I’m going to let you in on a powerful tip — one that has helped me and thousands of others escape boring jobs and live a Rich Life:

There’s no limit to how much extra money you can earn.


Many people don’t seem to understand this — and it makes sense. We’ve all been hardwired to believe that we’re destined to work mundane 9 to 5 jobs for the rest of our lives until we make enough money to become “rich” and retire to a condo in Florida.

But once we understand that our earning potential is LIMITLESS, we can truly start working towards living the life we want TODAY.

One of my favorite tactics to do that is by earning more money on the side.

Even if you have a job you enjoy, there’s really no reason you shouldn’t be making more money on top of that.

In fact, you have so many BETTER reasons to do it:

  1. Most people don’t even think to earn more — giving you an edge. Because of differences in skill, motivation, and luck, few people ever try to earn more. Instead, they choose to complain about things they can’t control like the economy and taxes while focusing on things like cutting out lattes to save money.
    So if you’re in that small group of motivated hustlers who do actually earn more, you earn the lion’s share of side revenue. When you pick an area to excel where there’s a built-in barrier to success — like earning more money on the side — the winners get disproportionate winnings.
  2.  Mitigate your risks. What if you lost your job tomorrow? Would you have another source of income to fall back on? If not, you’re going to have to dip into your emergency fund…if you have one that is. One thing I always talk about the importance of diversifying your investments. It’s the same idea when it comes to your revenue sources.
  3. Managing your money and earning more money is a powerful combination. Combine earning more with the automation strategy for saving, investing, and spending which I will talk about in future post.

There are plenty of ways to make more money — but one of the easiest, most effective ways to begin generating more income is by starting a side hustle.

What’s a side hustle, you ask?

Simply put, side hustles are freelance businesses that can generate you cash outside of your normal work hours like…

  • Graphic designing
  • Web developing and programming
  • Selling something online
  • Network Marketing business
  • Whatever!!

The best part is freelance businesses are easily scalable, so you can make a lot of money if you’re willing to devote just a little bit of time to it. Or if you get busy in other areas of your life, you can scale back.

First Thing! Find a profitable business idea

As mentioned above, finding a profitable business idea is as simple as looking at your strengths. You can do that by answering four simple questions today and finding a side hustle that’s perfect to you.

  1. What do you already pay for? We already pay people to do a lot of different things. Can you turn one of those things into your own online business? Examples: Clean your home, walk your pet, cook you meals, etc.
  2. What skills do you have? Now, what do you know — and know well? These are the skills you have that you’re great at — and people want to pay you to teach them. Examples: Fluency in a foreign language, programming knowledge, cooking skills, etc.
  3. What do your friends say you’re great at? I love this question. Not only can it be a nice little ego boost — but it can also be incredibly revealing. Examples: Workout routines, relationship advice, great fashion sense, etc.
  4. What do you do on a Saturday morning? What do you do on a Saturday morning before everyone else is awake? This can be incredibly revealing to what you’re passionate about and what you like to spend your time on. Examples: Browsing fashion websites, working on your car, reading fitness subedits, etc.

 

Find an answer to those questions and I promise you you’ll find a profitable business idea.

 

Second Thing! Use Craigslist & Social Media to find clients

 

Think of those idiots on Craigslist trying to pick up women in the personals section by sending out a picture of their mediocre manhood. They’d be better served writing a few half-decent responses, testing to see which got the best response, and sending that out instead.

That’s exactly what you can start doing to generate effective leads.

Check out the jobs section of Craigslist and take a look at the ads relevant to your business.

If you took the time to write a great email reaching out to these companies, you’ll immediately separate yourself from 99.9999% of others on the site who are just sending boring boilerplate emails that’ll get them nowhere.

This doesn’t apply to just Craigslist either — you can use this with any job site. The key is to just be slightly better than average and willing to test a few different emails.

Here are a few suggestion of great sites freelancers can use to find business:

 

Invest in yourself

When it comes to starting a new business, too many of us will get overwhelmed thinking that we need to do everything “perfectly.” In fact, many will spin their tires doing things like:

  • Starting a blog
  • Creating a Facebook page
  • Buying ads on Google
  • Hiring skywriters to promote their business in the skies
  • Whatever

This is an easy way to get burnt out, leading us to do nothing at all.

Your goal isn’t to start a blog or create a Facebook page with millions of likes — your goal is to FIND PAYING CLIENTS.

That’s why the easiest way to start freelancing is to take things one step at a time and not worry about getting it perfect.

I’d rather get it 85% right than do nothing at all.

Remember: it’s okay to make mistakes. The important thing is that you get started and learn from those mistakes.

The best way to get started is to begin investing in yourself.

Now, one thing that you will find very common with people who have not taken the time to invest in themselves and learn how this stuff works, is they will create what’s called levels of abstraction.

Rather than just going directly to what they want, they will create all these different levels of abstraction — like making a Facebook page or a blog — that make them feel good, but that actually don’t require them to do the hard work.

So, they’ll spend six, nine, twelve months doing something frustrating and then give up because they never spent time buying a couple good books or buying a course.

 

Patrick, I’m Not Ready to Make Extra Money Cause!

[Issue]

“But Patrick, I don’t think I can possibly work on a side business. I don’t have enough time and I don’t think I even have a business idea!”

There are always going to be excuses when it comes to trying something new — but when you take a look at some of them, you’ll realize that they’re almost always all MENTAL barriers.

Here’s how you can break past the 3 most common barriers to earning money I’ve seen.

 

Mental Barrier 1:

I don’t have the time to make extra money!

It’s always funny to me when people tell me they don’t have enough time for their regular job, let alone a freelance business on the side.

Well, I actually have a secret I’d like to tell you that might blow your mind……..

……..YOU DO HAVE THE TIME!!!

There’s no doubt about it: starting a freelance business will take time — but not nearly as much as you think.

Can you spare an hour a day to freelancing? How about a few hours on the weekends?

I’m guessing that you can. Maybe instead of spending after work time endlessly binging Netflix or browsing Reddit, you can devote yourself to starting a business that can earn you extra thousands this year. Hell, work from a laptop on the couch while streaming; Netflix and Making Money is the new Netflix and Chill.

Saying “I don’t have the time” is really saying “This is not a priority.” Try that out. “Making more money is not a priority.” Compared to “Browsing Facebook & Instagram is not a priority.” Which one of those is true?

 

Mental Barrier 2:

But I’m so tired after work!

This is actually a very valid concern. After all, many of us work long eight hour days — how are we expected to come home and work on freelancing when all we want to do is pour ourselves some wine and put on the latest episode of your favorite show on Netflix.

It’s difficult — but you can actually do it successfully with some simple psychology.

Imagine a smoker. Many smokers know that smoking is a bad habit and is terrible for their health — but they still do it because of cognitive dissonance.

What they’ll say is, “Yeah, I know it’s really bad for me but I work really hard and I deserve this pack of cigarettes.”

It’s the same thing as starting a side business. At the end of a long work day, you’ll say to yourself, “I worked all day and dealt with my dumb boss and blah blah blah. I really deserve to kick back and watch Netflix.”

Instead of falling victim to cognitive dissonance, remember this question:

Where do I want to be a year from now?

That’s actually something my parents told me when I was younger, and I never forgot it. Where do I want to be a year from now? And what small steps can I take to get there?

When you look at some successful freelancers who earn hundreds of dollars an hour, many will think, “I’ll never be able to earn that!”

But you WILL as long as you start today. And a year from now, you’ll be earning much more than you would if you didn’t do anything at all.

 

Mental Barrier 3:

I don’t have a good business idea!

This is the most common barrier preventing people from making money freelancing: not knowing what type of work they want to do.

As I’ve outlined in the steps above, though, it’s simple to identify your profitable skills as long as you look at 4 things:

  1. What do you already pay for?
  2. What skills do you have?
  3. What do your friends say you’re great at?
  4. What do you do on a Saturday morning?

And the answer to this mental barrier will serve as the very first step in creating your side business.

If you’re still stuck, I have a list a great business opportunity for you which I will personally walk you through. Contact me at patrick@finaincialsavingspro.com