Day job needn’t stop you working a side hustle
It is always inspiring to see how people’s side hustles generally come to life during the December season. It is as if employers have released people to go and be free and follow their passions. The level of excitement and busyness you see is quite moving.
You see people who have spent most of their year dreading every day they have to go to work. Now that it is the leave season, they are all smiles and excitement! Finally they can make a solid income from something they truly enjoy — however temporary the opportunity is.
The people whose side hustles ultimately succeed in December are those who have perfected the art of attracting a solid customer base and are able to deliver high volumes of stock consistently.
For many, our side hustles remain on the side for most of the year because we are a long way from figuring out how to make it something that is sustainable and can provide a steady income stream.
Often it is something that we are passionate about but do everything we can to hide from our employers, lest we be accused of losing focus or not taking our day job seriously.
The reality, though, is that these side businesses can become sustainable only if people are given the space to pursue them.
In 2017, when having multiple careers simultaneously is the new normal, it is only logical that this ought to be something that employers should support and encourage. Sometimes it might be the only way to ensure that people stay sane and interested in their work.
The millennial generation will soon become the majority in the workplace and having the freedom to be involved in their passions is a key enabler to the successful retention of these employees.
Last week I visited Allan Gray’s head offices at the Waterfront in Cape Town to deliver an inspiring message to young professionals in the region for Accelerate Cape Town.
Unsurprisingly, most people in the audience were battling with the necessity of getting early career work experience instead of opting to give their full attention to their side hustles, which seem to be growing and thus demanding more and more of their attention.
It is indeed always a tough call to make regarding which way to go. But the message I emphasised to them was that you never really know what can work unless you take a chance and try it.
Entertaining a side hustle is so much easier to do when you are still early in your career. After all, this is the time when you are likely to have fewer dependants and enough time to bounce back even if you lose all the income you have made. It is a much tougher call to make decades later.
I was inspired to hear that Allan Gray hosts a Market Day — when once a quarter employees come to work to showcase their side hustles and in the process generate income and additional clientele from colleagues who turn into customers.
This is a completely different approach to that of most employers. People often end up telling only a few of their close colleagues or friends about their side hustles, and exchanging stock with them behind closed doors.
All this does is cripple creativity. It tells people that it is not OK to live your passion out in the open — even in the workplace, where so many people spend the majority of their lives.
What Allan Gray does with Market Day is something that should become the norm in the corridors of our big corporations. It should not only be entrepreneurial-minded organisations like Allan Gray that do this.
We still live in a society where the majority of individuals grew up observing their parents and grandparents depending on multiple income streams to help the family survive. The side hustles that our caregivers chose were often those which they were most passionate about.
Similarly, we should be constantly pushing ourselves to discover our passions and live them.
Many people have a job that they go to every day because they have to.
In addition to that, what about entertaining those side hustles, if only because they will give us a gateway to bringing our passions to life?
Having multiple careers is the new normal