[Today's WCI Network post written by Passive Income, MD talks about side hustles. I always have mixed feelings about side hustles. I feel like doctors make enough money to be financially successful without ever earning any money from doing anything but practicing medicine. However, I also have a “side hustle” that employs 9 people and helped us reach FI almost a decade earlier than planned. So I can't really criticize those interested in side hustles with any sort of credibility. Certainly, after physician incomes universally dropped this year in the COVID pandemic there is A LOT more interest in side hustles among doctors. If you are interested, this post will help you figure out what your side hustle should be.]
To start off, here’s an interesting statistic: more than 35% of the United States workforce are now freelancers or independent contractors and that number is only rising. To take it a step further, according to CNN Money, over 44 million Americans have a side hustle of some sort.
It seems that more and more people are incorporating ways of earning supplemental incomes and monetizing their passions. Some do it as a hobby, while others are earning a decent living solely from what used to be their “side hustle”. Honestly, this blog is a side hustle for me, one born out of passion, but nonetheless, it provides a nice income.
In fact, more and more physicians are starting their own side hustles and earning passive income. So many physicians I talk to mention the need for one. In fact, we talk about this daily in our Facebook group, Passive Income Docs, and I highlight physicians' examples in my True Doctor Stories series, like Dr. Edna Ma and Dr. Buck Parker.
Why and Is It Worth It?
Let’s face it, medicine as we know it is changing. The old paradigm and expectation of what life is like as a physician is no longer relevant. It used to be simple: work hard, go to school, start a practice, have the respect and admiration of your community, constantly feel self-fulfilled, and have an extremely bright financial future.
But with increasing student loan debt, decreasing reimbursements, the business of medicine, increasing litigious environment, and physician burnout, the old days are gone.
I’ve been told in the past that the best way to earn a living as a physician is to “just be a doctor”. But advice like this usually comes from older physicians who only knew one way. My own father is the perfect example. He thought it was foolish to spend my efforts on other ventures until he himself one day was told by hospital administration that he was going to be replaced by a younger surgeon who was willing to take half his salary.
There is power in having choices. Achieving financial freedom and deciding how and when you want to practice medicine is truly empowering. In fact, it hasn’t made me race for the door out of medicine. Rather, it’s made me embrace my position. It's allowed me to practice out of passion and not out of necessity.
What's also nice about being a doctor is that it has allowed me to pursue certain side hustles without the pressures and financial constraints others have. While we're making decent incomes, I almost wonder why wouldn't everyone try?
Worst case, yes, you might have risked some time, energy, and some money, but you'll still have a job and the means to take care of your family. You'll probably just end up in the same place you started. But in the best case is a life of financial freedom, and isn't that worth the risk?
Choosing Your Side Hustle
Don’t Always Think the First One Needs to Be a Home Run
Think back to when you were coming out of training. There was so much pressure to find the right job. In fact, the truth is that most people don’t stay at their first job. It’s a stepping stone; they gain experience, they learn what’s important, they further define their passions, life happens, and they land a hopefully better position in the future. I feel it’s the same with side hustles.
However, I believe that most physicians put so much pressure on their chosen side hustle to be perfect and life-changing, that they often don't even get started. Some refer to this as “analysis paralysis”, where one sits there and tries to figure out every outcome, and, in doing so, never actually gets started.
For example, I talked to a former resident of mine a few years back, and he talked about wanting to get started in real estate. We went over the different options and based on his goals, time availability, and willingness it seemed that turnkey investing seemed like a good place to start.
However, he couldn’t decide whether he wanted to do it all on his own. Or should he invest in syndications? Which one was going to end up with the perfect pathway leading to financial freedom? My suggestion was to choose one and launch.
Turns out, he was so concerned about all the different scenarios and outcomes that three years have since passed and nothing’s changed. He’s still contemplating what would be the best course of action. Don't let that be you.
Define Your “Why” and Your Goals
You may have heard of the concept of “Finding Your Why” from motivational speakers like Simon Sinek or Tony Robbins. Just YouTube them if you're interested in hearing what they have to say. But the idea is that you start your journey by defining WHY you want to pursue something (side hustle in this case), and this will help propel you in the right direction.
So, why are you thinking about pursuing a side hustle? Do you want to work less and travel more? Is it to help pay off some of your mountainous debt? Is it so you can provide better things for your family? Is it because you want more time freedom to spend with your loved ones?
Once you've started with the WHY you can reverse engineer and figure out what goals you need to meet to practically get you there.
Are you looking to supplement your income by $5k a month, $10k a month, $20k a month? In how many years would you like that to come about? 5, 10, 15 years?
Find your why and set real, time-bound goals.
Get to Know Yourself
This one might sound a little silly but many of us have never really taken the time to lay it all out on the table and figure out who we are and what we're into. We've been so focused on this one path throughout our medical education and training.
So, you need to really figure it out—what are your interests, what are your skills? If money wasn't an option, what would you be doing? Well, money is important though, so what does it make sense to do? Write them down.
Remember those old personality tests, like Myers-Briggs? Well, my friends who are high-end consultants actually use tests for all their new hires. They’re constantly trying to assess their strengths so they can double down on them and get help for their weaknesses. I think it's worthwhile for people who are pursuing side hustles to take them, as well. I like 16 Personalities.
So, do an honest assessment of what you’re interested in and good at.
Think About How Much Time You Have
Take a look at your schedule. When can you carve out time to work on it? Could you wake up an hour earlier? Do you have time after the kids are asleep or at school? Do you have downtime on call or between patients where you could pursue something? Or do you really have no time and need to find a totally passive side hustle?
Many physicians I know say they need that downtime to veg out, to watch Netflix. I get it, but that’s precious time. The funny thing is, when I talk to physicians who take extra time for their side hustles, they say it actually invigorates them. Using different parts of your brain is stimulating. How many of you feel more tired after you’ve been sitting on the couch for hours?
Figure out how many hours a day or week you're willing to commit and that can help you determine what side hustle might make sense.
Find Out What Side Hustles Are Out There
Now that you have your goals well defined, it’s time to figure out what vehicles are out there to get you where you want to be.
Maybe you just want to make a few hundred bucks here and there while you’re standing in line or between cases. Then doing paid surveys might be good for you. Maybe you want to scale and build something, change the world, and have huge income potential. Then it sounds like you may want to create some sort of business.
Or is it simply getting into real estate, like I fully enjoy? Maybe you start by investing in crowdfunding, or by buying one property a year, or by investing in syndications or funds?
Whatever the case, see what you can imagine yourself doing and write those down as well.
Invest in Your Education
Once you figure out which areas you might want to work in, invest in education. Find blogs on the topics, find books, find courses. Don’t be afraid to shell out a little cash to invest in these things. For example, if you’re interested in telemedicine, you may want to look at this course to get started. People scoff at spending $29.99 on a book, or $1500 on a weekend conference or course.
However, I think of it as an investment. I’ve spent money on these things and they’ve paid back huge dividends. We've spent countless multiples of that amount to make it this far in our careers (>$200k for most of you out there), so, of all people, we should know that we have to invest and learn in order to grow.
Find Mentors
Lastly, find people in the space who are doing what you hope to do. Don’t be afraid to reach out to them—but be mindful of their time. The best students are the ones who are willing to jump in there, learn, and figure out what value they can bring to the table.
That’s what an internship is (we’ve all been through it). We spent hours and days in the trenches, but that was the best way to learn. Sometimes it even makes sense to pay for that mentorship or coaching.
Just Do It
Let’s face it, we have to evolve with the times. When you don’t, that’s when people crumble and fail. Fear of failure often stops people from starting, but again, you have to realize that it’s the fear of inaction that should worry you the most.
Opportunities are out there. One of my favorite podcasts is How I Built This. It’s the stories of entrepreneurs and how they got started, like the founders of Instagram, Airbnb, and Lyft. The vast majority of them didn’t have a profound background and pedigree in business. Often, the most successful are ones that see problems or opportunities and aren’t afraid to take a leap of faith and start.
So experiment, try, evolve. That is the key to success and finding your side hustle. If you haven’t already jumped in, make this upcoming year the one where you get started.
Any other tips for finding a side hustle?
Awesome post with a ton of great advice! I couldn’t agree more with the “just do it” philosophy. As a group, physicians are so mistake adverse that we want to feel “ready” before getting into something. But the truth is that we will never see ready for our side gig. And in reality we never even felt “ready” to be a doctor (remember your first day as an intern? I know I didn’t feel ready). But once you make the leap and get in the arena it is so much fun!
Really?
Thanks for the post. This is a very well written construct on how to start with side hustles. I agree whole heartedly with the “just do it” comment above. Ideas area dime a dozen but translation is what seperates the those who do it and those who talk about it. As someone who has done a few side hustles inside and outside of medicine, i would recommend trying to work inside of medicine first. If the goal is to truly maximize income. I see many docs out there that could squeeze their 5 day pateint volume into three or four days. This would then allow the time for a side hustle. What i ran into is that i have a few side hustles that may net me 50 or 60k per year but my medicine side hustle nets me 300k per year. Aside from the liability risk of practicing medicine thee is virtually no outlay. All my other side hustles have 6 figure outlays.
That being said i think “get to know yourself” paragraph in this brief instruction manual is very important. Are you going after the side hustle purely for money? if so, then i would recommend exhausting all medicine options available to you. I did not look at the list posted here but i would say examples are weekend call scenarios, telehealth call scenarios, examining the market within an hour radius to assess needs. I believe an large part of readers can make money more efficiently exploring these options than side hustles outside of medicine. On the other hand if a person would like to monetize a hobby then please explore those options outside of medicine. I absolutely love digging into physician contracts and am currently working on a project to offer my services for low cost glance of contracts. This is an example of me trying to monetize something that i enjoy doing instead of doing something for pure financial gain. That being said i have also purchased my first rental property and am renovating, this one is all about the money.
One other thing that i struggle with is to label physicians with side hustles as true entrepreneurs. The last paragraph mentions a podcast from folks in the business world who have done well without formal training. When we head into a side hustle we always have our very lucrative salaries to fall back on. We can lose 500k on a side project and just work a little harder and longer and really be the same in the end. This is not true of the “pure” entrepreneur who has to risk it all and if he/she doesn’t make it they are left with the shirt on their back, a scarlet letter in the business community and possibly some legal ramifications. Those consequences do give these folks a competitive advantage. just something to thnk about.
Great post and great community of minds,
7 fig Uro
My first side hustle was not a financial success. I wrote a book with about running as a life changing avocation.
I sold about 1500 books of the 5000 I had self published. The rest were eventually given away. I think I still have a few in my basement…
My second side hustle was in my field, psychiatry. Working weekends and holidays on an inpatient unit paid well, and few others wanted this work, creating leverage.
This side hustle now provides one third of my income as independent contractor monies. This has allowed me to put away a large amount of this “extra” income for about a decade. My retirement account from this work is now one sixth of my total and it has paid the mortgage for our retirement home in the mountains.
Of course, it’s labor intensive. This year, I will have worked 26 weekends and five of the six major holidays. I had extra work this year when one of the docs that do it contracted COVID-19 and was out two months. I took his weekends and the risk.
I’m about 20 months away from retiring at my main 40 hour, no weekend job, and dropping down to the side gig only. It will require downsizing to a cheaper set of circumstances. If all goes well, I’ll be done with full time work at age 58.5.
By having the side gig, I’m finishing at an age that allows enjoyment of retirement prior to becoming unable to enjoy it. As I’ve said here before, waiting until you can’t function well to retire seems foolish. Not everyone lives to age 85, and not everyone is completely able in their seventies.
Great post. Given the compensation rate of most physicians, you can certainly argue that it would be most profitable to just work more hours being a physician. But I agree that the benefits of a side hustle are more than just the income.
Learning new skills, adding variety to your day, and self actualization are all benefits that go above and beyond the extra income.
Pandemic aside, I could usually earn a lot more money working extra shifts as a surgeon, covering call, etc, etc. ..
But blogging and investing in real estate have been incredibly rewarding beyond the small amount of income I’ve gotten from them (so far). That wonderful feeling of learning and growth that I once felt as a med student — now I’m getting that from my side hustles.
Have salaries gone down across the board?
I am noticing ads for psychiatry jobs….prepandemic salaries around $300K and now seem to be more like average of $250K
Somewhat. Depends on the specialty. But it’ll return to normal.
Lots of docs took pay cuts, but I don’t know if those are also being passed on to new hires. Probably. Lots of places are still volume down. Our ED is still down 10% or so even while the hospital is overwhelmed with COVID.
Not enough docs think about software/technology for their side hustles. Difficult to get traction but once you do, bits are the ultimate in terms of scaling and leverage!
Naval and Tim Ferriss would agree.