Taking a Leap of Faith on Your Side Hustle

Some people say “start when you’re ready”, but not me.

“You may love it, you may hate it, but you won’t know until you try it.” - Me, encouraging you to get out of your own way, take a leap of faith, and just go for it.

If you’re struggling with this, I understand. So many people are scared to take the leap and start their side hustle because underneath it all, they really lack trust in themselves.

Our failures aren’t anything to be afraid of, just lessons that help us learn.

You can move past your lack of self-trust and your fear of rejection, and learn to pivot and adapt.

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Full Show Notes (Transcript)…

Hey risers, welcome to episode 102 of Empathy Rising. So quarter two is officially just kicking off, starts in April, and I feel like it always brings a new, fresh energy to the year, to my personal life, to my business. The sun starts coming out. Temperatures started getting warmer. You start feeling like you can spend more time outside, go for walks, and enjoy that sunshine.

And I think that just has a profound kind of trickle-down effect for me. I just feel more energized in bringing some creativity into my life, wanting to do more projects around the house, wanting to do more art and hobbies and things for me to enjoy, get outside with the kids, and like color with chalk or play with the hose.

They started playing this game. I don't know if you watch the show - if you have kids, I'm sure you've heard of the show Bluey. It's this Australian show that’s now on the Disney channel and it's really, I think it's awesome actually. But on that show, they play this game called What's the Time Mrs. Wolf. And we play it with the hose. They're like, "what's the time" and they take steps closer to me. And then I turn around and I spray them with a hose. It's really fun. But these are the things we're starting to do now, more playfulness. And like I said, I think that playfulness kind of trickles down into everything I do into my business, into the way I spend my time.

And so it feels a lot better than the winter. And those of you who are up North or in places where you still are feeling a bit of winter, I'm sorry. I know it will warm up for you soon. I've gotten so many fun ideas lately for workshops and new things to do. I feel like it is a direct result of just this warming up of the air warming up of the temperatures.

And it starts to warm up my creative flow. So if you've been in the Facebook group lately, you've seen lots of questions and answers, lots of polls going on. And so I love that you guys are offering your feedback and seeing what resonates with you most that way I can create the things that will actually serve you, and that will actually give you the results that you're looking for. 

So if you're not already in the Empathy Rising group, I would definitely head over to the group. And that way you can have some feedback in these things and you can shape, what's coming from me the rest of the year, and what's going to be the most helpful for you as you start to have more income streams coming in, as you start to think about a side hustle and all that stuff. 

The easiest thing to do is really just to search Empathy Rising on Facebook, and then go to the groups tab and it'll just pop up right there. But the link is quite long. It's facebook.com/groups/empathyrisingcommunity. So you can go to the direct link or just do a quick search and that'll probably be the easiest way.

As we get deeper into Q2 and even some Q3, I really want to dive into that buzz that brings into our lives and we have more opportunities to be outside. A lot of us want to be away from our computers, especially now that a lot of us are working more virtually than we ever have. So there's a matter of pairing that with still making progress and not just coming back in the fall and trying to pick up where we left off four months ago.

So that's what I'm really planning to take into account is how we can do bite-sized pieces of action taking. Bite-sized pieces of mindset shifts.  Both of which are going to give us huge momentum and not carve into our summer months, especially as most of us, if we're vaccinated or if we're feeling comfortable,I have a feeling this summer (compared to last summer) a lot of us are going to be wanting to get out and exploring a lot more. 

So, still being able to follow up with your goals without interfering in this lifestyle that we want to pursue. Keep your eyes and ears peeled for more details. Cause they're going to start coming to you soon about what I have planned for the summer for us. I'm really excited about it. 

But today we're going to hone in on something that I really think is - I think it's something that holds a lot of people back. I think it's an important element that helps us get past those stuck points. And this is the idea of going for it, taking a leap of faith. However you want to fill in the blank of whatever cliche or whatever phrase works for you there. 

But this idea of... just moving before you're ready. This idea of like ready is a lie, you're never going to be 100% ready. In Side Hustle, when I quantify this for people, I say, when you get to 80%, we need to go. Because some people need to have a visual or a number or a scale in their head.

And when I tell people it's time to move forward, it's never 100%. It's 80%. The B minus guys were moving forward at B minus. So that's what I want to just explore today is: how can we take a leap of faith? How can we just start and just do it and learn a little bit along the way?

It's a funny comparison, but a lot of times the therapists I work with, they remind me of squirrels and I'm going to explain this. It's going to make sense, I promise. Squirrels, chipmunks, what have you, they spend their entire springs and summers gathering nuts for the winter.

Their entire energy is focused on gathering (not like gathering sustenance) and what it reminds me of with these therapists is those who spend all of their time researching, all of their time gathering like tidbits of knowledge. How do I build a course? How do I build a membership site? How do I build a list?

 How do I do this? Just stockpiling and stockpiling knowledge. But just like the squirrel who does not ever enjoy their summer day, the therapists are not ever actually taking action. They're stockpiling and stuck in research mode and stuck in gathering mode. And they don't enjoy the fruits of that labor, the fruits of that knowledge, or that the gathering stage because they don't ever move forward.

Now, obviously squirrels, what it does for them is it sustains them over the winter. So there is a necessity for getting knowledge. But what I'm always trying to encourage you to do is learn, then implement. Then go learn something new and then go implement something new and then go learn and implement and have it be back and forth instead of getting mired in just one stage, getting stuck in just research.

And I've got a bunch of - you probably feel seen right now, knowing that you are one of those stockpilers, one of those researchers. And I see you and I know what it's like to want to have all of the information before you move forward. It helps you feel like you're making a concrete plan. It helps you feel like you're making an educated decision.

And I get that. I really do. I don't like to try something brand new without having some base of knowledge, but what we're really trying to do is get you to take action sooner than you think you need to, sooner than you think you're ready. Now, I've talked about the flip side of this on the show before, as well as those therapists who like to jump in feet first and take action really quickly.

There's also challenges that come with that, right? Having no knowledge base. There's challenges that come with getting in there and thinking you're making progress, but all you're really actually making is a mess. So there's a downside to both. And we'll have some episodes specifically speaking to those quick starts, those action takers too.

But what we're really going to focus on is those of you who are slow to start, those are you who are slow to move forward. So if that's not right where you are, if you're one of those quick starts, I think there's still something valuable for you here in this episode, but know that I will talk to your unique challenges in an upcoming episode.

Another tool that I have recommended on the show before is called the Kolbe index. It's an assessment. I've seen it used in the corporate world, a lot for hiring. It measures how you make decisions. It measures how you take action, and it measures how you like to solve problems.

 So a lot of times when people are hiring for more of a research position, they will have someone take a Kolbe and see how well they rate on fact-finding and researching. Other times when a company needs an action taker or an implementer, they're looking for somebody who is higher on Quickstart. I actually just used the Kolbe when I hired one of the assistants, the tech support person who comes inside of Side Hustle and handles all of your technology questions.

I used the Kolbe when I hired her. So the Kolbe does cost. It's 60 bucks, but you can write it off. And I think it's really wise for everybody to know where they fall on the Kolbe. But I think it's really also important for entrepreneurs to know, because if you are really strong, in fact-finding you can either consciously work to start a little sooner than you might have. Or when it does come to a hiring decision, if you're looking for an assistant, or if you're looking for somebody, you want to find somebody who's high on the implementation and can balance you out. So I always recommend taking the Kolbe and yes it costs money, but you can always write it off.

So for those who do fall more on this squirrel spectrum, more on this gathering spectrum, than the action spectrum on the Kolbe, you would consider you would rate high in what's called fact-finder and what I find are two main mindsets that contribute to this. 

The first one is perfectionism, right? You're fact-finding. You're going out and getting all of the information you can. You're stuck in the knowledge place because for some of us having that knowledge makes us think we will get it right. If I know all the things, if I know all the options, if I know all the potential outcomes, I'm upping my chances of getting it right.

Getting it 100% doing it perfectly. I don't want to move forward until I know I can do it right. So that's that perfectionism. I also think imposter syndrome comes up here. I talk about this a lot, but I think imposter syndrome comes up because it's like, oh, maybe if I can know something more, it will make me more legitimate.

If I can do just one more day's worth of research, it will make me more legitimate. It will make me qualified. It will make me reputable. And with either of those things, if you're doing the research because you want to get it perfect, or if you're doing the research because you want to legitimize yourself, what I really think it boils down to is a lack of trust and a lack of trust in yourself. I was just watching Reese Witherspoon's speech on when she started her own production company. It was for Glamour's woman of the year. And it's old. It's from 2015 or something like that. But she's just talking about how If you want something done, you do it yourself.

And if you need to rely on somebody, rely on yourself. And man even though I've seen that speech like three, four, or five times now it still always gives me goosebumps. And I think sometimes this is easier said than done, depending on how we're feeling or, where we're at in just our personal space.

That trust in yourself, that confidence, that agency, I think it ebbs and flows. For me, it absolutely ebbs and flows. There's days where I'm like, hell yeah, I got this bring on the world. And then there's other days that I'm like, there's no way that I'm going to be able to accomplish anything. No, one's going to care what I have to say. No one's going to listen to me, my message is crap. 

So this ebbs and flows, but I think it's something that we can consciously cultivate. I think it's something we can consciously work on through mindfulness through whatever it is that works for you. Digging deeper down into that confidence. I think fear of rejection. The first thing that people tell me is like "oh you know what if people don't like it, what if people don't like me? What if people don't buy my course?" Or "what if people don't enroll in my membership?" 

So what they're really talking about is a fear of rejection and I think that exists. I think that's part of it for sure. But what's under that? I think fear of rejection is secondary, right? The primary is a lack of trust in yourself.

Because when you have that trust or when you're actively cultivating that trust, you have the ability to pivot and adapt, right? If you start making something, making a course, and then you get feedback that people want it to be a little bit different. Can you say "okay, no problem. I can do that." And can you pivot, can you adapt, right?

That comes from believing in yourself, believing in your ability to have flexibility. What if people don't buy for me? What if people don't like what I have to say? I think that really is: I don't trust myself or I don't believe in myself to be able to carry myself well, to be able to present myself well.

And ultimately it's about a lack of trust in one's own abilities. A lack of belief that we can do the thing we set out to do. Now, this is why we're all therapists, right? Because people spend years in therapy working on this. I'm not saying that this is snap your fingers, and you believe in yourself now, oops, snap your fingers, or you trust yourself.

But I think getting to the root of okay, why am I reluctant to take action? Why am I spending so much time in the knowledge phase in the research phase? That I think we need to get to the root of that. And is it just as lack of belief, lack of trust. I think a lot of us have the yearning, right?

We're yearning to evolve, we're yearning to get to that next level. We can feel our potential humming beneath us, humming through our veins, whatever we feel this just knowing that there's something more, something different, something bigger, fill in whatever adjective you want, but there's something there. 

But the lack of trust, I think gets in our way, because it keeps us from doing a lot of things. It keeps us from putting ourselves out there. It keeps us from actually being able to envision, let alone go for the dream, but even envision the dream. It keeps us thinking than playing small because we don't trust that we can do it.

And we think we don't deserve more, or we don't deserve to have whatever that next level, different level, different page, however you're conceptualizing this - we don't think we deserve it. And I think the other thing that comes up and I wanna drill down on this a little bit in the episode is failing forward.

When we don't trust that we can pick ourselves back up, when we don't have that resilience, it keeps us from being willing to try because we're afraid to fail. But failing forward is huge, right? It's where I think it's where growth comes from. Growth never happens in our comfort zone. Growth happens when we're out of our comfort zone and failing is certainly uncomfortable, failing flat-out sucks. 

So if we're failing, how can we - “failing” - How can we use that as a catalyst for progression? Sometimes it's about evaluating that failure, going back into the data. What can we measure? What can we see? What worked and what didn't? But also there's (I guess the resilience, I said that already) but the resilience that comes from failing and being able to say look at yourself and get back up and I think that is what we're missing when we don't have that trust.

 But I think if we can embrace, cultivate, work on our belief in ourselves and we can embrace the idea that it is not going to be perfect right away (if ever) some other things start to happen. When we can see that fails and flops are actually what we need, fails and flops move us forward, this is when I think I see people become more willing to experiment, more willing to try and play. 

I think there's two things that we need to be when we're entrepreneurs, we need to be scientists and we need to be playful. Scientists run experiments. They test, they measure, they form hypotheses. And they're really setting out with these experiments sometimes to prove a hypothesis, true. But sometimes if the hypothesis is proven false, that's even more valuable. So being able to be scientific about what we're doing, embrace the idea of experimentation, but also having like a playfulness about it. What happens if I try this? 

I look at my kids and the way they play with this hose, and there's just like spraying the crap out of each other, they don't care if it's cold, they don't care about anything. They're just literally, present in the joy and the fun. And I'm like, man, how do I bring that into my life more when we can let go of the perfectionism, when we can let go of the imposter syndrome, not only we're more willing to experiment, we're more willing to play and enjoy.

This is when I think we can start to think bigger. We're not building boundaries around what we think is possible. We're not reigning ourselves in. We're allowing for bigger possibilities to flood our minds. We're allowing for bigger possibilities to be possible. And I think then we have that agency.

Then we have that resilience because we can rely on ourselves to make things happen and if it doesn't happen quite the way we want, we can rely on ourselves to be able to pivot and adapt. So these are all huge, right? These are all big pieces and I'm talking about them quickly and I'm talking about them not nonchalantly because I do think they carry weight.

And I do think that they're important. We can spend like I said, years working on this stuff. So I don't want it to seem like I'm brushing this off. However, what I want us to do is to be able to do that deep work and continue to move forward.

So what are a few things that I think can help us to take action while we're doing that deep work? While we are continuing to work on our belief in ourselves, our competence, our trust, our resilience, all of those things that are muscles that we condition and exercise and grow and build over time. How can we continue to put ourselves out there while we do the deep work?

So I think the first thing is being able to have an objective lens. One of my Side Hustle students, she's a masterminder, her name's Vicky. She really brings a lot of Buddhist principles into her work. And I would pick her brain all the time because she was so knowledgeable about these things.

And one principle or concept that she teaches that just resonates with me so much is detaching from the outcome. So how can we take a little bit more of an objective standpoint and really just look at things for what they are and detach from the outcome a little bit? And what this makes me think of is the fact that failure is data.

I talked about being a scientist, but bringing this scientific method into our business building. Literally, go through the five processes. Formulate a question. Make a hypothesis around it. Measure your variables. Think about how you're going to manipulate those variables and then conduct the experiment, and also give it time to see if the experiment works and then figure out your results.

So a very quick example of what this might look like is: if I use these five hashtags on Instagram, I will grow my audience by a hundred followers. This is an experiment that you can do. So the question is do these five hashtags make my audience grow more?  The hypothesis is: if I use this hashtag set consistently for the next 30 days, I will see a hundred new followers. Then what are the variables? The variables are the different hashtags. The variables are the time of day that you post. The variables are the days you post, right?

There's several variables in there. And so we outline what those are. We make a plan, we run the experiment. So for 30 days you plan, you post on the days you planned, at the times you planned, with the hashtags you planned, accounting for all the variables. And then after 30 days, you make the measurement, let's say you only grew by 42 followers.

You did not hit the hundred followers that your hypothesis put out there, but 42 followers is still pretty good. You still had some results. So you can look at that experiment and say, did it work? Technically it was a failure, right? Technically you didn't hit the hundred, but what did you learn?

Maybe you try again and you switch up the hashtags, or maybe you keep the hashtags and you switch up the time of day and you try a different variable. This is the data that we need. So technical failures, even though we don't hit that hundred number of followers, how can we objectively look at that rather than being like, "oh, boohoo, I didn't get a hundred - I failed" and being so attached to the outcome. Can we detach from the outcome? Can we treat it like an experiment? And can we measure that data?

So the way that you can be more scientific with your side hustle and it can help you start taking action while you're doing that deep work on the confidence. Now, the other thing to think about is how can we be more playful, right? And I think what I see come up sometimes with my students is they feel like if they make a decision, it's a permanent commitment.

And I think in business in general, that's not true, but in online business, man, that's really not true. The online business space moves so fast things change so fast that if you're not pivoting or if you're not like staying on top of trends or leaning into what's working then you're going to get left behind a little bit.

So having this element of playfulness is really important, and knowing that no decision that you make is ever a permanent commitment. What I really want to remind you guys is that your side hustle is an opportunity to have fun, to try out new skills, something new that you want to do that you haven't been able to do because of therapy or that you didn't think was possible because you were a therapist.

We know that our industry conditions us to believe certain things about what professionalism is and all of this stuff. So can your Side Hustle be almost like your alter ego? Can it be your Sasha Fierce? Beyonce has Sasha Fierce. Can your Side Hustle be your alter ego? Can it be a place for you to play and have fun?

Also, a lot of times I see because we've worked clinically for so long or because we've been inside that therapy box of what a therapist is, a lot of times our skills go dormant. Or things that we used to enjoy before we entered the field, they've just either gone by the wayside or been buried a little bit.

Your side hustle could be a way to revive those skills or those ideas, those plans. Those personality traits, right? Ultimately making you feel more creative, making you feel like you have that lighter lifestyle. So what are some ways that you can play and have fun? What are some ways that this can be just a light-hearted endeavor that's not so serious, right? 

If your therapy practice is your bread and butter, pays your bills, how can this be something that is more of an outlet that also is going to make you some money. And once it's up and running, making you money, you have those faucets that I talk about all the time. You have multiple income streams that you can dial up and down however you like.

But the setting up the faucet, the getting it started, the putting in the plumbing and all of that stuff, running the water to it, how can that be fun? Letting it be less of an importance, letting it have more of a lighthearted role in your life can help you start moving forward without putting so much pressure on it without putting so much weight on it.

Going back to Vicki, I just was talking about her with the detaching from the outcome. She started a membership site "Inside Hustle". It was really successful. She got to the point where she had 30 or 40 members in the membership site. And now she's okay, I ran it for a year, and I want to do something different.

So she's still running the membership site, but she's not doing a lot of marketing for it. She's kinda gonna let it fizzle out as it goes. And then she's already making plans for another type of program. Now that she knows how to lay the groundwork for an offer, how to formulate an offer, how to market an offer, and how to sell an offer, everything that she learned inside of Side Hustle - she can bring anything to market that she wants.

So she did not have to be locked in or tied down to a program. It really was an experiment. It allowed her to play. And now she's able to make a pivot. All of these things that we've been talking about. So nothing is permanent. If getting from the knowledge phase of the gathering and the research into the action feels like it's a permanent commitment, how can you reframe that for yourself and know that nothing is set in stone? 

You can always change your mind. You can always make changes and go back. Even thinking about Side Hustle itself, started as a six-month program. Now it's a nine-month program evolving every day. We have support roles in there now and all kinds of stuff. So you are allowed to grow, adapt, and change, but the only way that you're going to do any of this is if you start doing it right? 

Going back to this 80%, you have to get, you have to jump. You cannot wait until you're at a hundred percent or you're never going to be there. You don't know what works for you until you try. You don't know what you enjoy or what you don't enjoy until you try. 

It's like the phrase that I use sometimes is the only way out is through, but the only thing that's going to actually get you to have a side hustle is doing it. To having this income stream that you want to have. To have more money for those student loans, or for being able to cut back some clients because you're overloaded.

But you don't want to lose the financial security that you have. The only thing that's going to get you toward those goals, those desires, the location freedom, the time freedom, all these things that we talk about is actually starting and doing it.

So that's my biggest advice. My PSA for today is if you find yourself to be someone who has all the knowledge, but none of the implementation, how can you take a step to go for it today? Taking that leap of faith. How can you put yourself out there and start? You may love it, you may hate it, but you won't know it until you try it. So how can we be a little bit more experimental? How can we be a little bit more playful, and how can we take the step from knowledge into implementation?

Now, if you've been listening all episode and you're like, yeah, Marissa, that all sounds great. I'd love to be more playful. I'd love to be more experimental, but I don't have the fricking time to get started. That's why we have Side Hustle Schedule. If time is the number one thing that is keeping you from taking that leap of faith, grab my mini-course Side Hustle Schedule. 

It's my five-step system, my signature system, for identifying your non-negotiables, calculating mathematically the actual amount of time you have to spend on something new, and then building out a values-based schedule that allows room for both of those things. Both the things that are essential and matter to you, and also this new thing, so that you can step out, start taking action, and fail forward.

So the schedule is only 47 bucks, but it packs in so much value for the price. And you can grab it really quickly over at marissalawton.com/schedule. 

All right, guys, it's been fun chatting with you today and being a little bit more tasky and a little bit more strategic. And I will be back with another episode next week. So until then keep on rising. 

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