How to Cheat on Your Job

Let’s get that side hustle going, baby

When I started my creator journey, it began with a single YouTube upload. No fanfare, no announcement. I didn’t even tell my partner. I just hit “publish.” That tiny act lit the fuse for everything that followed.

Your first move doesn’t need to be a business launch. You just need to push out something you into the world.

Yes, you are allowed

If you’re waiting for a green light, consider this your “go.” You don’t need anyone’s blessing, especially not your boss’s. You’re operating under stealth mode, trying a few experiments to see which pops off.

It doesn’t have to be a business

You could turn a hobby into a passion project, or treat your health like a creative experiment. For me, weekend meal-prep became its own “side gig” in bringing my Indonesian roots to my Hong Kong kitchen: tracking recipes, iterating on spice levels, even sharing mini photo-recaps with friends.

You don’t need an LLC to sneak in a creative sprint each week. Track it, iterate on it, and see how it grows under your own radar. Just do something other than your job, but take it seriously. At the very least you deserve to have something worth your attention that’s not just your day job!!

But if you’re thinking of something that can generate money…

Play to your strengths

I used to assume side gigs had to live in a completely different sandbox: finance writing by day, video creator by night.

But the real shortcut is to pick an adjacent skill. I was already a writer, so I could have leaned into writing, e.g. exploring policy, art, lifestyle, tech, rather than learning video editing from scratch.

My first “cheat” gig ended up being editing for an online writing school. This was perfectly aligned with what I could already do, and totally off-radar at my day job.

Dreaming up an offer

If you really want to launch your own business, though - which I am in the middle of doing, too - do an audit of what questions people come to you for.

Mine revolved around: “How do you build a sustainable creative practice?” and “How do you have the time?” My answer to the first one is Bite-Sized Creativity. The second, I interpret as a question on productivity systems. (Friends, if there’s any other questions you often come up to me for, please lemme know).

After that, I could start thinking divergently and dreaming up a product or service or offer.

These are two ideas I’m actively thinking about:

• Group coaching for others to practice bite-sized creativity

• A roadmap to help people build out their side gigs

Tiny tests, big signals

Now that you’ve thought of a dream offer, it’s time to validate that idea before building anything.

For Bite-Sized Creativity, I have a Calendly link for people to book calls. Yes, I am working on a book, but to figure out more on how to help people, I need to actually talk to people.

For building a side hustle, I am writing out this essay series to see if any of this resonates 😉

There are other ways to validate this idea, too, of course. Like running a three-question Google Form, putting up an Instagram poll, or posting a LinkedIn update with your pitch and gauge the reactions.

Or look at examples from my friends.

Will Mannon

is testing out an appetite for his new course with a 10% deposit.

Erin Nolan

ran a beta course on expressive journaling, and got feedback before charging people for it.

Linart Seprioto

hosted a free workshop on “How to actually enjoy learning” to try out hosting a webinar.

Start small and stealth

To recap, these are some of the steps you can take, in any order:

1. Look through your DMs to see what questions you get a lot

2. Map out your skills and see if there are any adjacent opportunities

3. Dream up an offer and validate it

You don’t have to quit your day job. You just have to cheat a little:experiment in the background, learn fast, and iterate. Worst-case scenario: you discover that a side hustle isn’t for you. Best-case: you’re on your way to something that pays, excites, and lives in perfect harmony with what you want.

Go ahead, cheat on your job.

I promise I won’t tell 😉

This is part of an essay series called Cheat on Your Job. I’m putting together some resources on this for next week. Would you want anything adjacent to this topic, e.g. a free workshop, some templates, Q&A, a prompts? Lemme know in the comments or reply to this email!

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Update log:

• 🥱 Johnny Harris’s Why Everything Is Making You Feel Bored video was so insightful. I didn’t know that boredom was linked so much to people’s purpose

• 👩‍🍳 Went full chef and meal-prepped for the week on Sunday with: Pad Kaprao, Kung Pao Chicken + Shrimp, Pork Collar + Carrot + Oyster Mushroom Stirfry, Mushroom Chicken Tofu Soup, Chicken Congee.

• 🤓 Went super Notion Nerdy and made a workbook based off Hormozi’s $100M Offers book

• 🎤 Hosted my first live event with Ali! I did a 20min fireside chat with Ali then moderated a Q&A. It was a crowd of 100 people it was fun to meet a bunch of people who follow Ali

• 👨‍🎨 Got to chat with

  Tintin Smith
  last week! So surreal to have watched some of these folks on YouTube and then be on a call with them ???

• 🌈 Ingrid Nilsen popped back to YouTube for a “10 years since I came out” video

Book a call: Have a bite-sized creative project? Let’s give you a starting line boost a la Mario Kart - https://www.beckyisj.com/consulting

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