Skippable introduction
Welcome to the first of this series that I wanted to create for a long time. Here, you will get recommended some of my favourite books that I’ve read about personal finance, side hustling or just life philosophy in general. Every book link I will ever share here is only sponsored by Amazon’s affiliate program, which allows me to advertise any product and the result is the same. This way I will always stay unbiased in my decision.
Books contain an incredible amount of great information because the author had to spend months if not years polishing the final product. I firmly believe reading (or listening to audiobooks) is necessary to broaden your views and gain crucial information about any subject.
The actual recommendation
Anyway, without further ado, this month I’m recommending you the book that started my side hustling journey. And that book is, let me take a deep breath: 100 Side Hustles: Unexpected Ideas for Making Extra Money Without Quitting Your Day Job by amazing Chris Guillebeau.
The extremely long name aside, this book is an absolute gem. It provides you with ideas about how to start a side hustle without quitting your job. This way, you can still become your own boss and do what you love while still keeping the stability of your job that you currently have.
About the author
Some of the books I’ve read are from people with questionable backgrounds. Online gurus that wrote a book without any proper experience in the topic they talked about. This is not the question with Chris Guillebeau. Chris has been writing his blog Art of Non-Conformity, since 2013, maybe even longer, managing to travel the entire world by the age of 35.
Now he is well known in the world of side-hustling. He wrote several books about making money or starting your own side hustle. Furthermore, he owns a popular daily podcast called Side Hustle School.
He knows numerous tips and tricks in this field and served as my inspiration to start side hustles of my own. I recommend you to check him out and perhaps his other books as well.
About the book
100 Side Hustles: Unexpected Ideas for Making Extra Money Without Quitting Your Day Job (from now on just 100 Side Hustles) is a collection of stories Chris gathered throughout his life about people that started their business from a simple idea. What shines through this book though, is how passionate the people are about their hustle. It is no longer something they have to do to get a meal on their table. It is something that is their own that happens to give them money in the end.
The book is nicely categorized into sections. So, if you are looking for examples from the field of technology, you’ll be able to skip ahead to it. Although the stories are not connected, I recommend reading through all of them. I found it incredibly captivating, seeing how many ways to get out of the “corporate shackles” there are.
Two quick examples
I already used this book as an example in my last post but I can give you way more. In the book, you’ll read, among other things, about a woman that loved travelling around on her bike around her area. She loved it so much, she knew about every nook and cranny that was at least a bit interesting. Places that tourists, or even people that lived in the area, had no idea about. Seeing this opportunity, she started offering to take people on the trips with her, starting with her friends. Later on, she took paying customers on the rides, showing them places none of them would ever experience otherwise.
There is also Chris’ favourite example of two guys who made a Bush Balm. A private area treatment oil that helps with ingrown hair and general care. The owner got the idea after using beard oil and seeing its benefits, then thought, why is there nothing like this for the private parts? Lo and behold, the idea became a shocking success!
I am trying to keep the stories as simple as I can so you can read the book yourself and still get the fun details and backstories about the ideas.
Summary
If I should give 100 Side Hustles a one-sentence review, it would be “The most inspiring piece of literature for following your passion.”
Some of the ideas are so simple you would think “someone must’ve already come up with this” until you realise, perhaps too many people thought that way. Oftentimes the book shows you that it doesn’t matter what idea you come up with. If you are passionate about it, you’ll find a way to make it work.
Hopefully can now see why I recommend this book. I believe you can return the book if you don’t like it, no questions asked, although I’d urge you to not do so if you found any enjoyment in it as I did. Chris did an amazing job here and hopefully, it will be as valuable for you as it was for me.
A quick word for the end
And so the first review is over. I was wondering if I should make this a thing or not, but then my blog is called Side Hustling Tips. Giving you tips about what books to read feels like something that should belong here. I wholeheartedly believe, you’ll enjoy this book and hopefully, many more that are to come.
I’ll try to make these once-a-month occurrences. It shouldn’t be a problem as I listen to audiobooks a lot in my car or while doing a mundane task like cleaning. Due to that, there’s always more books to recommend. With audiobooks these days, you have no excuse to not absorb this useful information.
Now, if you got to the end of this article, consider subscribing to my mailing list or sharing it with others. It helps me tremendously and I heard it makes the world a nicer place. Now, go and enjoy your life, you beautiful person. Perhaps consider reading some of my other posts while you’re at it. Up to you.
