Mom Advice: 10 Life Lessons from Mom (Greatest Hits)

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1:17What's up? What's up? Nick Loper here. Welcome to the Side Hustle Show because the best time to repair a roof is when the sun is shining. Hat tip to JFK for that one special Mother's Day edition of the show for you this week featuring 10 bits of advice and wisdom from mom. The dad advice episode we did last June for Father's Day was a lot of fun and it was pretty popular. So I'm going to attempt to revisit that format today just with mom providing the often very literal advice and me overanalyzing it 30 years later. That Father's Day episode was number 393 if you want to go back and check it out.

1:56So first, a little bit about mom for the sake of context here. She essentially had two careers, the first in nursing and the second as a library assistant, where she actually helped me get one of my first jobs, getting paid to reshelve books. This is like the perfect introvert gig. Plus it paid time and a half on Sundays, which was like 12 or 13 bucks an hour. Pretty good high school job. But mom encouraged both work and work ethic at an early age, both my brother and I, by her own example and by setting expectations. More on that in a bit. But mom's probably always been my biggest advocate and supporter, even if the online business models that I was playing around with weren't always easy to explain to her friends like, oh, I think he sells shoes on the internet.

2:43I don't know. He seems to be doing okay. You know how bloggers always joke about like the early days of their blog when it's only their mom reading? Those are not jokes. Those are 100 % true. And it's not only that, she would leave comments. And I'd want to say, well, that's fine. Just don't put your last name or don't put mom in the name field. Like make it look legit. So here we go. 10 lessons from mom that stand out and have stuck with me over the years. Number one is to keep reading and to keep writing. My brother and I, you'll hear from Chris in a minute. You know, we watched our fair share of TV and we played our fair share of video games, but reading for pleasure was always encouraged and was really expected.

3:23But beyond that, there was this unspoken balance of consumption and creation. And what I found was that by reading and learning and taking in different styles and perspectives, you become more creative. Like when I listen to other podcasts or read other authors, I find what I like and what I don't like, oh, what literary device did they use there? And I'm often finding inspiration during quote unquote consumption time. But for mom, it wasn't enough to be a passive consumer. We had this stack of construction paper and crayons and markers in the desk in the kitchen, and we turned that into all sorts of projects.

3:58I remember we were making pilgrim costumes and treasure maps and making up our own games. When I said I didn't like the new Sonics logo, she said, okay, make a better one. And I think writing is probably one of the most underrated skills in the world today because so much of our communication, it happens over email or, you know, maybe you need to make a good impression on your resume or your LinkedIn profile, or you need to persuade someone to join your email list or to buy your product, or you just need to create a piece of content that Google thinks is good enough to rank on the first page. It's all writing and it's a skill that can be learned, but it's a skill that takes practice.

4:33And I'm really grateful that mom encouraged both Chris and I to keep writing. Yes, we got plenty of practice in school, but we'd come up with stories that weren't part of any school assignment. I remember one from probably first grade about three dinos. Couldn't spell dinosaur at that time, so they were just dinos. They were named Ken, Alvin, and Jose after some popular baseball players circa 1989. I don't remember the plot of the story, but it was just an early example of writing for fun, a habit that continues today, only I'm lucky enough to get paid to do it now. And I think this is a big deal.

5:09That's why I put it at number one. The easy path is to keep consuming this endless social media feed, but dedicate some time to your own creation. Doesn't have to be writing, but make something. What do you want to be known for? What are you going to put out into the world? One of the questions that I asked myself before starting Side Hustle Nation was when someone Googles you, what do you want them to find? So that was mom advice. Number one, keep reading, keep writing. Number two is if you're not in it, it's just a postcard. Back in the day, you might be old enough to remember this. You didn't have a camera on your phone.

5:43Instead, you took pictures with an actual camera, with actual film. Yes, pre-digital camera. And then when the role was used up, might be next week, might be three months from now, you had to take it to the place and get it developed. Super delayed gratification. Oh, remember that picture? And the feedback mom gave me upon developing one of those roles of film of mine was, you know what, if you're not in it, it's just a postcard. I don't remember what those pictures were of, only apparently that I wasn't in them. And that was something that stuck with me, both on the literal level and on the metaphorical level.

6:17If you're ever fortunate enough to find yourself at the Great Wall or Anchor Wand or Stonehenge or the Eiffel Tower or the Pyramids or wherever, know that there have been thousands of professional photographers who've been there before you with just the right light and just the right equipment, and they've gotten a better shot than you could really ever realistically hope to achieve. But they don't have you. Get in the picture. So in all my projects, the ones that have had the most success are the ones that I signed my name to instead of the ones where I've tried to stay more, you know, semi-anonymous behind the scenes.

6:51They're the ones that I stepped into the picture for. And of course, just about every business under the sun has been done before. And if it hasn't, maybe that's a risky sign. You better go and validate it first. But it hasn't been done by you with your unique perspectives and personality, with your unique strength and your style. Just last week, we heard from Jade Weatherington, who said that she'd had people rip off her lessons and her curriculum. And she said, they can copy her, but they can't be her. You can be your own unique selling proposition and competitive advantage. If you're not in it, it's just a postcard.

7:26Mom lesson number three is be able to follow the instructions, but doing it your own way is allowed too. This is a Lego building example, as in, yes, you can build the thing, you can follow the steps, you can make it look like the one in the picture. And yes, that's fun. That's important to be able to pay attention to the details, all of that. But now you've got all these pieces. What else could you make? And I feel like we spent a lot more time building off script in that way. So our oldest is five now, little hustler number one. He's super into Legos. And I think it's really cool that he's got this part figured out.

8:01He calls it imagination Legos, where he just builds something of his own creation, pterodactyls, spaceships, boats, all sorts of cool stuff. The reason I think this parallels professionals entrepreneurship is that, yes, you should absolutely take advantage of the case studies and examples and recipes and mentorship of all the people, all the businesses that have gone before you. And in some ways, it would be kind of silly not to like, why reinvent the wheel, right? And a lot of this stuff is free. I remember our chat with Donald Spann last year, who built and sold a virtual receptionist company.

8:35All remote. What was interesting was he said he would listen to interviews that other call center founders gave. And I think he specifically mentioned Jill Nelson from Ruby Receptionists. And he would learn all sorts of details about the inner workings of these companies. It's also why during any well-orchestrated affiliate launch, the affiliate manager will give you the formula. Hey, I need you to send an email on these days. Here's the swipe copy for day number one. Here's the swipe copy for day number two. It's because they've seen what works. And so while I think it's wise to pay attention to what's working and what has worked, it's okay to do an imagination build too.

9:15Remember, imagination Legos. Just because for some of the challenges you come across, there's not always going to be instructions. It's similar to the postcard bit. Inject yourself into the project as a point of differentiation. And with any luck, you'll be the case study that other people turn to look to you for inspiration in the future. So be able to follow the instructions, but doing it your own way is allowed too. That was a bit of mom advice number three. Number four is to send your thank you notes. So we had two Aunt Margarets growing up and for our birthdays, Chris and I, they would send us a birthday card with a check and one Aunt Margaret would send a$15 check and the other Aunt Margaret would send a$2 check.

9:55And looking back, you know, how sweet is that, right? But we weren't allowed to cash those checks and we definitely weren't allowed to spend any of that money until the thank you notes were written. And I understand it's a polite thing to do and it's maybe becoming a little bit of a lost art, but it was number one, a way to practice writing again, right? And number two, a way to instill gratitude. Even as a kid, when writing thank you notes was kind of a chore, it made you think that these people took some time out of their day to send your card and to send you some money. They care about you.

10:29Be grateful that you have these people in your life. And while you're at it, maybe you have some other stuff to be thankful for too. I've been gratitude journaling off and on for probably close to 10 years at this point, which is like a mini thank you note every night. No matter how bad a day goes, no matter how challenging it is, I find this to be a pretty helpful nightly reset. Just a little reminder, Okay, it's not all bad. And this is actually one of the five primary habits that I've got baked into my progress journal, physical productivity journal, which you can find at progressjournal.net.

11:04So write those thank you notes. What are you grateful for? More mom advice coming up right after this. A lot of side hustlers suffer from what if-itis. What if it doesn't work? What if I don't have the skills? What if I pick the wrong path? But one thing 100 % of our amazing guests have in common is they took their shot. They phased down those what ifs and they got their answers through taking action. Our partner Shopify helps turn what ifs into why nots. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world from household names to the very guests on this show. What if I can't design a website?

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12:55There's no need to wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed. Side Hustle Show listeners get a$75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at indeed.com slash side hustle show. Just go to indeed.com slash side hustle show right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash side hustle show. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need. Mom lessons number five and number six come from my brother Chris, who you can find writing about living your best life. And he also offers habit coaching at becomingbetter.org.

13:34I've got two bits of wisdom from mom that I'd like to share. The first one is people like mixtapes. Now this concept will be a little foreign to younger listeners, but when I grew up, we listened to cassette tapes in the car. And there was a time around fourth grade that I got really into Billy Joel. I would constantly listen to his albums on the record player in our living room, and mom realized that I would appreciate having a mixtape of my favorite Billy Joel songs for the car. So she made one for me, and of course, I loved it. For side hustlers, the lesson here is that there's a lot of value in curating.

14:09Not that many people want to listen through all of Billy Joel's albums, but loads of people want the greatest hits. So if you can sift through a large collection of ideas and organize the best of them into a website, a book, or a course, people will really appreciate that and pay you for it. Nick does that with things like thetrafficcourse.com, and it's something I've done with articles like the one I wrote on The Essentials of Stoicism. The second bit of mom wisdom I'd like to share is do the easy part first. One thing I always did with mom growing up was jigsaw puzzles. And some of the puzzles we did were really big and really difficult.

14:46But mom had a strategy for handling the challenge. Start with the outline and then work on the easiest parts of the puzzle. The lesson for everyone, and especially for side hustlers working on complicated projects, is that a difficult task feels more doable once you get started. Once you knock out the easy parts and make an outline, the project that initially felt overwhelming becomes manageable. Plus, moving forward creates momentum. So instead of feeling stuck or feeling lazy, you'll actually feel motivated to continue. This is an essential strategy for overcoming procrastination. By beginning with the easiest part, you make it easier to get rolling.

15:24And once you're on a roll, you'll want to keep going. I like this curation example, and there are tons of examples in the online business space where you can see it in action. I mean, in one sense, every interview that you hear on this show is one form of curation because it made it through versus the 25 pitches that didn't. And I've started creating custom playlists on Spotify that showcase specific business models to hopefully eliminate some of that overwhelm of, you know, there's 400 episodes. Where do I start? Another curation business model I'm excited about right now is email newsletters.

15:58You might have noticed that I've started doing this at the bottom of my newsletters, highlighting two or three cool tools or articles that I found interesting over the last week. But curated newsletters are really cool because if you could source the most interesting or helpful articles in your niche and do it on a daily or weekly basis, you help cut through the clutter for all your subscribers. One of my new favorites here is called All Star Money. This is an example from the personal finance space where every day they're sending out three unique articles from the personal finance universe. They're well thought out.

16:32They're interesting. I don't know. I like it. All Star Money. But as the audience grows, the other reason that these curated newsletters are interesting to me is they can be monetized with relevant advertising or affiliate offers or even products or services of your own creation. You can check out my chat with Cody Sanchez in episode 419 for a little bit more on the newsletter business. That's on how she grew in monetized contrarian thinking. So that was mom advice number five. Curation is creation. And yes, it is a valuable service. Number six was doing the easy part first. And this is kind of the counter argument to Brian Tracy's Eat That Frog, which argues, do the most difficult thing first, get it out of the way.

17:17There's, I think, a time and a place for both, especially if you're prone to procrastination. You know, maybe you just need to rip off that bandaid. I'm curious, though, which way do you prefer to work? I tend to default to doing the easy stuff first to build some positive momentum like Chris described. And in my case, maybe that's outlining an article instead of staring at the blank screen and trying to come up with an intro. But once that's done, once the outline is done, the article kind of starts to write itself. You start filling in the gaps and next thing you know, you've made some meaningful progress.

17:49But big thanks to Chris for sharing those. Curate and do the easy part first. Again, you'll find him at becomingbetter.org. The next bit of mom advice was one we actually talked about as well, Chris and I, and that's number seven, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Chris's example was that developing good brushing and flossing habits is a lot cheaper than paying for cavities. But I actually remember another bathroom related example that had to do with our aim around the toilet. Mom was sick of cleaning up the bathroom when we were kids. So the first thing she did was delegate that chore to us.

18:26Look, it's your job now. When we decided it wasn't much fun either, she said, well, you know what? It would be a lot easier if you didn't miss so much. So after that, we got a lot more careful with our aim, preventing the problem from happening in the first place. When I worked in the car business, there was a rule in the service department to call your customers before they called you. Like if a customer had their car in the shop for some maintenance or repair, make sure to give them updates and progress reports and cost details as it goes along before they call you at 445, right before closing time, to ask, hey, is this ready to get picked up?

19:02Or they get this surprise bill when they do show up. It was a way to prevent, upset customers, and manage expectations. In online business, you see lots of examples of this ounce of prevention in practice, from FAQ pages to detailed sizing information and pictures of the products, or even with advertising copy that says specifically who the product is the best fit for and maybe who it's not for. All of that is designed to prevent the more expensive, quote, cures of customer support staff, of processing returns, or just working with a client who's not well aligned with what you have to offer. So your homework here is to take a look at the messages or questions that you get from customers, readers, subscribers.

19:49Are there any patterns? What can you do to prevent some of those messages? Now, I want to be clear. I am happy to hear from readers and listeners. I love it. Most of the time it makes my day. But there are certain messages that are frustrating for both parties, like, hey, where's my file? Or how can I update my email? So I put together a special VIP page where subscribers can access all the bonus files. Don't have to punch in your email again. And I send that out to new subscribers after they join the email list. You can check it out, sidehustlenation.com slash join. You can see it in action. It should be there, you know, 10, 15 minutes after you sign up.

20:25And then I added a little link at the bottom of the newsletter that lets people update their account information in ActiveCampaign. And I think once you start looking, you'll find lots of different ways to apply this ounce of prevention rule. Maybe it's creating text expander snippets for stuff you type all the time. Maybe it's creating process documentation for your team. But that was mom advice number seven. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Mom lesson number eight is, is that really what you want to spend your money on? I credit both mom and dad for instilling this habit of lifelong frugality, or maybe spending intentionally is maybe a better way to phrase it.

21:06but it was mom who helped count out the coins from my Garfield piggy bank and open up my first savings account. She was the one who'd play allowance, the board game with us. And one of the first things I remember saving up for as a kid was to buy this skateboard. And it was probably first grade, second grade. It was 28 bucks at Toys R Us. There was one with a cooler pattern for$36, but I didn't have that much. And we're standing there in the aisle and she asks, okay, is that really what you want to spend your money on? And if you thought it was a dumb idea, which you probably did, I don't think that was detected by me.

21:42Instead, what came across was, yes, you can get this. You understand how much it costs. You understand how much money you have. And is that worth it to you? And at the time, it was. I remember my friend pulling me up and down the street behind his bike on that thing. But on countless other occasions, the answer was no, I'd rather save for something else. There's nothing wrong with spending money. In fact, that's kind of the point of earning it. But to make sure it's on the things that you really want and value. Just because you can afford something doesn't necessarily mean that you should buy it.

22:15I also think there's something about giving kids autonomy with money early on. Freedom to make what you might consider a mistake on a small scale. So they learn what it feels like to spend, what it feels like to save. and hopefully maybe they don't make bigger money mistakes later on. So that was lesson number eight for me. Is that really what you want to spend your money on? Number nine is to have high expectations and hold yourself accountable. I was the kid who stressed out about school and grades a lot more than I probably should have. And mom swears this was self-inflicted, but I don't know.

22:51We definitely didn't want to disappoint her. So in middle school, I started to hear these rumors and rumblings that some of my friends were getting paid for their grades. Like their parents would give them 20 bucks for every A and$10 for every B or something like that. I was like, I could be making money. And I can't tell you how fast this proposal was shot down by mom and dad when I floated it by them. Why reward what's expected, I think was the reaction. Do your best because of who you are and care about the effort you put out into the world, not because you think you're gonna get paid for it.

23:25Great report card. Now go do it again next semester. Have high expectations for yourself was number nine. Number 10 is I hope you dance. And this was mom's advice upon graduating high school, which was actually lyrics from a song that was medium popular around that time by Leanne Womack. This was really before my country music kick, but it was still all over the radio. You couldn't miss it. I don't think I can play it for you for copyright reasons, but it opens like this. And I hope you never lose your sense of wonder. You get to eat your fill, but always keep that hunger. And in rereading the lyrics in preparation for this episode, I can tell why she gave it to me.

24:05This is a really heartfelt send-off from any parent to any child. The kind that I probably wasn't capable of appreciating at 18, and maybe even not 28, but certainly do now after having kids of my own. It's a call to be grateful for what you've got, but to keep growing, to have the strength to get through the challenges ahead, and to have some fun along the way. So thank you for that mom. Love you. Hopefully lots of years of dancing still to come. Now I asked her what advice she got from her mom and even though she had zero desire to be on air, she was a good sport. She did send me this clip. After much thought and consulting my siblings, it turns out mom wasn't big on giving advice.