateful when you share your time, your wisdom and your expertise. 

Yet this ask isn’t about me or my clients per say. It’s about thinking creatively about what you have to offer the people who reach out to you–and what you can proactively do to show them that you’re available to help–even if they may worry about asking. 

I appreciate you being part of this community. 

Stop telling kids to choose a career

A few weeks ago, I had a huge parenting win. I received this text from my 13 year old. 

She’s listening!

And she feels the calm trust within herself to explore. To not rush the process. To play and experiment.

To be a kid.

Now I know there are kids who feel like they have a calling. They want to be doctors. Or actors or astronauts. At 9, I said I wanted to be a therapist–and my gut instinct wasn’t too far off.

Yet, even when a kid appears to be heading in a straight line, it benefits all of you to validate that hunger and drive AND also note early and often–there are a lot of things you can be that will give you the thing you’re looking for in being a doctor. It’s a clue, but it doesn’t have to be an answer. Especially not the only answer.

My work with clients and the challenges that show up in our sessions helped me to develop this approach to parenting and career with my kids. It also makes me dig in further as they get older.

Many clients show up stressed that…

They never figured out what they wanted to be when they grew up.

They spent time and money becoming [insert career path] and they don’t want to leave their profession.

They’re bored doing what they’re doing but they can’t picture doing anything else–because they never have.

Their work is tangled up with their identities. Who would they be without it?

We are winning when we teach our kids to focus on their interests, their strengths and their quirky personality traits that make them who they are. With that self-awareness and some gentle guidance from you and other experts who can show them what’s possible, expose them to different career paths and they will find their own answers.

And it may take some shitty jobs, experiencing what they don’t want to get clarity on what they do want. Most of us have had those and we’ve lived to tell the tale.

If we put the pressure on too early, we cut them off from their natural creativity. And they will need this creativity time and time again as their windy career paths unfold.

Careers have many more transitions than they once did, so the tools of reflecting, experimenting with clues and taking risks jumping into new roles–will be MORE important to their careers than the specific paths they choose.

Here for you and your thoughtful kids declining to answer school surveys that limit their futures.