Quit the job? Do you really need a side hustle Project? Why?

There are times when you are discussing with your friends or wondering about a dream company you want to be in, or a dream job you aim to do, or even working in a dream country. You put in a lot of effort and time to reach that goal. But after reaching it, you may realize it's not what you wanted. Maybe you found the dream company's mission but are not happy with the people. Or you found nice people but don't like the mission and morals behind the company. Or even you found both, but don't like the environment you live in. This dilemma and challenges will happen for everyone, so you are not alone.

It's not going to be ONLY about the company's values and mission,

It's not going to be ONLY about the group of people you work with,

It's not going to be ONLY about the place you live in, the lifestyle, culture, nature, etc.

If you find a sweet spot that gives you all three, you should be happy and continue. It's very hard to find the sweet spot. People who have contentment can manage to maintain the same situation they are in. But some have bigger expectations or bigger goals to create a legacy. So, when you explain this to others, not everybody will understand.

People will not understand what you have sacrificed. People will not understand your feelings. People will not understand what you love. Because it's very hard for them to understand your 360-degree view of your life, how you were brought up, what you are going through, or what you want to be in the future. It happens often. Once I was in deep love with a company and their values, but they could not support me financially for my sustainability. Another company paid me well, but I never liked the moral values.

Similarly, even in a startup, when I don't make money or want to have some money for my personal stuff, I didn't have those. There are multiple scenarios. One is when you don't have customers. Another is when you have customers, but the operational cost is higher. And once you have customers, you are breaking even a bit, but still don't get approval from your co-founder's team. All these things happen.

The easiest way to react to these emotions is to throw away everything and move on. But what will happen to all the sacrifices you've already made? It's hard. You cannot throw away, but also need to struggle to grow the company while going through all this.

Stop what you are doing and move on

Yes, it could be a waste of few years but are you going to drag this further with the same feeling to waste another set of years in your life??(Give Up, Perseverance. These are the keywords you will always find a lot of entrepreneur talk. So, you will be like, “Am I going to give up?”. There are sometimes you need to pivot. Read more about this “sunk cost fallacy”.?

Short info about it from internet : sunk cost fallacy, which is a cognitive bias that describes the tendency for people to continue investing in a decision or project because they have already invested time, money, or resources into it. The idea is that people feel that they have "too much invested" to give up, even if continuing the project is no longer rational or in their best interest. The sunk cost fallacy can lead to irrational decision-making and can contribute to the escalation of commitment to a failing project.

So if you would rather not fall into sunk cost fallacy, you can move. And consider the next step here before fully onboarding into that decision.?

I decided to stop working on a full time job on 2018, I tried few things, I'm not rich but not working on a full time job allows me to connect the 3 things which I explained above. Not everybody can understand the emotions behind it. It's okay as of now.

Start thinking back

Would you still want to give up WHEN excluding the current situation on past few days or past few weeks Or WHEN this situation passes through, will you want to give up?. If you do not give up when this situation passes through, then you should resist not giving up.?

There are times you have high contentment feeling on what you want to do. Not worried about financials, company or the type of work you do but have deep love with the mission. And this is what you wish to do until the end of your life or even for next 5-10years. And if you have identified it, you should consider staying with the company or continue to adjust with the people whom you work or the environment you live in. There are fewer people in this category because they come after a lot of experience and enlightenment. These people have patience, high maturity to accommodate diverse things and also perseverance. So if you are not the one who has that patience, etc. Go to the next step.?

Once I thought about this for two companies I worked with. We can have good intentions but not every company owners will have the same intentions, they are in business. Business is profits. I resisted for a while and moved on.

Move forward with Side Hustle

Whenever you are stuck with something or have no fulfilling in that. Don’t just keep worrying or suddenly stop on that. Sometimes providing a time to it (called patience) can bring different results. And also don’t think from the comparison of fast decision vs patience. You need both. Have a side hustle. The side hustle satisfaction can replace your worry with the full time what you are doing. Or the side hustle can be a good seed for your future endeavours where you can find the sweet spot. Or the side hustle can teach a lot of things which you don’t find a chance to experience in full-time job or startup you are working on. The side hustles can help with your burn-out as well. But remember, you can’t replace a side hustle with side hustle. That’s like unfocused work.

Side hustle been a norm in my lifestyle from the start. It's hard for me to settle in one, as I much as I read and travel, the exposure increased and I wanted to do different things in life. My ambition grow bigger. But I was unfocused and having too many things in my plate. I explained everything to a stranger in Linkedin, he ask me to focus on few. Actually it's true, when S.Jobs came back to apple, he said we are stopping many things and going to focus only 3 things that will change the world.

And after that, things started to change, I have 2-3 working projects. One could help me financially by trading my skill/time, another could help emotionally. And another help me morally and as a responsible citizen. When one goes away, i try to look for other to replace.

There are people who do the main startup as a side hustle (and still work on full time). They enjoy the financial and safe zone from full time and have a long-term return from side hustle. but there is cons.

CONS OF DELAYING / SLOW MOTION in SIDE HUSTLE

COMMODITISATION: Especially in tech industry is a time sensitive things, a tech product or innovation you are building until it reaches the commoditision, you can make fortunes. If it reaches commoditisation, you are going to fight for the price war, features matrix, etc.

There are some clever companies who try to reposition the product but when the essence is boggy, eventually fail. There are few brands who build the cult(Apple) and community to retain the customers. It’s very rare and 1-3 company in each industry has that advantage. Without becoming giant, you can’t enjoy that advantage. This means for small startups, this route is closed. You are eventually going to be in the commoditised war.?

Excitement and Momentum:?When you are working as a small team or in the industry, the momentum or the excitement you create is the one which brings initial hires or coverages or any perceived benefits that somebody can gain. When it becomes old/slow/normal, nobody gets attracted. You will find people leaving, potential leads doesn’t find it interesting or to make any partnership. Normalisations leads you to perceived as another common thing.?

Not every tool or industry or innovations are prone to nomarlisation effect. But side hustles or startups has big negative impact when things become normalised. Who wants to use your tool at a costly price when it’s already commoditised and normalised that they don’t find exciting??

Never Settle for ONE if you are not happy

If you are the people who are ambitious and have a different view about world and life. Never settle. If you are ambitious, then you need to have the courage to start one, pivot wherever needed, and take risk but a calculated a risk. If you are ambitious and have a certain way you want to live, you need to sacrifice a few things. When you think from priority perspective, you are just prioritising one for others. You are not loosing anything. You think you want the one by trading the other. So, this is not sacrificing, this is just trade. You decide what you want to have in the trade.?

The world started with solopreneurs, there wasn’t any model of company or anything existed in the start. You can still be solopreneurs to be what you like in the internet generation. You create what you like and sell to the customers, whom you think is a best transaction for you. Now you have solved the “People problem”. You can do what you wanted as a solopreneur because you answer only to you, now you have solved what you wanted to work on. You can work/stay/live from anywhere you want because it’s only you, your money and it’s your luggage.?

Stop when you decided. Start thinking back if you are not certain. Move forward with side hustles to balance out the misses. And you can stop if you are fully convinced. But never settle for ONE if you are not happy. Remember to focus/do only 2-3 big plans/project/ideas/startup. If you have kids, family, then 2 is more than enough to allocate quality time for everything.?