The Side-Hustle Dad

Ep01
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Welcome to Side Hustle Dad
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​[00:00:00]

Bryan Steele: Hi, and welcome to the first. Episode of The Side Hustle. Dad, I'm so excited for you to join me on this journey. I'm excited to help you achieve some business success, some financial freedom for your family. You know, I know.

Why This Podcast Exists
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Bryan Steele: Being a dad, it feels like there's just sometimes a lot of struggle and striving because we care about our families, we care about our spouses, we care about our kids.

We wanna provide an amazing life for them, but we also want to be present. And so I wanted to create this podcast, which has been on my mind for a long time because I felt [00:01:00] like there wasn't much talk about the balance of. Both being a dad and also this aspirational future, this ambition to create something new.

And there's plenty of other side hustle podcasts, you know, some targeting the moms who maybe are, are staying at home and, you know, with kids at school, they, start a business that's awesome. Other just general side hustle podcasts for about anybody. And those are great, but I just felt like there was not enough specific discussion for dads. So this is gonna be your guide to having a side hustle business, building it from scratch without sacrificing with your family. Allowing you to continue to have thriving relationships. And I've been putting it off. There's always been a, a bunch on my plate and I was like, oh, I'll, I'll have time.

It'll happen. And eventually I said, I just gotta give myself a deadline.

What to Expect Weekly
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Bryan Steele: So March. 2026 [00:02:00] is it? And so you are now listening to the first batch of episodes. I plan to release this every single week. And on this podcast, what you can expect from me is for me to share everything I have learned along my side hustle journey that's got me to where I am today.

So you're gonna walk through it with me. We're gonna talk about the ways in which we think as fathers, how that comes to play in our business, how we think about our businesses, the mindsets we have. Coming into having a business, we're gonna talk about specific strategies, ways of operating, ways of being that allow us to be effective.

And of course, like really nitty gritty, specific tactics, like really nuts and bolts of what you're gonna do so that you can have a successful business. So I'm excited. I wanted this to be for the dads out there. So if you are joining me, I am so thankful that you're giving me your time, your attention, and so.

Start With Your Why
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Bryan Steele: With, with what I wanted to start with for this podcast [00:03:00] is just very simply to say why, why do you want to have a side hustle business? And if we don't start here, if we just like, yep, I'm, I wanna make some money, I'm gonna get into it very, very quickly. What we create can. Take on a life of its own unless we give it its proper place unless we give it a specific job.

And so that's why I think this is the most critical place to start. It may not seem like the most glamorous or maybe the most life changing, but it will be the thing in which you go back to it over and over and over again. Okay, this why, why are you starting a business now? When I started my side hustle journey.

Nearly 10 years ago, I was, I was thinking about, you know, just, man, I was just looking at, honestly, I was looking at some debt [00:04:00] and I was looking at our mortgage and I was thinking, I just don't like this. Just feeling like that was hanging over our heads. And so that for me was the moment I was like, you know, maybe, maybe there's a way.

I can create something, create a business which gives just a little extra bump, a little bit of flexibility to make just some extra payments, to get rid of debt, to get rid of that mortgage. And so maybe that's for you. So I want to cover, there's really, you know, three ways I think about a why for a business that, that we're gonna run through.

But before I do that, I wanna say there's no judgment in this. This, there's gonna be no benefit to you to lie to yourself and say, oh, it's for this, this specific altruistic reason. If it's because you want to buy a boat for the lake, then make it be because you want to buy a boat for the lake. There's [00:05:00] no judgment here.

This is really just honesty, like why is it you want to create this business? And, we'll, we'll get into more of that later.

Three Why Categories
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Bryan Steele: But I see really three categories.

Financial Motivations
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Bryan Steele: So the first obvious one that people start a business is financial reasons. You might be like me and are thinking, I just want to eliminate debt. I just wanna be debt free and I want to get there as fast as I can, and just the day job.

Is not cutting it by itself. You know, we are, we're able to pay our bills and maybe a little bit of savings, but it just doesn't feel like I'm getting the traction. So debt could absolutely be a reason. Maybe like I mentioned before, like you, there's a big purchase, you want to make a, a car, a boat, some big thing you want to go do.

Maybe it's setting aside money for your kids' college future. You set aside a 5, 2, 9 plan. So you want to have some money that you can dedicate just to that. So those would be like financial reasons for [00:06:00] wanting to have a side hustle.

Relational Motivations
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Bryan Steele: The second category of reasons would be what I call relational. You're not necessarily wanting to start a business for financial reasons, but maybe you and your partner, you and your spouse, you feel like, hey.

We could do something together. We could build our own business, we could do our own thing. Just just you and me. My wife and I, one of our failed attempts at a side hustle was, was a T-shirt store. So we were like, whoa. Brainstorming and coming up with ideas and things like that. And it, it ultimately didn't succeed.

But that was an example of maybe something relational. Maybe you. Kids are interested in getting into business. Maybe you've seen them get really creative with the 3D printer or some artwork, or maybe they're gardening and they wanna start selling stuff at a local farmer's market, right? And so you want to be there to help them along that journey.

And so you really see a side [00:07:00] hustle as a way to build your relationships. With family maybe with friends that you don't get to spend a lot of time with anymore. You know, after, after you get married, you have kids. It, it can sometimes be hard to have some of those same social fabrics that, that we had for years growing up in college and school and things like that.

So maybe it's with friends. So relational is another, like, this is why. I want this business. I want to have these relationships be stronger. I want to have a a, a reason. I want this to be the reason we get together and this common goal for us to both push towards.

Personal Motivations
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Bryan Steele: The last might be personal. And I think about this like a job, right?

Maybe your day job is you sit in a cubicle. In front of a computer all day long and it's just not fulfilling to you in the way you would like you. You don't think it's a bad job it provides for your family. It's good you don't dislike the people you're around, [00:08:00] but maybe it's not scratching a creative itch, right?

Maybe you were a musician and your side hustle might be. Performing on evenings and weekends, going, playing at restaurants, things like that. And so that might be something that gives you a little creative outlet or some passion project. Maybe there's a cause which you're really excited about. And so, you know, there's, there's an opportunity here with this side hustle to create a business that allows you to serve in a way that serves your own personal passions.

So those, those would be the three things that I think about. So you're obviously, you're financial, really important. You're relational or you're personal. Now you might think, oh, well this is this. You know, why? Why is this such a big deal? Why do I, I want to make it be this thing?

Give Your Hustle a Job
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Bryan Steele: And the reason I say is because your side hustle needs to have a job.

You need to know what it exists to do [00:09:00] so that when it is not. Doing that job anymore, you have an indication that something needs to change. You need to move on. You need to go to the next thing, right? If your side hustle is built around your relationship with your spouse, with your kids, and all of a sudden, you know, six months, nine months in, that is creating strife and it is creating friction.

In ways that you didn't predict before. It's no longer meeting your why and it's time to change, right? Maybe you meet your goal, maybe you save for your kids' college education. That's awesome. It's met its goal. Do you really need it to continue? Do you still want to continue driving this side? Hustle forward into the future?

If the main reason it existed in the first place has been achieved, you get out of debt, all of those things. [00:10:00] So it gives you clarity around why it exists so that you can make really, really well informed decisions going forward. And this doesn't mean that your why doesn't change. If you achieve a goal with it, maybe now you see an opportunity to pivot to a new goal.

A new opportunity, but it needs to be done with intention.

Intentional Next Steps
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Bryan Steele: And I think that that's gonna be a theme we keep coming back to. All of these things we are doing, we have to be doing with intention. And so as you think about your why that, that's really my ask for you to today. As you think about a side hustle, we're not, we're not talking about what your business should be.

We're not talking about where you should go or how you're gonna operate it, yet we will get to all of those things.

Write It Down Today
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Bryan Steele: But right now, what is your why? Why do you want to have a side hustle? Why are you looking for additional financial [00:11:00] freedom? Get really clear around that. Write that down. That's what I want you to do today.

Write down why it is that you want to have this business. That's it.

Subscribe and Resources
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Bryan Steele: If you have found this helpful and, and you think, man, I, I like this, I think I could be on board for more of this. Listen to the other episodes, but be sure to subscribe. That is immensely powerful and everything that I come up with here for this show is gonna be available on my website.

Side hustle.dad. So you'll be able to find all the episodes, show notes, if I come up with other resources, that is the place to go find them. Side hustle dot.

Closing and See You Next
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Bryan Steele: Dad, I'm excited for you to be along this journey with me. And yeah, can't wait to see where it takes us. So I will see you on the next episode real soon.

​ [00:12:00]