The Side-Hustle Dad

Ep02
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Why Partner Support Matters
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Bryan Steele: So I hope you enjoyed our first episode. I hope you were able to spend some time thinking about the why behind your side hustle. Now, before we go any further in the side, hustle dad we have to address the elephant in the room because just because you've got this idea, you've got this why you have this vision, if you do not have the support of your partner.

This entire endeavor is built on sand, and it could collapse at any moment. So today what I want to cover is getting your spouse, getting your partner, getting your wife on [00:01:00] board with the side hustle. So we've, we've clearly mapped it out. You have a vision, you have a purpose behind it, but. You have to go the step beyond so that you have a champion with you.

Somebody who's going to support you, somebody who is going to encourage you. 'cause if you're trying to push on your own, it's just you're gonna run into a wall at some point. It's just not going to be sustainable.

Story Recording Studio Lessons
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Bryan Steele: So, little story time for me. So my first real side hustle that had any sort of financial traction was, was my recording studio, right?

So if you're watching on YouTube and see my piano back over here I did some music production just 'cause it was my background as a, as a musician. I said, Hey, I've got the equipment. I enjoy this. And so I think that there's an opportunity here to help some people provide a service that they need and, and have some fun, have some creative [00:02:00] output, and so.

As, as I've talked before, I really wanted to eliminate our debt. So that was something that my wife and I, we talked about. What does, what does that look like? How's this gonna function? Because I knew this is something that was going to take time. Right. I'm not quitting my day job. Right.

This is something that.

Is going to be in addition, it's going to require some extra effort. And so while there's certainly things that I sacrificed in the process, I was sacrificing, you know, some sleep, right? I'm getting up early in the morning, but there were gonna be some times where she was, you know, my wife Abby, she was going to be taking.

Some additional brunt of, of me having this side hustle business. And so for her to be willing to do that, for her to be willing to engage in that process, she had [00:03:00] to see what was possible. She had to see where it was going. And over the course of seven years, you know what started out very, very small with a lot of intentional effort.

You know, was was something that ended up bringing in $200,000 of revenue over a seven year period and wasn't all just recording music and stuff like that. We'll, we'll talk about all that stuff down the road, but certainly that was, that was where it began. That was a chunk of it. But we ran into conflict lots of times when I didn't do a good job of communicating, Hey, I've got this project that I'm working on.

I'm gonna, here's where. I've got to, you know, have a Saturday. I've got somebody coming over to do some recording. And so there were always those little pockets of like disappointment because your family wants to spend time with you, right? [00:04:00] They don't want you to just fully disappear.

Lead With Your Why
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Bryan Steele: And so I think what's really important early on in the process of creating a side hustle is getting that partner on board.

I, I think pretty much anybody would agree with that. But lots of times these ideas come with some resistance, right? You bring up this idea, I've got this business idea, and so that is why in episode one we focused solely on the why. Because that is absolutely the first thing that you're coming with.

You're not saying, here's this business I want to have. It's here's the goal I want to achieve. You're no longer saying, you know, this is for me. I just want to have a business for business sake. There's a mission here. I want us to move [00:05:00] forward financially. I want us to save money for our co kids' college education.

I want to pay off our debt. I want to have this creative endeavor. We work together in whatever those whys are around the business, what it, whatever that why is you have that clarity and so you can lead with that and communicate with that. Because here's what's going on. When you come to your spouse, you've got a day job.

You've got 40 hours a week, you're already putting in outside of the home likely, and you come and you say, I've got this other business. I want to start. The first instinct is to be protective. Your wife is not saying, your partner is not saying, I don't believe in you. I don't want you to succeed. She's protecting something else, right?

She sees [00:06:00] that starting a new business, financially risky going to take a lot more time. You know, so it's gonna pull you away, takes away some stability from the kids, right? There's, there's ambiguity around what's going on. And so understand first that the no is not, the resistance is not an indictment of you.

It is not an indictment of your capability. It's hesitation, right? Because there's a fear of the unknown. We all have that. Humans have that right? There's a fear. We always jump to worst case scenarios, and so understand first that any resistance you're going to feel is going to come from protection. So don't own that yourself.

Don't take that on as she hates me. You know, she [00:07:00] just doesn't believe in me. Do not go there. 'cause that's a very dangerous place to be in mentally. Right.

Three Common Objections
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Bryan Steele: The strategy is we want to get our spouse onboard as a support structure. Okay. That is the important thing. That's what we're going. So we're gonna break down really these three.

Universal objections that come up. So the first is a time scarcity, right? You're working a full-time day job, and that's not changing, right? It's called side hustle for a reason. It is happening on the side of your all ready, dedicated employment efforts, right? You're already busy enough. When will I see you?

When will the kids see you? So that's one objection that that comes up. Pretty obvious, pretty common. The second is around financial safety. We can't afford to lose money or risk our savings on a new business. It [00:08:00] feels like a gamble, right? It feels like we can't approach this. And you know, the statistics out there seem really terrifying around how many businesses fail, and to be fair.

I tried things that didn't work right. And, and that's okay. You're not necessarily always going to get it right. But we, if we approach things the right way, we don't have to gamble our family's future on a business. Okay? And so we don't want to do that, right? So, but that's, that's another objection that comes up.

Financial safety. They're scared about what this does. To the family financially, even though the whole reason may be to benefit the family long term for specific financial goals, right? Lots of people sink money into this big idea and it doesn't end up [00:09:00] working out. That's not the type of business we want to create.

And then finally. Just maybe you've got a history, right, of just trying things, and so whatever is the new shiny object that you're chasing. Ooh, what's that? Ooh, that's a new idea. Ooh, that seems really interesting, right? You're chasing all these possible ideas and you lack the persistence, the consistency, the accountability.

To be able to finish. Like are there a bunch of house projects that remain unfinished? Like that flooring in the basement you were gonna change out. You know, is it still half finished? Are you lacking trim around any part of your home? Right? So if there's been times where you've struggled to commit to finishing a project, then absolutely starting a side hustle business can feel like just going to be some other shiny thing that will get abandoned in a few months.

[00:10:00] Okay, so that's, those are those objections that come up and recognize that those objections are around protection. Okay? They want to take care. Your, your wife, your partner wants to take care of the family just as much as you do. And so she's the sounding board. Okay? And then on top of that. We talk about the time there is a cost to her as well.

Okay? There's a cost to your partner. That is, if you take on a side hustle, then that means you don't have capacity to maybe do some other things so that home hustle becomes a little more on her. Maybe she's having to put the kids to bed more often, right?

Maybe it's harder to find that date night that you always used to have. Maybe she's having to do more of the [00:11:00] cleaning, you know, whatever it may be. So just understand there's a tension there. And so even though there's a lot of work you will be doing in your side hustle, there's an invisible work going on.

There's an invisible task that has to be taken care of if you're not able to get it done. We're gonna mitigate that as much as possible over the, over the course of this, and we'll talk about that more on this podcast. But that is important to consider, and it's important to recognize before you start having this conversation, these are the things that are going to come up.

Go in knowing that these are going to be the objections, and yours may be more specific than that, which makes sense, but that those are the going to be the most common things that are heard across the board. And you, you probably feel them yourself. Like, how, how can I do this? Right?

Objection One Time Scarcity
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Bryan Steele: You want to, okay, so first [00:12:00] objection, the time scarcity.

You're already busy enough. Okay. So understand the concern. You're not going to argue 'cause it absolutely is a concern. You are busy, you have a job. This is going to be in addition to, you cannot change that. Maybe all the work is upfront and then later on, you know, it's, it's more of a coast. 'cause you build something that, that works on its own.

Maybe it's a service that for it to make money, you have to be in the business. Okay. You have to acknowledge this. You can't argue. You can't say, oh, I'm I, you know, you won't notice the difference 'cause that is a lie. But we have to shift the thinking around this as we're going to mitigate this. You're going to take things from yourself.

You're going to be willing to [00:13:00] sacrifice your own time. You're not going to sacrifice. Your family's time to the best of your ability. Okay. I coached my daughter's soccer team, right? Just YMCA recreation. Nothing serious. That was a commitment. I was not going to let the side business dictate that I couldn't do that anymore.

I had to make sure that those things. Were still in place that I was still making time for my family. So we'll talk about that on our next episode as far as looking for specific times and what we've got available. But understand first that yes, it, it takes effort, it does take time, but this is also a specific purpose.

So conveying the why. This is going to be a [00:14:00] short term sprint, right? This is not forever. You're not saying, and maybe things change and shift in the future for the goals and stuff, but the reason we gave it a why, the reason we gave the side hustle a mission is because it's something that can be completed.

Okay? So there is always the option of saying, Hey, we're gonna, we're gonna get this done, we're gonna make this happen, and then we don't have to have the side hustle anymore. It doesn't have to exist beyond that because we'll have achieved our goal.

Objection Two Money Risk
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Bryan Steele: Objection number two is the financial risk. We can't.

Afford to lose money, right? We're we're already barely able to make the bills paid with your day job, and now you wanna start another business. Well, first of all, we talked about wanting the side hustle to be something that creates financial freedom. There's lots of resources around, like the a hundred dollars startup.

There's ways of bootstrapping your business. There's ways of. [00:15:00] Using tools like Kickstarter, like if you've got a product that you're gonna develop, right? So some things you know, require an investment of money. So the objective is to take a lean startup, okay? You're going to find ways. To creatively fund the business without you having to dip into retirement.

Oh, that would, that's the worst. Dipping into retirement, you know, borrowing money. The whole idea is to create freedom, right? Debt and pulling from your own future is the antithesis of what we're aiming to achieve. So everything we're gonna talk about on this podcast is specifically around trying to do this efficiently.

Is it possibly slower? Yes. I mean, there would maybe be some percentage chance that if you threw a bunch of loans at it or borrowed a bunch of money that you could ramp and scale faster, but that's not what we're trying to create. Something that's sustainable, that's as [00:16:00] low risk as possible. Okay. That's where we are going with this.

So. That's the first piece of communication around the financial risk. We're, we're going to do this efficiently, but then you can agree on a stop loss number, right? There are businesses. Businesses do cost some money, but you can say, Hey, if it's gonna cost more than X amount of dollars, or it's not financially bringing in profit within the first six months, we'll take a step back.

Okay, give a stop loss number, right? We're not going to continue chasing bad money with more bad money, okay? If it's not working, it's not working. We don't need to keep pushing with a side hustle business. That's not achieving the goal that it set out to achieve.

Objection Three Shiny Objects
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Bryan Steele: All right, so that's the second objection, the financial risk, the final [00:17:00] flavor of the month.

Shiny object syndrome. First acknowledge where maybe you've failed at that in the past. If that's you, if you're feeling that, if you're going, Ugh, yeah, that's me. There's some stuff I haven't finished in the garage. It's kind of a mess out there. Then just own it. Yep. You have to acknowledge it. You have to accept that, but then ask for a trial period.

Say, Hey, if I can invest diligently without hurting the family for a 90 day trial period, if I'm doing it well, that allows me to earn the right to keep going so you can have regular recurring conversations.

How To Start The Talk
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Bryan Steele: Okay, so those are maybe a few strategies to handle specific objections, but let's talk about how you bring this up.

How do you start this conversation? 'cause you're going to need to give space for your spouse, for your partner to respond. [00:18:00] Okay? And those are the object objections that will come up. But how do we start? How do we begin and we begin with the end. Right. We talked about the why last week, and this is why I focus so much on that at the beginning and why I wanted you to spend some time reflecting and writing that down because this is what you are presenting.

You're not saying, I want to have a business for business sake. You're saying I am thinking about the best case future, an aspirational future. For our family, for our kids, for our finances, for my, my emotional and creative sanity. But you, you bring it up and you say, I've been thinking about our family's future and our situation right now, and I need your help with something.

I've been feeling creatively [00:19:00] unfulfilled. I feel like we've got this debt that's been bothering me. I feel like I want to have something that I get to work on with our kids, with you, and what you're doing there is you're shifting the focus from my business, my thing that I want to do to getting help.

Looking towards the future, this is where I want to head. Okay. Then you want to link this side, hustle specifically to the challenges that you face if she's hating the debt. Talk about how you feel that same thing. You feel that and you want to look at a side hustle as an opportunity to reduce that debt.

If she's struggling with time with you and you think a [00:20:00] business might be something you could work on together, you've got this idea. Say, Hey, I, I feel like we've been going two different directions and we just don't have those common things pulling us together. And I would like to. To have a side hustle that allows us to do that.

I'd love to think about what that looks like and how we could work together on something. Maybe we, we bring the kids into it and we all work together and have some fun with it. If it's your creative endeavors, you're like, I, I just struggle with my stress at work and I would love to find a way to, to get some creative energy going again, just 'cause I think it, it'd give me a lot more peace.

If she's thinking about a vacation, right? Here's a, I want to take us on bigger dream family vacations. I don't, I don't just want to drive to Disney World. I want to fly there in first class. Right? You're [00:21:00] starting to communicate the outcomes, not the how. We're gonna get there. That'll get talked about, that'll get covered.

You'll go through that entire process. If you want to get a partner on board, you have to cast the vision for the end result. You have to say, this is where I'm headed. You have to present that leadership, but at the same time, you also have to say, this is something I'm gonna need your support with. You cannot do this alone.

If you push on your own, it will create tension and friction. And, and if the family suffers, man, that, that's just what I don't want for any of you. Okay.

Safety Nets And Emergency Brake
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Bryan Steele: So think about those, those items, bring that vision and then provide a couple safety nets, right? Give some space to acknowledge that there's fears and [00:22:00] challenges with starting a business.

And so discuss those things. Say, Hey, let's talk about how much I would be willing to invest in this before seeing that, you know. It's gonna work. Or maybe you come up with a startup cost, like, Hey, I did some research. I got got on the chat GPT and was kind of working with some things like before, you know, before we go into it, you know, this is what I'm willing to do.

I'm gonna put in this time, I'm gonna do a little research and I'm gonna come up with what I think is a reasonable amount of money for us to invest. You know, especially if you've gotta develop a product or something that you're gonna sell, if it's a service, honestly, many of those things can be bootstrapped.

Okay, so, but at least come up with that number. Say, Hey, I'm gonna come up with a number. What can we agree that doesn't feel scary, but feels like gives us a chance to succeed? Give yourself a 90 day trial. Give yourself a window of time to prove that hey, there's something that works, and that you're gonna come back together [00:23:00] and say, okay, let's, let's look at what's happening.

You know, what sort of feedback am I getting? And share those with, with her. With your spouse, with your partner, and I think the final thing is make sure you give them some power to change the direction of the side hustle. She needs an emergency break. The fear is that it's gonna pull you away and you're gonna be isolated on your own and not spending time with your family.

That's not what we wanted. This is the side hustle, dad. It's in the end of every episode that I want you to build a side hustle, but I want you to be a dad, and if this is taking all of your time, it's no longer serving the purpose for which it was. Originally intended, right? We do not want to sacrifice our families and so be be willing to give that emergency break.

And if the family suffers, she's gonna, she's gonna pull it and [00:24:00] say, Hey, we gotta talk. And you have to be receptive to that. You cannot just push through you. You cannot just say, I'm going to go and ignore the needs of others around me. Okay. Maybe the business will grow faster if you do that. That is not the goal.

The goal is not to create the absolute fastest growing business. People do that. CEOs do that, and in many cases, their family suffers. We're going to go at a measurable pace with intention, with communication, so that we have something that we're excited about, that we're proud of, but we've got a family that's backing us the entire way.

That's how we're going to approach this. So give that emergency break to your partner, to your spouse.

Single Dads And Accountability
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Bryan Steele: Now, for some of you dads, you may be a single father. It may be you by [00:25:00] yourself, and you're trying to figure out how to do this, if that is you. You're going to have to evaluate where your kids are at because they're going to be the ones who need the emergency break because they absolutely need their father in their life.

It is so critical and so important for them. It doesn't mean that you can't do this, but you have to be really careful because they may feel less agency. And being able to say, Hey, dad, I feel like since you started this business, you know, you're not around us anymore. So you're going to have to be very intentional with them to really read the room and understand, whether or not you're going too far with things.

So if that is a position you find yourself in, I would recommend a trusted friend, a trusted advisor or mentor. Being available so [00:26:00] you can share the vision with them, share the why with them, and let that person have the ability to provide accountability, right? If you are spending too much time on it, if it's pulling you away, talk about it.

You have to be honest. None of this works without community though. So that's my specific word for those of you who are in that situation. And maybe it just means a side hustle is a not right now thing, and if you can't come together on a solution, I think you let it go because no business at all is ever going to be worth sacrificing your family for it.

There's ever things you can do with your time, so keep that in mind.

Homework 20 Minute Chat
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Bryan Steele: So today your homework's maybe gonna be a little different. You're not going to go [00:27:00] build a business case. You're not going to build a website, you're not gonna buy a domain, you're not gonna open a bank account.

It's. A 20 minute conversation, distraction free with your spouse. We've already spent the time, you've written down why you want to do this. You don't even necessarily have to know what the business is going to be yet. I don't think that's important for this conversation,

Bryan Steele: but I think it's important to convey what it is you want to achieve with it.

And so what I'm asking you to do after this episode, find a time, 20 minutes, is all it should take and go through this with your spouse. Do not come in guarded. Do not come in confrontational. Come in curious. Really be willing to listen, to hear what the objections are and maybe dig in a little deeper.[00:28:00]

Talk about why you feel the way you do and be honest about that. I think that will have a lot of power

Bryan Steele: within your relationship and bring a partner on board that is in your corner backing you.

Final Story And Wrap Up
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Bryan Steele: Final story from me.

Bryan Steele: I was able to leave my day job last year. And start working in my business full time.

I'm sure we'll talk about that at some point.

Bryan Steele: As I was getting to that point, thinking, I think I really have something I that has legs that I can really build, and I was excited about that and the vision changed. The why changed. My wife and I had talked about it and we thought it was great, and so we were moving in that direction.

We're focused on it. We were engaged in that process. Getting closer. I had picked a day. I said, I'm gonna leave my [00:29:00] job by this date,

Bryan Steele: a few months before five, six months, maybe. Something like that. Far enough away that, you know, it felt in the distance, but it was getting closer. I had a few clients stop working with me.

I was building on the side, building, building, building, and a couple clients. Just stopped, came outta nowhere. I was surprised and I was disappointed.

Bryan Steele: And Abby, she said, don't let this have you get cold feet.

Bryan Steele: And I was blown away in a situation where it would've been very easy for her to say, Ooh,

Bryan Steele: maybe we should delay.

Maybe we should hold back. Maybe this is an indication we shouldn't keep going

Bryan Steele: because we had been communicating. 'cause we knew where we were heading because she was in that process. She was a voice [00:30:00] of confidence when I was doubting things a little bit myself. She said, keep going. She was saying, I believe in you.

Even when I was sometimes a little bit hard to hear that myself. And so that's my little story for you of how this can have a profound impact. 'cause if you do this right, if you do this well. You're going to have somebody who has your back, because having a side hustle is not going to go smoothly across the board.

You're going to run into challenges. You're going to run into negative reviews, or you're gonna run into a client who just, it doesn't go well with. It's going to happen. It happens to everybody. And having somebody in your corner to project confidence, to let you borrow some confidence. Is incredibly [00:31:00] powerful and that's something I want for you.

So have that conversation and lean into it. I'll see you next time.

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