An important note on side hustles that no one is talking about
Why Adam Grant says side hustles are good for productivity
“Most men lead lives of quiet desperation.”
-Henry David Thoreau
The line reminds me of a kid I used to play basketball with back in Columbus.
A good basketball player. We would go out for drinks after the game, and all he would talk about was his depressing work life. He spent his 9-5 job playing Pokémon underneath his desk or thinking of excuses to leave early.
He talked as if it was a hopeless situation. Chained to the desk and his miserable life forever. As if he had no agency at all.
26 years old and already living in quiet desperation.
No one is 100% happy with their job.
I love my job, but it’s not 100% satisfaction by any means.
I don’t always enjoy schmoozing clients. Some days all I want to do is write, but I can’t because things get busy at the office. Not doing what you want when you want is super frustrating.
I imagine most people feel this way about their work to varying degrees.
A doctor once told me that no one is 100% satisfied with their job unless that person is Anthony Bourdain. Even that didn’t turn out to be entirely true.
My side hustle is the creative outlet I need to get through difficult days, and it might be your saving grace when things get really bad.
Here’s what I mean.
So much of our careers are not within our control.
Economists predict that the regional banks that bet on commercial real estate will be the next to fail.
How do I know this? I worked in commercial real estate for most of my 20s, so I’ve been keeping tabs. I was an office tenant rep advisor, which means I sold office space. Long story short, Covid happened. Companies stopped leasing space, and office buildings emptied like 1980s shopping malls.
My commercial real estate business flopped, and my writing side hustle was the only thing that survived.
I learned that our career journeys aren’t entirely up to us. A lot of it has to do with the families we were born into. How wealthy and educated they were. Whether they pushed academics on us or athletics. Whether they stayed together or got divorced. All that fun stuff.
After that, we are at the mercy of markets.
It’s an important lesson you realize as you get older: Not all success is due to hard work, and not all poverty is due to laziness.
Side hustles give you a sense of control and decrease burnout.
Wharton School of Business professor Adam Grant recently tweeted a study about the importance of maintaining a side hustle and why employers should encourage them.
The study found that although side hustles conflict with working hours, the positive psychological effects render the employee more productive in the long run.
"They are a source of energy and empowerment," says Adam Grant.
Empowerment sounds about right.
On the days when my job isn’t fun. I can always fall back on writing. I can fall back on the feeling that I'm mastering something and working towards something meaningful.
That's the recipe for a powerful life that renders burnout less likely.
That's what I would tell my basketball friend now. Forget about procrastinating with Pokémon. Pick up a journal and start writing or something, man.