The Family Man Side Hustle Plan

For those who don’t know I make my living by writing here, running my YouTube Channel, selling affiliate products, and running the Fraternity of Excellence which I CoFounded with Craig James.

This didn’t happen quickly, at all.

What I’m going to do is break down a timeline of sorts, which will be a very rough picture of how I’ve gotten to this point for other family men who may be working to do the same.

I had to make several moves in order to position myself to where I could support a wife, two kids, pay the mortgage on my house, and support my wife and I’s Jeep habit.

My aim is to help you accelerate your learning curve and do what I did, but faster.

If your goal is to make some money on the side, pay attention and apply.

What program should you follow to make money online

Understand that I am telling you how I did things and a lot of the way I did things were the wrong way, so we’ll go over wrong and right below as well as how this blog and the Fraternity of Excellence are interchangeable with your goal.

I’m sharing the universal aspects of building a side gig while remaining a present parent and spouse.

Why are you doing what you’re doing?

Here’s a few of my “whys“:

I want to make side money for vacations/emergencies.
I want to be a writer.
I want to create a legacy to pass to my kids.
I want to be free from a having a boss.
I want to be location independent.

Once you have a why it’s easy to begin plotting out a path forward.

Why do you want to do this? Because X, Y, Z.

Now, how do we get you doing this?

These two things are the hardest part, people never commit to a why and thus they never get anywhere close to figuring out how they’d actually get to doing that thing.

Some people say, “Oh, I want to write a book.” but they really don’t want to write a book, they want to say they want to write a book because they saw someone else do it or they think it’s a means to getting rich quick and generating passive income.

So be honest, why are you doing this?

Convincing others why they should care about what you’re doing is the most difficult part; why you and not the thousands of others?

I’ve found Josh Lisec’s course, “The Best Way To Say It” (Grab your copy of the program here) to be the greatest resource out there to help you answer this question.

The sooner you can answer, the sooner people will care about what you’re saying and selling.

When you’re working to build your project up the nights will get long, things start to pile up, stress creeps in, and you can’t just go out and do the things you want to do…

If you aren’t holding onto that why for dear life, you’re going to fail.

Steps You Have To Take To Launch Your Side Hustle

1. You need to eliminate any time wasters in order to get moving towards creating your product. What is your product? That’s not something I can answer. You can become an affiliate, start a blog, run a coaching service, sell soap, whatever – you decide. Regardless of what you do, wasting time has to stop.

2. What are your time wasters? Scrolling for hours “researching” online. Enough fucking research, build something, build anything today. You don’t need to read Reddit any longer, you don’t need to YouTube how to write copywrite any longer, you don’t need to spend another moment researching the perfect execution of your plan. Make something today.

3. You need to establish what it is you’re doing. I’m a family man who writes about marriage, fatherhood, being a man who leads a family and I’m also a Veteran which is where FoE comes into play. I’m a man who values brotherhood and have the credentials to back it up. I wrote a book on how to discover and bring forth your authentic self (31 Days to Masculinity) all of these things make me an “expert” in my field. What is your expertise?

4. Where can you physically create content? My answer is likely the wrong one, but I made it everywhere:

I’d record videos while commuting to the 9-5
I’d Tweet while driving.
I’d put up Instagram content while stuck in traffic.
I’d take lunch breaks to write blog posts or record more videos in my Jeep.
I’d stay up late after the kids went to bed to write blog posts.
I’d stack then run video coaching sessions with men by calling out sick from work.

You need to make time in your life to get yourself producing. Some people need to have peace and quiet, I didn’t have that so I made due until I did.

5. Do not allow perfection to become the enemy of “good enough“.

Something that’s alright on the market is much better than something that’s perfect in your head.

As a family man you need to keep in mind that during all of your building and planning your wife and kids have needs, be there for them.

Just because “Dad wants to make some money” sounds like a reasonable excuse to miss certain activities and day to day moments, it is too easy to become absorbed in chasing the dragon and shirking other areas in life.

Ask me how I know…

You have to keep a balance and at times that will be difficult.

So be it, I said this would be worth it, not that this would be easy.

Attend the games, coach the practices, continue to date the wife, don’t let your family fail; choose to make them a part of the experience. Let them see their old man grinding and chasing his dreams:

It’s important they see what ambition looks like.
It’s important your wife sees her man still grinds and has a passion for life.
It’s important you allow that fire inside to burn hot while you pursue conquest and greatness.

Writing a blog won’t make you Conan the Barbarian; it will have you feeling a sense of purpose in life where most others apathetically exist.

Be a man who has a reason to get up, one who has purpose and desire in life.

Success is not an immediate experience

I laugh in the face of all those who say they “only got 10 likes on their Tweet“.

…are you kidding me?!

I’ve written 3k word blog posts which took hours to craft that received 5 views and the only comment was someone pointing out a typo, GTFOH.

Grind for you.
Improve the craft daily.
Then grind again.

Use your time wisely and you’ll never have an issue.

How long does it take to make enough money to leave your job?

As long as it takes.

Look man, don’t set your sights on making 5 figures a month within your first year.

Can it happen? For sure it can, I’ve witnessed it.

It comes down to skillset, intelligence, and timing.

Apart from all of that, if you make $50 online your first month you can fill the gas tank without hitting the personal funds.

If you make $100 here or there on your services or product, that’s money that can be put towards:

Paying off debt
Braces
Emergency fund
A family vacation
School loans
Etc.

Don’t get so greedy and lusting for “online money” you lose sight of appreciating the small wins on the way.

$10 is more than zero, $20 is more than $10, the next month may be $5, and the month after $500 you never know when something will hit hard so make sure you appreciate every cent that is sent your way.

If people are willing to give you money which they earned from the time they dedicated to their profession you’d better be appreciative.

Also, don’t go and start making money just to blow it on stupid shit.

Pay off your debts, spend time with your wife and kids, put this side money towards liberating yourself from the shackles of bills and banks.

If the aim is for you to build this empire while leading your family, show your family the benefits from all the time you dedicate away from them.

Jackie sure does appreciate my online work now that I broke free from corporate America; safe to say she likes it much more than when I was making nothing and dedicating all hours to sitting in front of the screen recording podcasts in the corner of our bedroom and not allowing her to go to sleep.

You hold the keys to setting yourself free, don’t drop them.

My fellow family men, you can do this; whatever “this” thing is in your life, you can do it.

Commit and follow through.

Remember, I created my group the Fraternity of Excellence and program 3 1 Days to Masculinity both can help you kickstart your process while surrounding you with subject matter experts who can keep you from falling into the holes they fell into which slowed progress and cost money.

Accountability, camaraderie,and brotherhood are so powerful when it comes to reaching your full potential as a man, instill them in your life.

You may want to read my recent piece, “5 LESSONS TO HELP YOU BUILD A PERSONAL BRAND” as it is very complementary to this article.

I wish you all the best and hope this piece inspires some of you to take that leap towards potential financial freedom.

Take Action and Take Care,