AP 0770: How Do I Balance My Full-Time Job with My Side Business?

AskPat 770 Episode Transcript

Pat Flynn: Hey, what's up, everybody? Welcome to AskPat Episode 770. Thank you for being here today. Welcome to the brand new year and another year's worth of AskPat. Starting now.

Right, thank you very much and here is today’s question from Andrew.

Andrew: Oh hi, Pat. It's Andrew Gibson here from ITCareerBuilder.com. [Editor's note: This site is no longer active.] I have been listening to your podcasts and building up my business from the beginning of this year. I have a full-time job which I really enjoy and I've been doing this as a side gig essentially. And it's at the stage now where if I'm going to do this, I need to invest a whole lot more time. But the thing is, I've got my day job which I really love and I don't intend giving that job up yet. I'm not sure I can give myself the full amount to the business so just wanted to get your opinion on what options are out there and if you've come across this with others. Thank you.

Pat Flynn: Andrew, thank you so much for the question. You know it's really interesting because when I was working my job as an architect, I really loved it as well. But it's because of that that I never really explored what my other options were so it's really cool that you're doing this thing on the side already. And you're at the point where you feel like you need to invest more time in that particular business to grow it to where you want to grow. However you love your day job and if you don't want to leave it, don't leave it. I'm also very admirable that you aren't just making these quick decisions here because of what other people might be doing, you're looking internally for yourself. And really that's what you need to do. At some point you will make a decision one way or another. But there are some options out there for you.

One thing that I would say, that came to mind first, is potentially get a partner to help with a lot of the business growth and scaling of this current side gig that you have. Now that business partner could be somebody that you know or somebody that may be you've already worked with in this side gig. I don't know what this side gig is. But that's where I would start. That way you can have man hours, thoughts and brain power put into growing it where it needs to go. It can help you both generate more of a side income or it can even be something that you then sell off your share of it later on. Now there is of course the aspect of partnerships which is almost like a marriage so you don't want to just find the first person that seems interested in it and just say “yes, let's do this.” Talk about it and make sure we both have the same goals and make sure we both work together because you know you're not going to be putting much time into it as you potentially could into it because you still have this day job. You want to be very honest with the other person as you are having this discussion and making these decisions.

So that's one thing you could do. Another thing you can do is work a little bit on productivity. So that in your life, are there any areas in your life that you could actually sacrifice some time so that you can work on your business more and grow it without worrying about your day job. Or, I'm speculating here and thinking out loud, perhaps there is a way to combine the two. I know few examples of people who have started a side gig that related to their day job and they were allowed to stay in their day job but given a different role in their day job because of what they were doing. They had a promotion because of it and had more responsibility and were able to grow both at the same time, which was really cool.

So those are some options that you can take. There's a great book out there by Chip and Dan Heath, two brothers who have written one of my all time favorite books which is Made To Stick. That's not the book I want to recommend here, though. The book I want to recommend is called Decisive. And it's a great book when you're coming up on these hard decisions in your life and it's a great way to start off the year here because we're all going to come across some cool opportunities. And you know, what's cool about this, Andrew, is this is a good problem to have. It's better than not having a job and not having a business to grow and you have both. And now you're making decisions so I want to give you kudos on growing that and sticking with what you love and I want to wish you all the best. I really don't have much more to say than that.

Now I do want to encourage all of you who are listening to this to get more involved than you were last year so if you have some comments and things you want to discuss with myself or Andrew related to this particular episode, and any other episodes that you listen to, use Twitter. That's the best place to do that. You can use the hashtag #AskPat770 for this particular episode so Andrew you can follow that hashtag in case people have anything to say and I will do so. #AskPat770 and @patflynn is my Twitter handle so you can make sure that I see it.

Andrew, thank you so much and congratulations on everything. And what's cool, we're also going to send you an AskPat t-shirt for having your question featured here on the show.

For those of you listening, if you have a question that you'd like potentially featured here on the show, just head on over to www.Askpat.com. You can ask right there on that page. Just like Andrew did. So thank you so much, keep the questions coming in, it's a brand new year, a whole new batch of questions coming your way and the answers from me of course.

And of course we always end with quote here and that quote today is from Richard Hooker. He said: “Change is not made without inconvenience, even from worse to better.”

Take care, everybody and I'll see you in the next episode of AskPat. Bye