Tag Archive for 'million-dollars'

01
Jun

panning for gold at work - making the most of your day job

Recently a reader asked a question. I was going to respond in thecomments but my last post was so weak that I thought you all deserved something a little better than my late night emotional digital outburst.

So the reader said that he wanted to know, as he develops into his carreer as a teacher, how to keep an eye out for a hustle that he could jump into and take advantage of.

Hustles present themselves to you every day, no matter where you are. They show up, hang around for a minute and pass on to the next guy if you failed to grab onto it.

I dig teachers. I have a bit of an envy for teachers which is probably why I set this blog up in the first place.

I have friend who is a teacher that got into real estate as his sideline hustle. He now owns a few houses hat he rents out. He isnt making a killing on the month to month. Each house only brings in a hundred bucks or so a month - but in 20 to 30 years they will be paid off and worth a few $100k each. I have another friend who is a professor at a pretty large university. He took his expertise to the next level and saw that an educational and theraputic tool used in the field hadn’t been changed in 50 years. He and I modernized it and made it cross cultural. He invested $25,000 and flipped it into $125,000 in a year. Continue reading ‘panning for gold at work - making the most of your day job’

08
Mar

Web sites to help you get your hustle going.

A Hustler is constantly evaluating their surroundings and the resources available to them. I have said before that if all you have is time, use that time to advance your hustle. I lived in a housing project near some agricultural drainage ditches. People would go down there to catch crawdads to make soup and other foods and then sell what they could make (even just sell the live crawdads at the flea market). I used to collect cans and bottles that people threw away to gather up some money. Whatever it is that surrounds you, take a look at it and figure out who doesn’t have it. Farrah Gray took rocks and sold them as door stops. He took extra lotions from around his house and mixed them together and sold them for extra money. Farrah Gray is a Hustler.

One thing that is pretty much available to anyone in the United States is Internet access. Coffee shops, libraries, Internet cafes, schools are all potential sources of computers with cheap or free internet access.

Now, you might not be able to charge folks to use these free computers (but if you can, I might have a job for you because that would mean you are on top of your sales hustle). Anyway, so you now have this incredible resource. Every day, people like you are making a few dollars to a few thousand dollars using the Internet. I have. I was making a few hundred dollars a month on eBay about 8 years ago spending about 4 hours a month posting items and mailing them out. I didn’t do anything special. I could probably start it up again if I wanted too, but it was boring. I make better money now doing things that are more fun for me – and isn’t that the real hustle? Continue reading ‘Web sites to help you get your hustle going.’

07
Jan

Financing your business using the Stone Soup Strategy

I remember the first time I heard the story about stone soup. I was about 8 years old and it was a muppet story or something like that for kids on television. Even then I understood what was going on in the story. The two main characters used the only resources they had, their street smarts, to come up and get fed. For those who don’t know, here is the story:

Two travelers come to a village, carrying nothing more than an empty pot. Upon their arrival, the villagers are unwilling to share any of their food stores with the hungry travelers. The travelers fill the pot with water, drop a large stone in it, and place it over a fire in the village square. One of the villagers becomes curious and asks what they are doing. The travelers answer that they are making “stone soup”, which tastes wonderful, although it still needs a little bit of garnish to improve the flavor, which they are missing. The villager doesn’t mind parting with just a little bit to help them out, so it gets added to the soup. Another villager walks by, inquiring about the pot, and the travelers again mention their stone soup which hasn’t reached its full potential yet. The villager hands them a little bit of seasoning to help them out. More and more villagers walk by, each adding another ingredient. Finally, a delicious and nourishing pot of soup is enjoyed by all.  Continue reading ‘Financing your business using the Stone Soup Strategy’

23
Dec

Defininition of a Hustler

So, some of you regular readers (and there are a surprisingly amount of you) may have read this post from a few days ago. A gentleman who calls himself BaldChemist seemed to have a hard time understanding what I talk about here. He seems to think that I am obsessed with money and that being a Hustler is nothing to aspire to. He is wrong, in my opinion, on both points.

I think the issue may be a cultural one more than one based on intelligence or ignorance. I deal with many people in my day to day life that come from a great many countries. We also have readers from all over the world. I want them to understand exactly what we are talking about when we define what a Hustler is.

I am about to explain what a Hustler is to me. Continue reading ‘Defininition of a Hustler’

21
Dec

Go to where the food is!

Sam Kinison said it best -

“I’m like anyone else on this planet — I’m very moved by world hunger. I see the same commercials, with those little kids, starving, and very depressed. I watch those kids and I go, ‘Fuck, I know the FILM crew could give this kid a sandwich!’ There’s a director five feet away going, ‘DON’T FEED HIM YET! GET THAT SANDWICH OUTTA HERE! IT DOESN’T WORK UNLESS HE LOOKS HUNGRY!!!’ But I’m not trying to make fun of world hunger. Matter of fact, I think I have the answer. You want to stop world hunger? Stop sending these people food. Don’t send these people another bite, folks. You want to send them something, you want to help? Send them U-Hauls. Send them U-Hauls, some luggage, send them a guy out there who says, ‘Hey, we been driving out here every day with your food, for, like, the last thirty or forty years, and we were driving out here today across the desert, and it occurred to us that there wouldn’t BE world hunger, if you people would LIVE WHERE THE FOOD IS! YOU LIVE IN A DESERT! YOU LIVE IN A F**KING DESERT! NOTHING GROWS OUT HERE! NOTHING’S GONNA GROW OUT HERE! YOU SEE THIS? HUH? THIS IS SAND. KNOW WHAT IT’S GONNA BE A HUNDRED YEARS FROM NOW? IT’S GONNA BE SAND! YOU LIVE IN A F**KING DESERT! GET YOUR STUFF, GET YOUR SH*T, WE’LL MAKE ONE TRIP, WE’LL TAKE YOU TO WHERE THE FOOD IS! WE HAVE DESERTS IN AMERICA — WE JUST DON’T LIVE IN THEM, A**HOLES!” Continue reading ‘Go to where the food is!’