The Art of Manliness - #191： Finding the Work You Were Meant To Do

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast so have you ever

00:00:18.880 met someone who has a job that seems like they were born to do not only do their skills match

00:00:23.940 up with their job but they genuinely enjoy their work and they'd probably do it for free if they

00:00:28.020 could now you might think it's just plain luck that landed them their career and sure there might

00:00:32.620 be some of that but my guest today has written a book on how you can turn the odds more in your

00:00:37.680 favor in the career lottery his name is chris guillebeau and his latest book is called born for

00:00:42.480 this how to find the work you were born to do and in our conversation today chris shares brass tax

00:00:47.700 advice on finding work you love whether you want to start your own business or move to better better

00:00:53.080 position within your current career or even start all over with a new career you're going to find

00:00:58.120 suggestions and tips in today's episode that you can start using today when you're done with the

00:01:03.900 show be sure to check out our show notes at aom.is slash born for this all one word where you'll find

00:01:10.180 links to resources mentioned in our conversation and as always i'd really appreciate if you give

00:01:14.720 our podcast a review on itunes or stitcher as that helps spread the word about the podcast and the show

00:01:19.380 so without further ado chris guillebeau and born for this

00:01:23.060 chris guillebeau welcome back to the show awesome thanks so much brett it's a huge honor to be back

00:01:35.640 right yeah we you were one of my first podcast guests back in 2010 i think wow still going strong

00:01:42.020 still going strong that was that was when i was in my apartment uh and my i was working out of my son's

00:01:48.080 bedroom wow before the manliness mansion right the man yeah i wish is a manliness mansion

00:01:53.280 well hey um you've got a new book out it's called born for this it's about finding your dream job

00:01:59.940 whether that's starting your own business or getting the job in a traditional workspace that you've always

00:02:05.840 wanted uh and i love how you get into details not just high level you actually get into specifics on

00:02:11.920 what people need to do to uh get the job of their dreams um but i love how you start out the book

00:02:18.280 talking about a lot of the most common misguided scripts people have about their careers can you talk

00:02:25.380 about what some of those are and what they can do to flip them so it's more productive yeah absolutely

00:02:30.220 well thank you for the kind words uh my goal with the book and and probably all of my books is to

00:02:34.880 to write something that's truly prescriptive and actionable and helpful so with this book born for this

00:02:40.260 you know i followed a case study model where i interviewed and studied lots of different people

00:02:44.640 who had found or created their dream jobs as you said and my goal is always to kind of extrapolate

00:02:50.580 the lessons you know look at what is statistically significant what is relevant what the average person can

00:02:55.700 do so it's not just a historical study it's meant to be like here read this book and then go and do

00:03:01.000 these things and so you know one of the things i was most surprised by is that you know most people tend

00:03:06.940 to look at really successful people and they think okay they they not only do they have it all figured

00:03:12.380 out now but they've actually always had it figured out and what i was surprised to see is that most

00:03:17.160 successful people whether celebrities you know very wealthy people are just like you know average

00:03:21.740 people who are living a very fulfilled life were doing something that they love to do had a good

00:03:25.900 income they actually did not follow a linear path and they actually had no idea necessarily what they

00:03:31.500 you know when they were six years old and thought about okay here's what i want to do when i grow up

00:03:35.100 you know it rarely turned into that thing and even when they were trying to decide what to study in college

00:03:40.040 or even for their first job or whatever they did in those early career stages there were lots of kind of

00:03:44.900 winding roads and going back to a path and choosing something different so i thought that was really

00:03:49.320 interesting because it goes against this you know conventional wisdom that there is this one straight path

00:03:53.900 that you have to follow uh and maybe another thing is you know there's a lot of advice that's kind of

00:03:59.180 handed down and we kind of accept it as okay this is this is truth and one of the things that i see a

00:04:04.840 lot in business literature advising people how to be better employees or better managers is this concept

00:04:10.700 of think like a ceo and it kind of takes this role model of a very famous person or a ceo of a big

00:04:16.720 company and says here's how this person lives their life uh therefore you should live your life the

00:04:21.440 same way and so there's lots of articles about here's here's how warren buffett invests therefore you

00:04:26.180 know you should invest this way or here's how mark zuckerberg manages this is how you should manage

00:04:30.780 and the problem of course is you know most of us are not mark zuckerberg most of us are not warren

00:04:35.540 buffett it doesn't mean that we're not intelligent but we don't have access to those same resources we

00:04:39.820 don't have tens of thousands of employees or billions of dollars you know to just deploy at will

00:04:44.460 uh so what i kind of learned was maybe it's better to actually think like a janitor not like a ceo

00:04:50.160 because the janitor is actually you know not sitting on top of billions of dollars and tens of

00:04:55.020 thousands of employees the janitor actually has his hand or her hand in everything and knows

00:05:00.380 everybody in the building and is kind of you know multifaceted and is able to respond to different

00:05:05.780 things so the lesson is not so much you know be a janitor of course but the lesson is to think

00:05:10.300 differently and figure out okay out of all this different advice you know what actually applies

00:05:14.240 to you and how can you do something that will help you succeed or you kind of further along your career

00:05:19.220 yeah i love how you you brought up the uh the whole think like a ceo because i find those articles

00:05:24.120 i find them entertaining but also annoying um because i've read about there's this there's what's

00:05:30.020 besides like you know you're not them right you don't you're not warren buff you don't have the

00:05:33.500 resources of what works for him isn't going to work for you but even with some of these articles

00:05:37.180 about like what the most successful people do first thing in the morning right right articles that

00:05:41.920 you read like the underlying assumption is that if you do these things too you too will be

00:05:46.680 successful and there's uh people write written about this there's like a psychological

00:05:50.940 bias going on it's like the survivorship bias i don't know if you've heard of this so it's the

00:05:56.240 idea that uh with these articles you only focus on the people who are successful and did these things

00:06:01.720 you never but out of the people you don't have in that pool or the people who did those things

00:06:06.360 but weren't successful right right so it's like you said it's entertaining you know it's interesting

00:06:10.800 to read those articles that's why they're popular it's like reading people magazine or something

00:06:14.480 which is fine but it doesn't necessarily you know give us actionable advice it doesn't necessarily

00:06:19.440 tell us what to do and and for every article that's like you know here's what these successful

00:06:23.080 people do in the morning they never check email there's probably somebody else who is who is

00:06:26.740 successful who who gets up and checks his email in the morning that's fine you know yeah so but the

00:06:31.160 the key is you have to instead of relying on that you have to experiment and find out what works for

00:06:35.820 you yeah absolutely i'm a huge huge huge fan of experimentation right and we'll get into a little bit

00:06:40.420 more in here in a bit um but you also talk you kind of go after the the very common advice

00:06:45.300 that you see in the online entrepreneurial entrepreneurial world is like you got to

00:06:50.400 follow your passion and once you find your passion and follow it the money will follow

00:06:54.320 um but you say it's misguided advice why is that it's totally it's totally misguided i mean

00:06:58.340 you know if you're trying to figure out okay what do i like to do or what do i want to do for a hobby

00:07:02.880 then that's a great question to ask but there are lots of passions you can have that don't

00:07:07.200 necessarily make for for great careers you know i i was like the story i always tell is when i was a kid

00:07:12.260 i was very passionate about playing video games and not just as a kid but even in my like late teens

00:07:17.340 early 20s you know i was really devoted you know to play to sitting in front of the tv or the computer

00:07:22.520 and playing games but that wasn't going to lead me to a career or a dream job or it was just something

00:07:28.300 that i did for fun and even if it's something that maybe is a little bit more applicable it doesn't

00:07:32.220 necessarily correlate to okay here's my career path maybe it's just something that you do that's that's

00:07:36.900 that's fun and enjoyable and it's a diversion uh so i think it's probably more important to

00:07:41.380 follow your skill uh don't just follow a passion or if you are going to follow a passion you know

00:07:46.320 choose one because most of us have more than one thing we like choose one that's actually kind of

00:07:51.200 relevant in a way that other people care about you know if you can do something that's that's helpful

00:07:56.040 to other people uh that to me is kind of the key to starting a business or to getting ahead in your

00:08:01.260 job or to changing careers uh there's all this talk about value you know speaking of overused

00:08:06.180 concepts and advice that's always handing handed down there's always this is this thing about adding

00:08:11.020 value go add value go add value what does that mean that means essentially be helpful figure out

00:08:16.340 what you can do to better serve your colleagues to better help your company or organization you know

00:08:21.780 to help you know people get ahead that i think is is the key far more than following your passion

00:08:26.420 all right be useful yeah i like that um so you talk about three things that people should consider

00:08:33.140 when they are trying to decide what they do for a living i thought this was really useful because

00:08:37.200 particularly when you're young you tend to focus on just one or the other and not all of them at once

00:08:44.480 or you might not even think about any of them you might be thinking about other factors that aren't

00:08:48.220 really geared towards your well-being but what are these uh three things people should consider when

00:08:53.120 they're thinking about a job or starting a business sure yeah so the model that i used in the book

00:08:58.400 which kind of emerged through all the research it's not like i set out and said here's this model like

00:09:02.400 it kind of emerged through all the different interviews with people and the model is joy

00:09:06.540 money flow so these are these three qualities that i think are the essential elements or ingredients

00:09:13.960 to a very successful career something that's that's fulfilling and purposeful and so joy is you know

00:09:20.500 doing something that you love to do i just talked about how you shouldn't follow your passion but

00:09:24.560 at the same time i think you know life is short you know in this age with many opportunities

00:09:29.660 possibilities you know why why shouldn't we work toward finding something that is enjoyable to us

00:09:34.700 so that work is not just kind of a drudgery it's not just like a soul-sucking job that you go to

00:09:39.880 in order to pay the bills so the first one is joy second one is money because i am interested in

00:09:46.300 helping people with their careers it's not just you're something that you like to do you know the

00:09:50.340 ideal dream job is actually financially viable it is sustainable it provides everything you need to support

00:09:55.940 yourself and to support your family and then the third element uh that i was maybe not surprised at

00:10:01.200 but i was surprised how important it was uh was what i called flow and flow is essentially like

00:10:06.920 deploying your skills in a unique way or in a way that that kind of makes sense to you it's like doing

00:10:13.060 work that you're really good at that you can kind of immerse yourself in that you lose yourself in like

00:10:18.220 time goes by and you don't realize like oh an hour has gone by because i've been like lost in this

00:10:21.900 project and sometimes people can't identify like what the flow is in their life they don't know

00:10:26.860 necessarily like what's the skill that i'm really good at that other people aren't so one tip that i

00:10:31.300 learned was you know if you do any kind of group work if you have meetings or you're working on a team

00:10:35.440 pay attention when when kind of tasks are divvied up and they kind of look at you and they're like oh

00:10:40.540 you know brett should do this and everybody kind of recognizes your skill even if you don't necessarily

00:10:45.660 see it for yourself so you got joy money flow and you know throughout life we have to make

00:10:50.800 different compromises we have to settle in some ways but i think the goal you know the goal of

00:10:55.460 self-actualization the goal of improving ourselves you know to be the best man or the best woman we

00:11:00.060 can be is to get as close as possible to that convergence where we truly do love what we do

00:11:04.720 it is actually sustainable and we're also doing something that we're good at and i like it with

00:11:08.640 the money thing you focus on sustainability it's not necessarily meaning you have to make boo

00:11:12.540 coodles of money of course yeah well i mean true wealth is not boo coodles of money right true wealth is

00:11:17.540 you know we have everything that we need we are able to do the things that we want but we're also

00:11:22.200 able to give we're able to support others and we have healthy relationships that we're pursuing

00:11:26.560 something that matters to us i mean this is true wealth right right yeah a lot of people they'll go

00:11:31.340 for the money um but then they just hate their job they're they don't enjoy their family is terrible

00:11:36.760 family life is terrible um throughout the book you you talk about how landing your dream job is often seen

00:11:43.280 as a lottery right just a few lucky people get to do what they love and i guess there is some truth

00:11:49.160 i mean the the world uh it's competitive um it's hard there's only a few limited spots for some you

00:11:56.080 know ideal jobs that a lot of people want uh if you're starting a business there's risk inherent in

00:12:01.460 that sure but what are some things that people can do to mitigate the risk and uh you know put the odds

00:12:07.920 more in their favor yeah so so this concept of lottery it actually came from some of the respondents

00:12:13.480 in the survey and they they tended to use the same kind of language they they talked about this dream job

00:12:18.260 concept they said you know i feel like i've won the career lottery you know i love what i do i would go to

00:12:23.980 work even if i didn't get paid for it but fortunately i do get paid for it so i kind of wanted to unpack that

00:12:28.700 a little bit and maybe one of the things i learned was um that a lot of risk is perceived it doesn't

00:12:35.240 necessarily mean that that something isn't risky there's there's risk when you you know walk outside

00:12:39.460 of your house or something but but a lot of risk really is perceived and people who did you know

00:12:44.060 quit their job to start a business or people who kind of just made a career transition within the

00:12:48.680 same organization or company or to you know a different organization maybe even a different

00:12:52.440 industry you know one of the ways they were they were able to do that was by increasing their

00:12:56.880 confidence um being able to see that in fact you know successful people just as just as it's not a

00:13:02.500 linear path uh they often make a number of mistakes along the way but most of these mistakes can be

00:13:08.380 you know you can recover from them you can go back like if you come to a fork in the road you choose

00:13:13.060 one path it turns out to not be the most amazing thing it usually is quite possible you know to go

00:13:17.900 back and do something totally different so i think the mindset is one of confidence the mindset of is one

00:13:23.660 of you know looking to security as being something that you're creating for yourself even if you're not an

00:13:29.100 entrepreneur you can still create security for yourself in your job uh in your career right so

00:13:34.660 going back to that experimentation thing uh you talk later on in the book about being willing to

00:13:40.240 you know fold right when it's not working out and knowing that there's always another game to play

00:13:45.880 yeah absolutely i mean we talk about if you think about traditional american or western entrepreneurial

00:13:51.240 advice or like the classic manifest destiny philosophy it is like you know never give up you know

00:13:58.140 always persevere and i think that's terrible advice again most successful people they have

00:14:03.400 given up on a lot of things they haven't necessarily given up on their dream like they're still trying

00:14:07.800 to find that work they were born to do they're still trying to you know be a good person and maybe

00:14:12.700 pursue a quest or whatever it is but but they're absolutely willing to go back and try a different

00:14:16.980 strategy you know they're willing to to start something over to admit that they got it wrong or maybe it

00:14:21.540 wasn't wrong maybe it was a learning experience that led to the next thing so i'm a big fan of you know

00:14:26.000 if it's not working give up do something else yeah i love how you go after that uh story everyone likes

00:14:30.700 to tell about the guy who was digging for gold right and like everyone else gave up but he kept

00:14:36.360 on and like he struck the vein but i'm always whenever i've heard that like what if he wasn't

00:14:40.920 near the vein and he kept going yep that's a possibility we don't know you know that's the thing

00:14:45.260 it's like we don't know what would have happened and the whole story of the the poem of the two roads

00:14:50.140 you know the road not taken or the road less traveled by the traveler kind of comes up on this

00:14:54.960 decision and he looks at one he looks at the other kind of evaluates then he chooses the you know the

00:14:59.780 one road and he says you know that made all the difference uh which is great but we don't know

00:15:04.260 what happened you know what would have happened if he had gone down the other road maybe it would

00:15:07.480 have been just as good you know maybe it would have been better right and like going back to the

00:15:11.040 gold guy he could have stopped and started selling gold digging stuff for all the other ambitious

00:15:17.220 gold diggers and exactly made a ton of money off of it right so we don't know right so i think

00:15:21.540 the maybe the lesson is we put so much pressure on ourselves we put so much pressure to like not

00:15:25.520 make the wrong decision and you know again there are very few career decisions that you can't recover

00:15:31.540 from and you know by actually embracing different decisions being open to change you know that is

00:15:37.160 probably how you're going to make progress one way or another right and i think this is great advice

00:15:40.720 particularly for people who are young guys are in their 20s just starting out there's i think a lot of

00:15:45.540 them think they have to have things figured out right now and if they don't like their life is

00:15:50.220 hosed um right right well that's the culture i mean this is the culture that um you know we i should

00:15:55.340 say collectively like we kind of put on those young people because they feel like they're supposed to

00:16:00.180 know their life purpose when they're age 20 and there's a lot of people age 30 40 50 whatever who

00:16:05.240 don't know their life purpose you know it's it's a it's a journey and the other thing is you have to

00:16:09.520 make all these decisions with limited information right so you're supposed to choose okay i'm 16 or

00:16:15.140 17 or 18 like what am i going to study and how am i going to study it you know what college or what

00:16:20.180 trade school or what you know am i going to go into the military i'm going to work for the government

00:16:23.600 all these kind of things you don't necessarily know what that's going to be like you know you might

00:16:27.280 have a brochure that tells you a little bit or maybe you know somebody who is in that field but

00:16:31.260 until you have the experience you won't actually know so you know the way you figure out what you're

00:16:35.720 born to do is you get experience you know you are open to experiment um you you say yes to things

00:16:40.980 more than you say no at least at first maybe later you become more selective you know but in the

00:16:45.160 beginning you say yes right and that's going just getting started starting to take those risks starting

00:16:49.580 to experiment right absolutely the world economy is competitive there's not a day that goes by where i

00:16:55.960 don't read these like scare articles about uh artificial intelligence taking over jobs that were once

00:17:02.580 even white collar jobs right so like reporters and accountants and even attorneys um so in this

00:17:09.640 new world where you're not only competing with humans in other parts of the world who can maybe do work

00:17:16.360 for cheaper but you're also competing with computers what skills do people need to focus on developing

00:17:22.520 so they can compete whether it's in the traditional job of world or in starting their own business and being

00:17:29.040 an entrepreneur i think the first thing to recognize is in this time of uncertainty you know when things

00:17:35.020 are changing artificial intelligence as you said you know the global economy etc i mean first of all the

00:17:41.260 world has always been changing right you know maybe it's changing more rapid or something now than it was

00:17:45.740 before but you know the times are always changing essentially and and whenever the times change

00:17:50.060 there are opportunities as well as there are challenges and you know historically especially in the united states a lot of

00:17:56.740 really big businesses were started during a recession so a recession is a time you know when people are

00:18:01.300 kind of looking around and looking for something different so first of all you know the changing

00:18:05.320 the changing job market offers opportunities as for what skills are important i was surprised to see

00:18:11.520 you know i talked to people who were web developers they were designers firefighters teachers lawyers

00:18:18.060 accountants all kinds of different backgrounds what i was surprised to see was that there's a difference

00:18:22.940 between hard skills and soft skills and so hard skills are the skills that you learn in college

00:18:29.500 or however you're educated however you're trained you learn to be a web developer you learn a programming

00:18:34.080 language you learn specific engineering skills you know whatever your trade is but soft skills are kind

00:18:40.540 of more universal and they apply to a lot of different professions so soft skills are things like

00:18:45.180 communication being able to negotiate in a way that that's both good for you but also kind of

00:18:51.500 creating a win-win for the other party as well the ability to follow through and follow up and we

00:18:57.800 talked about you know being in a meeting earlier and they look around and like who should do this

00:19:02.800 they look to the person who's going to follow up well because we've all been in meetings where

00:19:07.080 you know lots of good stuff is talked about but then nothing ever happens afterward so so what i learned

00:19:11.940 was these soft skills are extremely important and they're actually kind of underestimated so

00:19:17.320 something you can do you know right away i talk about it a lot in the book is to begin improving

00:19:22.120 those soft skills you know don't just go back and learn another programming language don't just advance

00:19:26.580 your technical skills those are important but a lot of people have technical skills and when you talk

00:19:31.440 about a competing or competitive job market i think the people who stand out are the ones who have

00:19:36.320 better soft skills they communicate better they follow through better you know they're just kind

00:19:40.620 of better all around in those things yeah that's great advice and i i think this is really

00:19:44.660 applicable even for people who are in what we traditionally call blue collar jobs right um

00:19:50.000 the emphasis is always on the hard skills you got to be good right to be a good plumber but in my

00:19:54.060 experience as a homeowner whenever i've had to call a plumber for things i always go with the plumber

00:19:58.220 who like who's got those soft skills down right who know how to communicate calls me back waiting

00:20:03.560 right exactly doesn't leave you waiting he's honest with you all that stuff right um so yeah i mean

00:20:08.100 that's if you are in that sort of a job like yeah that that can really set you like easily set you

00:20:12.720 apart from the pack it's just focusing on that um so let me ask you about this so you mentioned i

00:20:22.940 guess we just talked about that you answered a question that i already asked okay let's talk

00:20:26.200 about this uh getting the specifics if you want if you have an idea of what your dream job is like

00:20:31.620 you figure it out you know what you're good at you know it brings you joy you know that it's

00:20:35.280 something that could bring you uh sustainable money for sure how do you go about getting it

00:20:40.860 and what's and what's the what's the we'll talk about what's the usual way people you do it and

00:20:44.960 why is that a bad way of going about it yeah well i mean the usual way is kind of like you know

00:20:49.380 throwing a lot of things throwing spaghetti against the wall and seeing what sticks and you know sending

00:20:53.840 out a ton of resumes you know going on linkedin kind of spamming people and all of that i don't say

00:20:59.580 spamming people in a terrible way because it's just what people do like they don't know you know

00:21:02.960 and and the problem is that you're not the only one doing this right and when automation came came

00:21:09.400 along like the ability to upload your resume the ability to kind of send it out digitally to lots

00:21:14.220 of people in some ways it sounds great because you're like well now i can apply for 90 jobs instead

00:21:18.960 of just like two or three but you know there's probably a hundred other people or a thousand other

00:21:23.400 people who are now actually applying for the same 90 jobs so it's really really hard to stand out by

00:21:28.360 kind of going that traditional traditional way i mean you have to be you know the best of the best

00:21:33.840 you know in that 99th percentile or you just have to get lucky right yeah a lot of it just kind of

00:21:38.360 comes down to randomness and chance and maybe 10 of the applicants are all really qualified so you know

00:21:44.060 they're just kind of rolling the dice there so uh most you know most dream jobs are actually kind

00:21:49.200 of found through referral and i talk a lot in the book about the strength of weak ties which is

00:21:54.360 essentially your extended network so your friends of friends you know your people that your colleagues

00:21:59.860 know the people that you went to school with talking to those people and then talking to the

00:22:04.900 extended networks of those people are looking for connections uh that that's usually a much much

00:22:09.700 better way uh any way that you can kind of get your resume in through the back door is almost always

00:22:15.160 going to lead to a better chance of success than than just going through the normal route and then the

00:22:19.600 other thing i would mention is that a lot of dream jobs are not found they're actually created

00:22:25.240 and when i say created i don't necessarily mean starting a business or quitting your job i saw a

00:22:30.920 number of dream jobs that were created within an organization or within a company by somebody who had

00:22:36.120 been a really good employee kind of stood out you know was good at their technical skills but was also

00:22:40.820 a good leader had these kind of soft skills and then identified an area that the company or the

00:22:46.240 organization needed to grow in and essentially created their own role for it by advocating and

00:22:52.320 showing the value of that role by showing why they were qualified to do it so sometimes the the dream

00:22:58.420 job is not necessarily out there waiting for you uh it's something that you have to kind of design

00:23:03.880 yourself and then advocate for um but if it can work obviously you're you've got something great for

00:23:08.500 yourself and it's also great for the people who are employing you so even if you're employed and you

00:23:12.400 want a dream job you have to act like uh uh a free agent in a way yeah yeah i mean one of my lessons

00:23:19.620 you have for people is you know you should think like an entrepreneur even if you don't want to be

00:23:24.400 an entrepreneur you should think entrepreneurially you should think creatively you should try to think

00:23:29.180 how can i how can i apply you know like i said this backdoor kind of thinking how can i apply like

00:23:34.060 be thinking like how there's another way there's got to be an alternative than just like this linear path

00:23:39.120 of like you know if there's 12 stages in an organization i go in at stage one and then two

00:23:44.000 years later you know i get to move up to stage two and then 20 years later maybe i'm at stage eight or

00:23:48.660 nine and then i kind of plateau there has to be another way and and we all know people who skip

00:23:53.740 levels you know we all know people who are kind of like wow they were on this track like step one step

00:23:57.620 two but now they're at step five you know what did they do what did they do that was different and i

00:24:01.540 think a big part of it is is being indispensable um being super reliable being that kind of go-to

00:24:06.940 person so uh let's talk about starting your own business a bit um because your first book was

00:24:12.580 a hundred dollar startup i believe correct right that's right oh second book but yeah second book

00:24:16.260 yeah um sorry about that it's good um she's written a lot hard to keep track um but you're a big advocate

00:24:23.760 of people starting what you call side hustles even if they have a traditional job where they work nine

00:24:28.680 to five and they're making decent money um why should folks like this consider starting a business

00:24:34.820 on the side or moonlighting yeah so i've made a little bit of a transition uh just in my own

00:24:40.100 philosophy because you know i i am kind of pro-entrepreneurship because that's my own

00:24:44.140 background but i recognize that's a little bit of a bias so for this book it was really exciting to see

00:24:49.100 people who had kind of found a dream job within a company or organization i talked to the first female

00:24:54.660 firefighter in ontario who became that firefighter 20 years ago and talked about all the you know

00:25:00.300 struggles and challenges she went through to achieve that position i mean if you want to be a

00:25:03.620 firefighter you can't really do that freelance you know you have to be part of an organization you

00:25:07.540 have to go through the discipline and the process so totally think that's awesome what but what i

00:25:12.280 think even more though is i believe even more in the value of a side hustle and i think it's actually

00:25:17.440 an imperative i think it's a necessity it's not just something that's nice and there are two reasons

00:25:22.740 one because of what we've been talking about of the changing economic times the instability you know

00:25:28.380 the fact that there is no job security at least no long-term job security anymore

00:25:32.300 and no one will ever care about your career as much as you do so that sounds kind of negative but

00:25:37.260 the other reason is because i've seen over and over and over i get these emails all the time

00:25:41.800 from people who started a little business just while they were you know they were working their

00:25:46.100 job maybe they even liked their job they had no plans to quit but they did this thing on the side

00:25:50.580 just a few hours a week and maybe it didn't bring a lot of money but when it brought the first sale or

00:25:55.720 they got their first client or customer it brings a disproportionate amount of joy and satisfaction

00:26:01.260 and you kind of look at that i get these emails they're like oh i made thirty dollars you know i'm

00:26:05.060 so excited you know i had to work you know 10 hours to get that first thirty dollars or something

00:26:08.980 but it's great you know and it feels very empowering so that's it's it's this confidence

00:26:14.480 it's the security it's being able to look and say i have more than one income source

00:26:18.120 even if that income source is relatively small it's still great and in some cases you know i talked to

00:26:23.900 lots of people who actually had just planned to start something small but it did actually grow

00:26:28.280 you know to the point where they had to make a choice between their day job and the business and

00:26:33.840 there's different ways to navigate that choice but it's a great it's a great problem to have right

00:26:37.660 yeah yeah i love that because um you know i did some side hustling too uh to help pay off my debt

00:26:43.180 student debt student loan debt um my wife did as well and it was it was and it wasn't that hard

00:26:49.280 right like so can you give us some examples of people who have side hustles who work a regular

00:26:55.080 nine to five job that you highlight in your book yeah yeah i talked to i talked to a woman who

00:26:59.560 developed a kind of a crafts business you know like a fabric arts business uh let's see i'm realizing

00:27:04.480 i'm talking to the art of manliness so i should probably have a more manly example just as i tell

00:27:08.260 that one a whiskey distiller or something i don't know exactly yeah yeah so this woman actually made

00:27:12.480 whiskey no just kidding um so there's a story of this guy named benny shu and and benny was was

00:27:18.460 working a day job he had kind of dabbled in entrepreneurship a little bit um it was like a

00:27:22.760 hobby and uh he had this idea to design t-shirts and he wasn't he didn't have a background in apparel

00:27:28.840 uh he didn't really have a background in design either uh he just kind of kind of you know waded into

00:27:33.840 this and over about three to six months he invested a little bit of money not a lot but a little bit of

00:27:40.520 money uh in putting these designs out on facebook and the really creative thing about it was when he

00:27:46.880 first had the business he had to actually do the screen printing and stock inventory and all of

00:27:51.120 that uh which of course comes with risk and challenge you don't necessarily know if you're

00:27:54.900 going to sell that inventory etc but he found a way to to essentially do print on demand uh for

00:28:01.100 customers he didn't have so he had no platform he didn't have a profile he didn't have an email list

00:28:05.640 or any of that but through this process of experimentation by investing a little bit of money

00:28:10.240 i mean we're talking like a couple of hundred dollars a month uh he was able to get to where

00:28:14.120 this became a viable business creating these new t-shirt designs you know putting them up through

00:28:18.480 facebook ads seeing which ones people liked and essentially people vote with their wallet you

00:28:23.620 know if there's 10 designs and they they buy one that's the one you stick with uh and then it

00:28:27.520 actually became a full-time business for him so it took about a year or so uh but it kind of came

00:28:32.300 down to where he had to choose okay do i stay in my job or do i grow this business and for him he

00:28:36.020 chose to grow that business and there are lots of stories like that and not all of them to be

00:28:39.880 clear not all of them lead to okay now i'm making this full-time income but again i think the

00:28:44.380 principle is like what can you do on the side that that will help you and give you more confidence

00:28:48.800 and security right and you have to be willing going back to that idea we've been talking about

00:28:52.720 throughout this conversation being willing to experiment absolutely because some things aren't

00:28:57.360 going to work out yep um well think about how do you decide say like you start a side hustle

00:29:02.660 right you have a traditional job and uh it goes off like gangbusters for whatever reason

00:29:08.000 how do you decide whether to take your side hustle full-time because i think that might be a big

00:29:13.540 agonizing decision for a lot of people yeah well as i said it's a it's a good place to be you know

00:29:18.360 it's kind of like it is a problem i agree but it's kind of like the problem of having too much money

00:29:22.140 you know and i have to pay my taxes i mean you have to sort that out but still like wouldn't you

00:29:26.080 rather be in that position than not having the money or whatever um i think the way that some

00:29:30.320 people have navigated it is they have actually chose to chosen to stay in their job

00:29:34.560 but they stay in their job they're very clear that they're staying in their job because they

00:29:38.820 like their job and they realize that the job actually offers maybe a different environment

00:29:43.100 than the side hustle or the growing business something i learned was that you know we focus

00:29:48.800 a lot on profession like what do you want to be when you grow up and i am a so-and-so i'm a so-and-so

00:29:53.620 we don't focus enough on what i called working conditions so working conditions are like how you

00:29:58.900 spend your time like how you do your best work do you like to work with people do you like to work

00:30:03.140 by yourself like for most of us it's kind of a blend of both of those things so where is the

00:30:07.800 balance for you um how do you like to be rewarded or motivated or incentivized all those kind of

00:30:12.900 things if you can figure out your working conditions that will help you see okay i'm actually better off

00:30:17.000 in this role for a while maybe i'm actually better off you know pioneering my own thing or maybe i'll go

00:30:22.040 back and forth because these days lots of people are kind of pursuing a hybrid lifestyle where for a

00:30:26.500 while maybe they do work a job but then they have something on the side that takes off

00:30:29.600 so i i think that if you're in that position you stay with the job if the job is bringing you

00:30:35.560 great satisfaction and if all of a sudden it changes if that environment changes and you know

00:30:40.900 it becomes stressful well then you have something else to go to right right one thing i've seen with

00:30:46.040 people who you know taking a side hustle full-time um and they quit their day jobs they they discover

00:30:52.480 that they actually don't like running a business sure right they they like to start things they like to

00:30:58.480 like kind of work in the business but the whole the management aspect doesn't really appeal to

00:31:02.760 them so they'll maybe sell their business or maybe even just shut it down or scale it back and go

00:31:07.700 back to a traditional job because that's where they they feel comfortable and that's okay right

00:31:11.900 yeah it's totally okay i mean i mean the whole point is finding something that works for you the

00:31:15.740 ideal scenario that works for you so one thing that's helpful there is to kind of get an

00:31:20.160 understanding of the level of autonomy that you're most comfortable with and people are totally on a

00:31:26.280 spectrum with this you know some people do want to be like a hundred percent you know independent i

00:31:30.900 want to be on my own i want to make my own decisions i don't want a boss telling me what to do

00:31:34.540 you know other people you know they actually benefit from having some structure they actually benefit from

00:31:39.580 having set hours from having some accountability to knowing what the deliverables are and then being

00:31:44.500 able to work toward those deliverables that's not a bad thing at all i mean you can you can be very

00:31:48.300 successful in life at a high level you know in an environment where there are clear deliverables and

00:31:53.300 there is some structure right well chris this has been a great conversation a lot of practical

00:31:58.840 takeaways but where can people find out more information about the book awesome well as i

00:32:02.980 said it's a huge honor love to connect with people i'm at chrisgillibeau.com or chris

00:32:06.860 guillebeau on social and nobody can ever spell that so you can also go to born for this book.com

00:32:11.900 to learn about the new book awesome well chris thanks so much for your time it's been a pleasure

00:32:15.500 awesome thanks brett my guest today was chris guillebeau he's the author of the book

00:32:19.240 born for this and you can find more information about that book at born for this book.com and you

00:32:24.620 can purchase it on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere and also make sure to check out the

00:32:28.480 show notes for links to resources that we mentioned in this podcast you can find that at

00:32:32.840 aom.is slash born for this well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for

00:32:41.160 more manly tips and advice make sure to check out the art of manliness website at

00:32:44.300 artofmanliness.com and if you enjoy the podcast and have got something out of it i'd really

00:32:48.200 appreciate it if you give us a review on itunes or stitcher as that helps spread the word about

00:32:52.180 the show as always i appreciate your continued support and until next time this is brett mckay

00:32:56.640 telling you to stay manly

The Art of Manliness - July 31, 2025

#191： Finding the Work You Were Meant To Do

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