Hi Advanced English Learners!

Welcome to this Advanced English Native English Speaker Conversation. 

Check out the transcript below. As you're listening see if you can follow along and match what you hear (listening) to what you see (reading). At the end of the blog post you'll find listening comprehension questions. Try them out and let us know how you got on!

Enjoy~ 

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Mary Daphne
Hi everyone. Welcome back to this advanced English episode with Greg. We're doing a native English speaker conversation. The reason we do this is one it's fun for us, but also for you, because you get to learn about different topics, different things going on in the world. You also get great pronunciation feedback in terms of how things should sound and with connected speech and intonation and prosody. So all of that wonderful jazz going on there. And then you also get listening comprehension practice, which is very important on your way to fluency and interacting with native English speakers. So there are a host of benefits for doing these and for you participating in them and engaging with this content. And don't forget to leave a comment. If you're watching the YouTube video, just drop a comment.

Or if you're watching and listening to us on Spotify, then you can go into the community tab and leave a comment or question in the Q&A, so we welcome that. And today's topic is all about site hustles. So we're going to get into that right after this.

Mary Daphne
All right. So you may have heard the term side hustle before.

It's definitely a big buzzword these days, I feel.

Greg
Yeah. I mean, side hustles are kind of they used to be something that was unusual and that's why it was called Side Hustle, right? It was sort of something. Right. First of all, is to find the term hustle good. Right. Hustle means to move quickly. Right. So if you're playing soccer, your coach might tell you, hustle, hustle. Right.

You know, you know, move a little faster. So a side hustle is the idea that you are doing something in addition to what you normally do, right? So you're kind of hustling on the side. You can also hustle colloquially was used for, you know, jobs that were informal, right? Informal jobs. Oh yeah. That's my hustle as an informal job.

Mary Daphne
Like what's your hustle?

Greg
Yeah, what's your hustle? So this side hustle is this kind of it's a job on the side. And, you know, I like the idea of hustle here because it's like you're moving a little faster than anyone really realizes because you have your normal job. Yeah. And everyone just assumes you do your normal job. But people who have side hustles not only do the normal job, they also do that side hustle.So these are like hustlers and it's kind of cool. It's like I think it's something to admire.

Mary Daphne
Definitely. I think there's definitely a positive connotation associated with the term hustle and side hustle, especially in, you know, the creator economy and the gig economy even, and just the direction that we're headed in terms of so many people coming up with their own business ventures, their own, you know, product line or whatever it might be, where they're doing something extra right that's not expected of them.

Mary Daphne
So where do you think that motivation to do a side hustle comes from?

Greg
I mean, I know for me it started as this sort of insatiable curiosity, right? Yeah. I enjoyed what I was what I was doing at my job. But there were other things going on that were also interesting, and I wasn't really ready to leave my job, but at the same time, I wanted to sort of pursue those other interests. And so for me, the first draw of the side hustle was just the opportunity to explore, you know, things that weren't related to my job.

Mary Daphne
Yeah. Yeah, I think that's. That's good because, you know, it's about exploring different curiosities, different passions or learning a new skill. And maybe one way to get you to get motivated, to learn a new skills, to like say, you know, how do I deploy this skill? What can I use this skill for? So let's say you're really into digital art.You might need some sort of motivation to take a course in digital art. Maybe you want to start an Etsy shop or, you know, do nfts or something like that where you're creating in that way. And it could just be, you know, this insatiable curiosity, as Gregg said, I love how you put it that way because it's like when it's insatiable, you cannot you know, you cannot ever reach satiety, meaning you never are satisfied.Like after a meal, you know, you reach satiety and you say, okay, that that was a great meal. But in this context, metaphorically speaking, you know, it's like constant. You want it, you're still hungry for more learning, for more doing, for more hustling, right. So I, I love that picture that it paints, right?

Greg
Yeah. And what's cool about a side hustle is even if it's unrelated to your job, sometimes there's skills you develop in your side hustle that make you more effective at your current job. Yeah. And so that's kind of cool. You know, basically the things that you develop because you develop and your side hustle translate to more productivity in your current job. So it's actually something in that sense that your employers might actually benefit from. You know, oftentimes employers can be a little bit uncomfortable about side hustles. They don't want their employees, you know, focused on something that's not related to their job. But the truth is, you know, and, you know, if they sort of confront you about it, you can say, well, look, in the side hustle, I'm developing X, Y, Z skills.I'm doing it in my own time. And they happen to make me more effective at this job for these reasons.

Mary Daphne
Yeah, you raise a really good point there, Greg, because a lot of people might scoff at that idea that, you know, meaning be upset about it or kind of, you know, deriding you or ridiculing you, like why are you focusing on that while you could be focusing on this like the lucrative thing, maybe because maybe the side hustle isn't at the point where it's lucrative yet, right? Where it's profitable yet. But that's separate from this in that, you know, they might be scratching their heads and thinking, why are you doing this? But if you can make a case for how it's positively impacting your role and having you, you know, do your job even better than you would had you not had this side hustle, even if it's just you know, making you happier and maybe having you look forward to your work.And if there's overlap, great. If not, then, you know, you have your side hustle and, you know, we talked about this notion of like quiet quitting and why that's not a healthy standard. And it's by no means something that you should consider are doing. You know, it's more so have a side hustle that you're excited about so that you can really, you know, just test the limits of what's possible within the realm of, you know, your abilities and what you're going to learn about.So it's really about that exploration.

Greg
Yeah, I actually I like how you compare this to quiet quitting, which we discussed and quiet quitting can be problematic for a lot of the reasons we did discuss. A side hustle would be the alternative, right? Instead of quiet quitting and just kind of checking out, develop a side hustle, get excited about that and figure out where the overlap is with your current job. And that way you know that you can have this sort of positive, positive feedback. You also mentioned, of course, the revenue potential, the side hustle.

Mary Daphne
Yeah, absolutely.

Greg
And that is another important motivator for a side hustle. Right. It is an opportunity to supplement your full time job in terms of income. Right. So if you're able to in your off time, do something else that people value, you can charge for that. And then suddenly not only you're making your, you know, full time jobs paycheck, you also have this side income.And that's great for just sort of supplementing your current income, but it's also sort of insurance, right? If for some reason the company you work for shuts down or you get fired, who knows?

Mary Daphne
Or a guy takes over and takes charge of your job is redundant.

Greg
Yeah. You know in that situation, you have something to fall back on. You have this other stream of income that could potentially get you to, you know, it can help bridge the gap between this job and the next job. Or if it's really successful, you might be able to just make it your full time job, right? You can transition to focusing full time on that side hustle. So it's this nice piece of life insurance you could call it. Yeah, that's also a huge advantage.

Mary Daphne
I love that idea because, you know, you never know what's around the corner. Like, you know, it's good to keep a positive mindset and outlook on life, but the more skills that you can learn, the more you know, ability you have to pivot it. That's going to enrich you so much, not only mentally and with your creativity and your work, but also in the case of, you know, a plan B situation where you need some sort of fallback strategy that's extremely powerful and it just alleviates some of that pressure. Right. You know, I think a lot of us feel from time to time, and that's completely natural when you're thinking about how to start a side hustle. I think one of the other good ways is to think about what your hobbies are, right? And think about what you're passionate about already, and then looking at what skills you might need to level up for it to actually take that thing that's a hobby and then turn it in and slowly transform it into a side hustle. And there might be gaps, which of course there will be. And figuring out how to fill those gaps. Right. Maybe it's about learning a little bit about accounting or how to file, you know, your your tax returns or something where you have to be on top of, you know, if you're starting a company, you need to fill in, figure out how you're going to be doing that.But also, it could be things like, you know, learning how to copyright, copy, edit and and thinking about, you know, how do you polish put out a polished piece of work or how to make a video, right? Things like that or how to learn how to edit videos.

Greg
Yeah, I like side hustles that are skills based. Yeah, right. Anything that involves learning a skill because first of all, there are a lot of resources out there. Yes, I'm developing these skills and you can do them at your own pace in your off hours. Yeah. And then of course, the skills themselves become monetizable, right? You can earn money from those skills once you develop them. And it's, you know, that's certainly the approach that most people will take with their side hustle. For me, coding became my side hustle, so I had never coded before and while I was still in my previous job, in my off hours, I started learning how to code. And actually during my job there were a few opportunities to also use the skills I was developing so I could practice, sit there and talk to our developers and sort of bounce ideas off of them. And when I eventually left that job, I was able to just start coding full time, which was great. We actually built the websites for this channel and the exploring channel and other channels, among many other things. So yeah, that's why I really like skills based side hustles because you're able to, you know, develop something that provides additional utility in a professional sense.

Mary Daphne
Absolutely. And those can be soft skills. Those can be hard skills. But finding a way to apply these skills and you know, maybe even talking to your employer and say, look, I'm really interested in coding are there because you can you know, there are a lot of opportunities where there's professional development stipends and a lot of companies want you to, you know, take on stretch projects and try out new things and, you know, to help you maximize your full potential. And a lot of times they can be based on what your current job is, or it can be something where you are, you know, walking into the unknown with that skill and you're having to learn it from scratch. So really playing around with this idea of, you know, not being afraid to go out of your comfort zone and learning these skills that you'll need and trying to think strategically about how can you apply this right and what ways that could also be really beneficial as well.

Greg
Absolutely.

Mary Daphne
Yeah. So these are some great things to think about with side hustles. Do you have a side hustle? I'm really curious. I think Greg is to you know, it's fun to ask people, okay, so what's your 9 to 5 and then what's your side hustle? Right. Because a lot of times, you know, people can be super passionate about what they do for a living, which is great. But other times they, you know, might be okay with it. But then their side hustle is really what excites them and gets them, you know, to wake up in the morning, so to speak, metaphorically. Right. But yeah, let us know what your side hustle is. And if you wanted to start a side hustle, what would that be? Share that with the community. We can all learn from each other and grow in that way. And maybe it's something to do with English, right? If that's the case, then Brownie points to you because I mean, especially if it's not your first language, it's totally amazing to be doing that and to venture in that space. So good for you. And we're going to come back with another native English speaker conversation as well as another lesson. So be sure that you're staying tuned for that. And don't forget to subscribe and follow and leave us a nice review. You can leave up to five stars. That really helps us out. And what it does is that it tells you know, the podcast universe to find this podcast and also follow it, because that way we can reach more people around the world, which is our goal. All right. So we're going to see you in the next one. Bye for now. And happy advanced English learning.

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And here are the answers from this conversation:

What is a "side hustle"? 
-a job on the side in addition to your 9 to 5 
-you're moving faster than people realize

Why does MD think that "side hustle" has a positive connotation? 
-creator economy, allowing creators to earn revenue from their content and creations

What motivated Greg to start a side hustle? 
-insatiable curiosity 
-opportunity to explore things unrelated to his 9 to 5 job

What should you say to an employer who confronts you about your side hustle? 
-(5:47) In this side hustle, I'm developing XYZ skills and doing it in my own time. And it will make me more effective at this job for these reasons {list your reasons}.  

Why's a side hustle an alternative to "quiet quitting"? 
-(7:29) Instead of checking out at work, develop a side hustle, get excited about that and figure out where the overlap is with skills that you can use in your side hustle and in your 9 to 5 job to make you more effective at what you do for both.

What else might motivate you to start a side hustle? 
-(7:59) Revenue potential, making more money, finding an opportunity to supplement your income from your full-time job. If you're able to do something that people value in your off-time, and you can charge for it, then suddenly you have a lucrative side hustle.

Why is a side hustle "life insurance"? 
-(8:29) If for some reason the company you work for shuts down, or you get fired, or AI takes over your job, then you have a side hustle to fall back on. You have another stream of income that could potentially help bridge the gap between this job and the next job. If it's successful, you can focus full time on your side hustle and turn it into your full-time job.

What should you first think about when coming up with your side hustle? 
-(9:52) Look to your hobbies and think about what you're passionate about and enjoy doing. Then you can think about the skills you have vs. the skills you need to make this side hustle work and slowly start to bridge the gap between skills you have vs. skills you need. Figure out how to fill those gaps.

What is a skill-based side hustle? 
(11:00) Anything that requires you to learn new skills. You can learn new skills from just about anywhere these days. The internet is an excellent resource for skills development; you can earn money from those skills once you develop them. 

About the Author and the Explearning Academy:

Mary Daphne is an expert in communication, executive skills and professional development. She is the founder of the Explearning Academy, a platform dedicated to helping individuals enhance their social fluency, boost their careers, and elevate their social game. Through immersive group coaching programs like the Executive Communication Lab and self-guided journeys, participants gain the social superpowers and career catapults they've been searching for. If you're ready to take your negotiation skills to the next level and connect with like-minded individuals, visit academy.explearning.co and explore the various plans available. Join the Explearning Academy community and unlock your full potential.

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