The Unsexy Truth About Starting a Side Hustle
You’ve seen the ads. A guy in a breezy floral shirt sips a margarita by a sprawling mansion pool and tells you, “This could be your life.” The scene cuts to him leaning against a red Ferrari, a stunning woman on his arm. Then, he’s in a high-rise office with ocean views, clicks a single button on his laptop, and yawns, “Done for the day! Man, I’m tired.”
It’s a familiar pitch. If you’ve spent any time online this century, you’ve stumbled across these gurus selling the dream of instant wealth for practically zero effort. What used to be late-night infomercials has morphed into a 24/7 digital barrage of scammers promising a fortune if you just buy their overpriced course. It feels like anyone can call themselves an expert, package up some nonsense, and build a following based on personality alone.
A huge part of this market targets real estate. This isn’t new; it dates back to the 1970s when get-rich-quick peddlers sold cassette tapes on buying houses with no money down. Today, it’s just gotten worse, with hucksters making real estate investing sound as easy as taking a nap and waking up to a fatter bank account.
The ironic truth is, when I nap, money arrive in my account. And I’ll admit, my own marketing can sometimes make it look easy. But that’s only because I’ve been doing this for a very long time. What you’ll never see me do is stand in front of a mansion and promise you that the road to success is a straight line that doesn’t require any work. Yes, once you’ve built the machine, your days get a lot easier. But getting there? That takes commitment, a steep learning curve, and the mental toughness to push through the hard parts. My life is easier now, but I had to hit brick walls and learn tough lessons to get here.
Welcome to the Dip
One of my favorite books is by Seth Godin. It’s a short read, but its message is powerful. In nearly every business venture, things start out great. You feel a surge of productivity and maybe even score a few small wins. Then, inevitably, you hit the dip.
You’re riding the high from your initial success, putting in the same amount of work, but suddenly… nothing happens. You buckle down and push even harder, but you’re still met with silence. This is the dip. It’s the real test of grit, and it’s where the winners separate themselves from everyone else. You have a choice: quit or keep going.
Sometimes, quitting is the right move. If your business model is flawed—say, you’re trying to compete directly with Amazon in 2018—then walking away is probably smart. But if your research and conversations with credible people confirm you have a proven model, quitting is a terrible idea. You are so close to a breakthrough if you can just hang on a little longer.
The dip is a test. It’s designed to see if you’re worthy by kicking you in the teeth. If you can stay on your feet, you’ll learn one of the most valuable lessons in business. On the other side of that struggle is a gushing waterfall of success, often so powerful you’re barely ready for it. When you finally break through, you’re faced with a new set of problems, all related to managing your newfound growth.
The Squiggly Line to Success
When I first read Godin’s book, I laughed because it’s so true. I’ve lived through the dip myself and have seen my coaching students face it time and time again. The path to a successful is never straight; it’s a squiggly line of ups and downs. Everyone hits rough patches. What makes people successful is their resilience—their ability to get back up and keep fighting. Another great book on this is Angela Duckworth’s .
When you , you’ll likely have a small win or two. That’s your cue to mentally prepare for the dip that’s coming. And once you get past that first one, know that an even bigger one is on the way, with an equally big reward.
Take my student, John. He learned my system inside and out, started mailing offers, and bought a property. He listed it for sale. Crickets. He posted more ads. Nothing. Weeks went by. He came to a boot camp, retooled his strategy, and doubled down. Another month passed with no results. But John knew he was working with a good model. He had seen too many others find success to believe it didn't work. He just had to push through. Then, overnight, a buyer contacted him, thrilled to have found the exact property he wanted. Just like that, John was in business.
Another student, Fred, owned twenty properties but they weren’t selling. He got frustrated and developed “shiny object syndrome,” chasing other business models like forex and house flipping. He stopped looking for new properties, and his land stalled. Then, in one week, ten of his properties sold. His passive income jumped from $200 a month to $1,400. The next week, five more sold, bringing him to $1,800 a month. He later told me, “I should have just stuck with it. I was such an idiot to quit.” Fred’s new problem was a lack of inventory. He learned the hard way that you can never stop finding new deals, because every piece of land eventually sells. There’s a pig for every barn.
Everyone Faces a Dip, Even Me
Nobody is immune. I still have dips, but I can weather them better now because of momentum and experience. That momentum has built a financial cushion that can absorb hits. Even now, I’m dealing with a dip caused by too many new properties coming in at once. It’s overwhelming my team. It’s a good problem, but it’s still a problem.
Another challenge is customer defaults. Recently, two people stopped making payments in the same month, both just a few months away from owning their land outright. It’s sad, but after trying to resolve it, my only option was to resell the properties. It’s a business decision. I now have to accept that my note portfolio just shrank, and it’s my job to get those properties back into my marketing funnel to again. This has happened so many times that I’ve learned to build it into my financial projections. Preparing for the dips makes them much easier to handle.
As Spryte Loriano said, “Every great story on the planet happened when someone decided not to give up, but kept going no matter what.”
Your Daily Effort is the Only Way Through
If you can push through each dip, you can eventually live life on your own terms. Automation is the key to creating , but you can’t automate your way out of the initial struggle. It’s critical to feel the frustration of the dip when you . You have to make sure the wheels on your bus are rolling straight before you try to go a hundred miles an hour. Pushing through the tough parts is the only proven way to build a solid system.
This all comes down to daily effort. My friend and fellow coach Scott Todd calls it “focusing on the controllables.” You can’t control if someone buys your property or accepts your offer. But you can control what you do. Ask yourself daily:
- Did I do my research today?
- Did I make my target number of offers?
- Did I provide great customer service?
- Did I place enough ads?
If you can answer yes to these questions, you’re building so much forward momentum that no single problem can derail your entire business. The worst decisions are emotional ones made out of fear. When you’re , your consistent daily effort is what builds a foundation strong enough to weather any storm. The choice is yours: stay stuck in fear, or dust yourself off and double down.
