517: Do You Need a Side Hustle?

My financial journey started after I accidentally picked up one of Robert Kiyosaki’s books. It was the end of my honeymoon in Puerto Vallarta, and my wife (at the time) and I were waiting for our plane back home.

I decided to grab a book from one of the little airport shops, but there weren’t many choices. In fact, I believe there were four, and three of them were romance novels with pictures of muscular men with long blonde hair on them.

The only other option was Robert Kiyosaki’s Cashflow Quadrant. I had no idea who Robert Kiyosaki was, nor did I really care that much about investing and personal finance. But it sounded like a better read than the others, so I bought it.

At the time, I had just finished residency training and was focused on my career ahead. I never really thought much about money beyond the fact that I was finally going to make some after years of indentured servitude as a surgical resident.

But on the flight back from Mexico, everything changed. Reading that book felt like a bolt of lightning, and it changed my mindset forever. This experience, I later found out, has happened to countless people I’ve met since then.

I call it taking the pill (the book is purple).

A world of possibilities suddenly opened up to me. I know it may sound strange, but the idea that I could ever not have a job and, instead, become an entrepreneur had never before occurred to me.

In hindsight, I understand why. I was a very good student. “A students" get addicted to the educational system. When you get As, you are rewarded. You get accolades. Your teachers love you. What’s not to love?

That makes you try even harder. That feeling of success is addictive, and you want more of it. So you aspire to do the things that the smart kids are supposed to do, like going to a fancy college and becoming a lawyer or doctor.

If you succeed in a system, you don’t doubt the system. You don’t look for alternatives. The system I bought into was an educational system created by industrialists a century ago. They didn’t want to train entrepreneurs; they wanted to train a workforce. And I was winning in that system.

C students, on the other hand, have nothing to lose. They search for success in other ways and often end up more successful than those who did better in school. That’s why A students rarely become entrepreneurs. They never have a reason to look outside the system.

The purple book I read on that plane helped me break away from that world. I saw life differently after reading it. Even though I was already a surgeon who had completed residency, I never wanted to work for anyone ever again.

I started my own cosmetic surgery practice, then another medical business, and had a lot of success. I also tried my hand at other businesses that were less successful. I made lots of money and lost lots of money. Living the life of an entrepreneur is not for the faint of heart.

I also believe, to a certain extent, that you are either born an entrepreneur or you are not. I was born an entrepreneur, despite the fact that it took me over 30 years to discover it.

Because of that, I never push anyone to quit their job and go out on their own. That kind of risk is not for everyone. That said, there are certainly ways to dabble in entrepreneurship without risking everything.

People call them side hustles. Side hustles are ways to make a little extra money that you can use to make an extra investment or simply go on a nicer vacation.

One of those side hustles I have engaged in is affiliate marketing. Ten or fifteen years ago, I had websites designed to sell products to people by providing links to things they might be interested in—even Amazon links. If someone decided to buy something after clicking my link, I would get a small commission from the seller. It was not a huge money maker for me, so eventually I decided to focus on other things.

However, opportunities like this still exist. And these days, it doesn’t really take any technical savvy to participate. On this week’s episode of Wealth Formula Podcast, we learn about one option that may be of interest to you.

This one may or may not be a good fit for you, but it will get you thinking. There are a million ways to make money out there. All you have to do is look for them. You can start by listening to this week’s episode of Wealth Formula Podcast.

P.S. I have not used the platform we talked about on the show, nor do I stand to benefit from it financially. It’s purely educational.