Ep. 273: Using Your 9-5 to Set Yourself Up for Side Hustle Success with Sasha Korobov

Shannon: Sasha, thank you so much for being here on pep talks for side hustlers. Can you share with our audience a little bit more about you and what you do.

Sasha Korobov: Sure Shannon, thank you for having me. I am a career strategist for women. So what I do is I work with my clients to sift through some of the noise that they hear out there about really leveling up in their careers and get them to where they want to be. Awesome. So how did you become a career strategist for women? Uh, I was fueled by rage actually. I love that answer so much. I had so many experiences where I've just gotten and admittedly taken bad advice that is really out there and

Sasha Korobov: kept banging my head against a wall because it wasn't working in my own career advancement. I was sort of trying to become this caricature of everything I had read and you know, behaving certain ways and doing certain things. And I realized that unless you show up really just as your best self, then it's not going to happen for you. So I had to really fall and scrape my knee a bunch of times, but I've picked up a lot along the way. And since then I've helped dozens of women and it just lights me up. It turns my rage into purpose.

Shannon Mattern: So did you, did you, did it start organically or did you like sit down one day and say, I'm going to turn a, turn this into a business? Like, you know, tell me, tell me the backstory of how you really got started.

Sasha Korobov: Oh, that has so many roads leading to now, doesn't it always does? Well, I've been coaching for over three years and I started with a very offline approach. So I was working with individuals and I was doing workshops and doing referrals and it was sort of general life coaching, you know, whatever that means. And it always came down to career in so many of the situations. And so I was like, we're really onto something here because people think of career as this isolated thing and really the way people approach their careers spill into so many other areas of your life. So even though we're talking about career, we're talking about how your confidence is affecting difficult conversations with friends and prioritizing your time and all of these things. And so I just noticed that it always went to their career. And so I said, okay, I'll be a career coach next, which was another fallen skin, your knee sort of thing.

Sasha Korobov: Because I was like, okay, I really have to become an expert in about four days on resumes and cover letters and networking. All this stuff that I really hate to talk about. But I thought that that's what I had to do and so it only took me really, really doing the work on myself that I have to do with my clients until I was like, Oh my God, how I show up as an expert as I am is actually okay because I do have experience and I do have expertise, but I was trying to turn my experience into something. It wasn't, and so I've just now shown up saying, you know what? I do coach on career. Yes, but we're going to talk about how to smash a number of things in your life because this does not exist in a silo.

Shannon Mattern: I can 100% relate to everything that you just said, Justin. Just [inaudible]

Shannon: just really what resonated with me is like how you approach your career is like how you, how you approach things in your life and thinking, you know, if, if, you know, I don't like confrontation at work, obviously I'm not gonna like confrontation in my personal life and, and all of those things. But another thing that, that you said was, you know, feeling like you have to kind of become this certain person that you're not in order to be taken seriously, um, in your field when that's not even the direction that you want to go. So do you see this happening a lot with your, with your clients? Only with every single person that I speak to and work with. And the thing is you just look in the mirror one day and you don't recognize yourself. Yeah, yeah. I mean just thinking like, Oh, I don't feel like I can teach this because I don't really like to code.

Shannon: I can't really teach people how to build websites when I hate to code. It's like, yeah, I can, I've found a different way to do it that doesn't involve exactly, exactly. And everybody thinks that they have to be an expert, right? We fall into that trap that there's this external boogeyman somewhere who's waiting with a big stick. If you try to call yourself an expert and you're not, and the fact of the matter is you really just have to know more than your clients. You have to because they, you don't think you know much, but then you speak to them and this is so obvious to you, you wonder like, wait this, I thought this was basic and their eyes are totally opened up to what you're talking about. So you know it happens. But that's why I like to dismantle some of these beliefs.

Shannon: I love it. And, and I don't, you know, knowing more than your client's is helpful. But I also like to layer on that. Like you just have to know how to help them find the answers. You don't even have to know them yourself. No. You know, so thinking that I see this a lot with the web designers that I work with, I coached web designers on how to like run successful web design businesses and they feel like they can't even start because they don't know all of the things of all of the things that could possibly might be asked of them ever from a client. And that's like you're never going to know. So if that's your belief, you're never going to be able to start. Like you have to have confidence in yourself that you're just capable of like finding out answers as things come along.

Shannon: Can I please give you a nerdy example of this? Yes. I love nerdy example. So currently I live in England, but before I moved here for the better part of a decade, I worked for NASA and I was a contractor and you just, you know, you pick up a thing or two working with a bunch of geeks and when they were building rockets and you know, moon row or Mars rovers and all of these things, those nerds set out to fail over and over and over again because they knew it was the fast track to success. They knew that as soon as you launch something and it didn't work, then there was data in that. And with data is power. And so it's again kind of a bit of a reach of an example, but it's just true. You test, you tweak, but you do action.

Shannon: I could not agree with you more. And as a side note, I'm a, I'm, I want to ask you a million questions about working for NASA because I was obsessed with the summer of space series on PBS here you guys, I've watched every single one of those documentaries like three times. I'm not even joking. So have to have the kidney spatial. I have to have a sidebar conversation about your NASA experience, but I can't, I could not agree with you more as like taking action is the only way to figure out what your next move is. And one of the things I see a lot of my students doing, um, is, you know, trying to get everything perfect and right in their head before they will ever put it out there. And so they delay starting by years sometimes because it's, you know, in their head they have to have it all right when it's like it's, it doesn't matter what you think, it matters what your client thinks or your customer things.

Shannon: We make this about us all the time and that's where we trip up, do it in sales. We do it in marketing, we do it in how we approach our whole models. We think it's about us and therefore we never start. And I don't want to shatter anyone's bubble of narcissism, but it actually has your, you're a facilitator but it has nothing to do with you and I, whenever I speak with some of my entrepreneur buddies and I work with some coaches, I talk so much about market research and nailing market research because after that it's much easier. Um, and it's sort of a direct fast track way to learn that it's not about you at all. The language that you write on your website in your content will immediately change, you know, doors will open for you and you're building trust with you know, people and getting all these ideas that you never even thought of cause you were trapped in your own head. What I discovered that it wasn't about me, it was like some most freeing moment of my business. It really, it really did. Like I could tell you like everything changed when I discovered it's not about, it's not about me, it's about them and what they want and how they talk about things and, and you know, and once I figured like, ah, no wonder I'm not landing, it's because I'm saying things how I think of them, not how they think

Shannon Mattern: of them. And you know what I'm saying? Things like, you know, get website traffic. People are like, no, I need to know how to market myself. And it's the same exact thing, the same steps, all the same things. But like when I'm saying something, they're like, that's, I don't, that's not what I need. You know, once I figured that out, I was like, Oh my gosh, this is the key to all the things and like, isn't it a relief if it's not about you because then you don't have to, you know, try to pretend to be someone that you're not or try to be an expert or all the things. It's just like it was, it was, it was just like this huge like weight off my shoulders. I'm like, all I have to do is help you. Like that's it. Yes. Amazing. Stop the charade now. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Oh my gosh. So, um, I have so many questions for you about all of this. So, um, tell me just a little bit more about like the things that you see your clients believing that are holding them back. Well,

Sasha Korobov: a lot of it is if I were to boil it down to one thing, it's that they believe that their choices are actually circumstances. And what I mean by that is they're like, I am unhappy because I have no flexibility and that is just how it is. And I'm like, okay, but how have you asked if you could have more flexible? No. Um, okay. Well, besides, you know, the restaurants around your office and your commute and like the weather that day, really all of this is at least to some degree within your control. And that's the number one thing that I work with all of my people on is that they really need to be able to recognize where they have choice and choosing to miserable and not speak up for yourself is okay too, but at least own it as a choice.

Shannon Mattern: You're speaking to the Shannon from five years ago. What I look like when I was like, I hate this day job so much. This is terrible. All the things, the rush hour traffic is horrible. This office is like old. There's nothing yet like all like every complaint about all the things and then I'm like, well I'm just going to start my own business to escape the madness and that's what I did. But one of the interesting things that had to happen is that I had to get back in love with my day job in order to have success at my business because that bad attitude was like creeping into my side hustles so bad that thankfully I had a great business coach at that time that pointed out to me like, Hey, if you're miserable here, the grass is not going to be greener unless you fix your mind.

Sasha Korobov: It follows you. Yeah. Yes, and I do work with a couple of coaches and you know, they're side hustling are in their nine to five and the advice out there, it's not bad advice, but the main piece of advice that you'll get about working a nine to five while starting a business is it's a means to an end. Just hang in there and you know, I just have to step back from my people and say, you know what? It's O K if that's not enough. I understand that you are actually now getting resentful of your nine to five. You understand that it's a means to an end, but you also see it as a prison and there are so many things that you can do in your nine to five to set you up for success in business. And you're absolutely right. Attitude first, right?

Sasha Korobov: But there are also, when I, you know, wanted to start coaching and get out of my nine to five, there were so many mundane little, you know, things in my job that I did not like. So I said, um, I'm not doing this anymore. I'm doing workshops. Instead, I did a lot of asking for forgiveness instead of permission in my nine to five. And, uh, I just started finding ways to build expertise that would serve me in my business, in my nine to five because not only was I there and I need the money, but it just made it so much more bearable. And it let me hang on to that inspiration that you need so badly if you're going to be starting up a business while into nine to five.

Shannon Mattern: Oh my gosh, I, you're speaking my language. So attitude, one, creating opportunities for yourself to do things that you're passionate about that are going to, um, really help you in your side hustle cause you're practicing speaking in front of groups or you know, doing sales calls or, you know, asking your employer, Hey, can I take a marketing class? Will you pay for that? Like, you know, all of those things. What are some other things that you can do, um, in your nine to five to set you up for your side hustle?

Sasha Korobov: Asking for things, asking for things. I don't write a match in a, you know, you can really advocate for things you want because once you're out of the nine to five, you're on an Island. It, you've got to, you know, be working yourself up to do these things and keep yourself propelling. Um, but I would, I would definitely say asking for things and advocating for yourself, which I know sounds a little woo, woo and intangible, but you're going to have to do it in your business all the time. And so just practice the art of stopping, asking for permission for every little thing. [inaudible]

Shannon Mattern: that's good. Tell me a little bit more about how, you know, how you've seen some of your clients, uh, implement that advice. I've

Sasha Korobov: seen it both in the career end in business, so some advice that people will get in their career is, you know, know your worth, but you should probably snuggle up to this person and just do everything that they say and you're like, cool, what now? And um, it happens in business too because once you're, you know, once you're in the business, you're waiting for that silver bullet, right? And a lot of people in marketing really know how to dangle that in front of you and say, just follow me. It'll be great. You know, even if these marketing things and ideas don't feel like an integrity to you, if they don't gel with who you are, it's like, well, but this is just how you do it, I guess. And I guess I'm stuck being miserable and stifling my creativity or whatever it is. And so I see people take the advice both in their careers and in their businesses bit by bit to say, you know what? I have an idea, just like we were talking about earlier, I'm going to just test it and see if it works and no one's actually going to die if I, you know, propose this idea and my boss says no. Or if I pitched to this client and they say, you know what, it's not a good fit. Like whatever the worst case scenario you imagine is, is probably not going to happen and you will probably wake up the next morning and still be fine.

Shannon Mattern: I love it. And even just asking, you know, you said asking for things, asking for things like, Hey, can I shift my schedule so that I come in a little bit later and leave a little bit later and then working on your business in the morning, that's something that I did, um, when I was side hustling, you know, and, and you, you kind of get into the mindset of just thinking like, while our business hours are eight to five, so you know, I don't have a choice. This is inflexible. Like whatever it is. And you know why you're basically just telling yourself know ahead of time, like let somebody else like for real tell you know before you don't go after something that you really want. Choice versus circumstance. Yes, yes, absolutely. Oh my gosh. Like I like where were you five years ago? I didn't even know coaching was a thing. Like I did not know, like you can have a life coach or a business coach or all of those things until I till I kind of went down this path of, of building a business. But I think it's, I just think it's so important because we do, we spend, you know, 40 hours a week if not more at work, you know, a good chunk of our day Monday through Friday. Um, and I think it's so important to feel empowered, um, rather than feeling like you're at, at the, you know, a victim to your circumstances. Well, because

Shannon: you'll stay there, we'll follow you in every other aspect of your life and then you'll realize like, Oh my God, I was not in on the joke because actually you have a lot more choice. So I say just, just do it and be proactive about it so that you can cut all those years of noise and nonsense out and just, you know, just be winning as soon as possible. Yeah, absolutely. And I just, and also just back to the whole taking action and experimenting thing, like when I first started, it felt like everything was like a life or death. It had to work, you know, if it didn't work, there was something wrong with me. Um, and so what I would do is I would, you know, just like you said here about a tactic in a Facebook ad, sign up for a webinar, buy the thing, like go and put my all into it and then get a fraction of the results that all of the people in the testimonials got.

Shannon: And then think like, well, my program must suck. I must suck. This must be terrible. I'm going to throw everything out completely and start entirely over. And I did also judgment of like who I am, how tied to my identity, which is totally tied to my self worth. Like, you know, I'm not good enough. I need to give away more for free. I need to like, you know, all the things and you know what I did not ever consider is that okay the first time you do something isn't the law. Like you always figure like I needed to do a postmortem and figure out what went well, what didn't go well, what did I like, what did I not like, what were my actual real results based on? My numbers are the percentages. I didn't do any of that stuff. I did none of that stuff.

Shannon: And what ended up happening, and if any of you listening to this are kind of in that same boat, I implore you to stop right now because you waste so much time. Like starting over and going back to just being in your office, you know, behind a laptop doing stuff that is not taking action at all. It seems like you are, but you're not and you're not. You're not getting, gathering the data that you need to actually be successful when you do that. Yes. That's my little rant. I'm going to get off my soapbox now. It's a good soap box. No, no, no. It's because I, I've got a mentor right now and she's fantastic and she says, if you believe that you will have a successful business, you will. If you don't, you won't. And sometimes it is that simple, but we're always looking big picture, right? We're always thinking if we haven't been 100% I mean success, you know, it doesn't look like a straight line going up. Right. So zig-zaggy and we waste so much,

Sasha Korobov: you know, thinking in these terms that we say, you know why? If I'm not there, then I guess that's it. And sometimes it's like right before you get a break. Sometimes it's like, right when you're at the edge of success where you're like, okay, I'm done. It's like, no, just stick with it. It's okay. If you tried something and it didn't work for you, it's okay to get tired. It's okay to admit that this is hard stuff, but that doesn't mean that you quit.

Shannon Mattern: Right. Right. And what that's, that's so interesting because one of the things that I always knew from the moment that I started my business is that I was like, I know that I'm going to build this up to the point where I'm going to quit my day job. Like that was just like something in my bones. I never doubted that for a second. I had no idea how it was going to make it happen, but I never doubted that. And I think that that's really what drove me to keep going. Um, no matter what. And like continue to get back up every time I failed and, and all the things. So I think, you know, and you know, and the times where I believe my program's not good enough or whatever, it doesn't sell well like shock because I'm not taking the actions that I need to do when I like didn't believe in the thing or, or whatever it was. So I totally, totally agree with you that you know, you're, it's all your thoughts that, that make create your actions. I'm sure you as a life coach or a former life coach, yes. You know, really, um, believe that to be the case. I, it has proven itself true in my life a thousand times over now that I think about it.

Sasha Korobov: Yeah. Why do we put the pressure on ourselves to do six months worth of work when we just have a day at a time?

Shannon Mattern: Oh yeah, yeah, we do it. Yep. Absolutely. Oh, it's crazy. So I love your website by the way. I'm looking at it before, um, before we started and I love your, your kind of co your tagline, which is swap out that crappy job for your dream career without taking a cut to your pay or your sanity. So how do you help your clients do that? Cause I know a lot of people listening, they're, you know, they're like, maybe I want to start out a side Hill so maybe I don't, maybe I just want to make more money. Maybe I just want a job that I like, you know, a side hustle or owning your own business isn't always the answer to, to that, um, that end goal. It could be in your own career. So can you share a little bit more about that?

Sasha Korobov: Yes. So it's sort of at first like a diagnostic, right? You go through all of these things. I ask the people that I work with to list the top five things that frustrate them first foremost out of the gate and very simply I go through with them that, I mean this is not just me being, you know, all knowing, but I say, Oh okay, sounds like one, three and four. You totally have control over two and five you'll have to make peace with or walk away from. And once people know what is actually within their power to address, then it becomes much more a question of how then being like, I don't like this, I'm miserable. And you're right, exactly what you said. You'd be surprised how many people I work with don't actually end up leaving. They just find ways to change the circumstances in their job and stay in.

Sasha Korobov: They're like, but I'm in charge now, or, but I have more money now, or I've decided to go part time because it was just too much. And now I'm, you know, happy as a clam, assuming you can measure a clams app. So, you know, and we just go through and with each piece that is within their control, you just have to scratch over, you know, a number of different sessions and weeks that you're working with someone and say, okay, so then this is the problem. This is why it's within your control, but we haven't done something with it yet. I'm going to hold your hand a little. Here's what we can do. And if it works, that's awesome. It's supposed to. If it doesn't, it doesn't mean that you stop. Let's take a step back, take a look. See where that conversation with human resources didn't go.

Sasha Korobov: Well, here's how you could have approached this conversation with your boss a little more productively. Or here's what you need to, you know, maybe consider to, you know, just, um, have a better quality of life and of, you know, career work around this stuff. So why do you think people feel so powerless in their jobs? Because they're told that they're powerless and they believe it. [inaudible] and you know, you hear a whole lot of contradictory information. Like you really should speak up for yourself, but if you notice that that person's uncomfortable, you should probably just pipe down and maybe try again later or you know, you, you're conditioned to believe that you have to ask for permission for everything. So, um, you know, the statistics about men applying for certain jobs versus women applying for jobs. If, if, uh, generally speaking, this is, of course there are exceptions, but if a man will see six out of 10 that he's qualified for, he'll be like, Hey, let me just give it a shot. You know, see what happens. And then let the recruiter decide. Statistically, a woman will say to herself like, Oh, I've got approximately 8.67 out of 10 there's probably more I could do to get to 10. Let's circle back and try it again later when I'm more than or less than whatever it is she thinks she needs to be. Or do.

Shannon Mattern: Do you have any idea why that is?

Sasha Korobov: I, I think it's because there have been separate rules that have been dictated and laid out by people. Like I, if you had a rant, if I could have a mini rant. Yes please. Some career advice that I've heard, and this wasn't like 50 years ago, this was like last year was like don't bring cookies into work. You will look to nurturing and that will just not bode well for you. And I'm like, Oh God forbid we're more than one dimension. I'm like, you can bring cookies to work and then like ask for a raise that day. Like it's, it's possible. And I've also heard if you're gonna ask for a raise, you know, you don't, I mean, if I can use a little salty language from a quote, you don't want to look like a bitch if you ask for a raise like that, there's a monopoly on these characteristics that are only for men, like assertive in control, confident.

Sasha Korobov: So instead of looking like a bitch, you know, lean into the relationship you have with your boss and talk about how the relationship might be offended if you don't get a raise. And I'm like, I just don't have time for that, you know? Um, because the fact of the matter is in your career and in business, there is not a monopoly on these characteristics. You can show up with data and ask for something that you deserve and like, you know, you don't have to worry about pissing someone off. It's really going to be fine and we've got to change that narrative.

Shannon Mattern: Yeah. And if you're already not getting it, what do you do? You ha what do you have to lose? Absolutely. No one's going to die. Yes. Right. Oh my gosh. Um, I, and you know, I think that those things translate, you know, whether you're at your job, they translate to your business. At least they did for me. They translated into my side hustle into my business where, you know, I would be afraid to ask for more in like in my contract or like whatever it was. And then, you know, in my business I'd be afraid to ask for a certain price or all the things. So I think, you know, these issues are, like you said in the very beginning of this episode, you know, they are mult, they permeate throughout every, every area of your life. And I think, um, you know, working on them in one area is only going to help you in all the other areas.

Sasha Korobov: Absolutely. The way you speak to your friends, the way you speak, your partner

Shannon: and putting up boundaries, Oh God. People talk about work life balance. It doesn't exist. You have got to have work life boundaries instead. And if you can bring that to your career, you can bring it to the rest of your life and vice versa. Oh my gosh. Work life boundaries. I've never heard of that. That is gold. Can you tell me a little bit more about tips for setting work life boundaries? There's a glorious little word it's called no, how do you spell that? I'll look it up and I'll get back to you. But I think it's an Oh, you know, my little lady brain can handle that. I'm definitely saying no and doing some work to understand that it's not like, yes or I hate you, get out of my face and never speak to me again. There can be a happy medium when you're setting boundaries to just say something along the lines of, you know, uh, I, I understand your point.

Shannon: Thank you for that. I think we're still going to disagree on that and that's okay. Let's, let's see how we can move forward here. Or if somebody is, you know, your boss is like, Hey, look, I need you at 7:30 PM to review this document. Uh, you know, then in the next two hours, because it's 50 pages and it's gotta be ready for 9:00 AM say, you know what, actually, I'm not available right now. I'm not in the office. I'm tending to other things. And, um, I understand that this is a high priority. And so absolutely, I pledge to get to it as soon as it's reasonable. And that's a hard one. That's one of the hardest ones with my people. But the fact of the matter is, is that if you're just waiting from the top down for things to change, it's never going to happen.

Shannon: You have to learn to start managing from the bottom up. Uh, that's so, so good. So good. So switching gears a little bit, are you fully self-employed now or is this your side hustle? What's your situation? I consider my nine to five. My side hustle really. Um, I am working on shimmying out of the side hustle in the next two to three months. So getting there, but my husband is an accountant and he will not let me, um, I have for, well he doesn't let me do anything, let me back up. But he's strongly discouraging my making an abrupt departure without knowing that we'll be able to, you know, stay in our house. Yeah, I've, I've, I mean I love hearing everybody's side hustles, situations, different things. I totally felt, um, in the last year that my nine to five was my side hustle and my business was like, you know, the full time, full time gig.

Shannon: So that's, that's interesting that you put it that way. Um, and yeah, I was in the same position where my husband's like, well, as long as you can still, um, pay that paycheck every month. I don't really care where it comes from. Yes. And I'm like, yes, sure. That would be my pleasure. Crap. Right. So you have a nine to five and you run this business. How do you manage your time and, um, and serve both things well and my commute. So have you seen that movie, the holiday? I don't. I don't think so. I don't ever watch movies. So that's like forcing you to ask me. It's like two blah Kate Winslet, tiny little British town. Anyway, I live in [inaudible].

Shannon: You said you don't watch movies and there you go. You had to describe it to me. So there's this little idyllic British village, right? Like I actually live in that village where it was felt. Oh, okay. Yeah. So, but I work in central London, which is like three and a half to four hours. So like round trip commute. So it's not like I just get in my car for eight minutes, like good for those people where that's the case. But that's not me. So I like to podcast a lot on the train and in terms of managing my tasks, I unfortunately I learned this from burnout. This was like a forced learning that you have got to focus on one thing at a time. And when I am working with people, and this is both coaches and my my nine to fivers, they're like, I have an hour, I'm going to do this for seven minutes and get 10% of this thing.

Shannon: And I'm like, you will never get any of it done. Pick one thing, one thing, get it done. And it's hard because I have shiny object syndrome like immensely. So I really have to not only profess this but work at it constantly. Um, but you'd have to take one thing chip away, then set it aside and do the next thing. The only thing that works. I also suffer from shiny objects. And so I literally, I keep a giant notebook by my desk and as I am working or doing something and I'm like, Ooh, I want to do this right now. I literally just like write it down on this, on this piece of paper because then I can kind of like read through it and be like, that's dumb. I was, why would I ever even do that? But I was like literally at risk in the moment of like stopping everything I was doing to like go chase that thing.

Shannon: And so that's how I manage my shiny object syndrome. It doesn't always work. Sometimes I am Lord, I'm Lord down the rabbit hole as at where, um, for those things. But it really does help me just like, um, I get to answer the urge of like doing something with it. But then I don't pull myself so far out of of what I'm doing that I end up screwing my whole week up because I was supposed to get something done and three hours later I'm like, who knows what the heck I'm doing well, and the thing is, I think I, you're absolutely right, and to that point, I think take some time for the one thing, but then let yourself after that have some creative space. There's so many things I'd like to do. I'm like, what about a course? What about a podcast? What if I started sitting on panels and speaking at people?

Shannon: These are, it's okay to have inspiration. It's what keeps us going and it's fun. It's just fun, but when it's getting in the way of taking action, then you just switch the order around. No one's telling you no. You just prioritize the stuff that's actually going to have you grow in your business and then have the fun name. Yeah, look at different trademarks you can buy whatever it is. I give myself squirrel days sometimes. Generally call them squirrel days and it'll be like, it's a squirrel day. I'm going to the coffee shop, I'm working from there. I get to just like maybe start on something on this list and then I get to just, it just gets to go where it goes and that's how I'm able to, you know, let myself have a little bit of that creative freedom cause I also have really big goals for my business and I also know all the things that I have to do to make that happen. And optimizing Libsyn, shove notes is not the best use of my time even though I want that to happen.

Shannon: Exactly. Give yourself the space that's part of the freedom that you've earned as a business owner but you know get to being a business owner first where you can make your own rules. So your commute is two hours each way, is that correct? Yeah, like one and a half to two hours and he'd do that every single day. Every single day. Are you able to like use a laptop on the train or is there not internet on the, on the trail? I don't really want to because I like to make my focus space. Like when I'm carving out time for myself, I'm like go away. Like I lock my door, I have a very needy cat. He can't come in like it's my time and my space. So I just make sure that um, you know, I'm using that time again, I write notes, I'd like to write notes when I podcast, so I'll do that like on the train and yeah, I'm definitely getting ideas and organizing thoughts but not necessarily putting hardcore pressure on myself to like rank out deliverables all. If that was me, like I used to dream of having a driver that would take me to where I, I even tried to like talk my husband, I'm like, can we carpool? He was like, you work on the opposite side of town is like, could you just drive me to work? Cause then I'd have an extra 45 minutes, like an hour and a half a day to get stuff done. And it's so funny because like, that was one of my total, like one of my, you know, little side hustle hacks was I

Shannon Mattern: would work in the car everywhere. I'd like tethered to my phone and make a little internet connection. I'd just be like hammering away and like I look up one day and I was like, when did they build that? And my husband's like a year ago, we've been driving by it every weekend for the past year and you'd just now looked up from your laptop and I'm like, Oh, I might have a problem. Exactly. But you're, but you're loved doing it. So everybody should be chasing something that they love like that. Yeah, absolutely. And then, and then I did, you know, burnout and set some boundaries and all the things because CNL [inaudible] it does happen for sure. Um, but yeah, no, that's, that's, I love it. And just, I'm sorry, as a random side note, my computer's about to restart, so I'm joining you on my phone. Sorry. Okay, let's do it. There we go. I will remember to edit that. Let me make a note.

Speaker 4: So sorry about that.

Shannon Mattern: No problem at all. So I just have a couple more questions for you before we wrap up this interview. Um, you know, you are a side hustler. You also understand, you know, all of the pressures that many people have. Um, you know, that they maybe our self imposed on themselves in their day job and they don't really realize that their self is yet. Um, but you, you know, you work with a lot of people who, you know, have careers. You probably work with people who have careers and have a side hustle. You have a side hustle yourself. Yes. What is your best advice for someone who is struggling to grow their side hustle?

Speaker 4: So we haven't talked about this yet, but honestly the thing that I learned over and over again is watch the company you keep. And I know that's controversial now as a blanket disclaimer. I'm not saying to block people in your phone and never speak to people again. But there are a lot of people, I would say most people, I don't know what your experience was, Shannon, but most people in my circle don't get what I do. And they don't get why I want to do it and they don't get why I put in the time and why I turned down social invitations and why sometimes I'm tired. And so in terms of advice, honestly I think you need to be spending edging out some time to spend some quality time on the phone or in person or just in communication with people who are leveling up and who are on either the same path or a few steps ahead of you, preferably the ladder.

Shannon Mattern: That is such advice. I definitely had relationships that um, you know, ended because, um, you know, I was making choices that were different than what I had been choosing, you know, when I wasn't side hustling when I decided to start, start a business. And um, you know, it wasn't like any big dramatic ending, but it was like, you know, things that just, that just faded away and, and it was definitely, um, definitely like intentional on my part to fade away, if that makes sense. Because I knew that like these things weren't compatible with like this, these relationships aren't compatible with who I see myself as in the future. And so I could, I could not agree with you more is, you know, just watching the company you keep, um, you know, making sure you're surrounded with people who support you and aren't going to tear you down for what you choose to spend your time on.

Shannon Mattern: And I think that that's, that's, that's absolutely huge. That's fantastic advice. And taking that space doesn't make you a terrible person. It's just, we've talked about this work life boundaries, it's all it is. Yep. And I mean, even part of that was just kind of extracting myself from the groups at work that talked about how awful are awful. Our place of work was, you know, when you're kind of like in that group at work where everyone's like, Oh, so-and-so did this, so-and-so did that. And you're just like, I don't want, I, I can't, I can't, here's this another day. It really is. And it's like, even if you're not, if you're not participating in it, but you're standing there listening to it, you're just as culpable as you know, the people that are participating in that and it, and it really can like poison you.

Shannon Mattern: So, you know, I feel like if you, you don't have the energy for your side hustle when your energy, when you're giving your energy away in a really negative way too. Things like that at work, at least that was my experience. Minimize things that are going to take your eye off the ball. Oh, I love that. Love that. Couldn't agree more. That's definitely a quotable. Thank you. Definitely quotable. Okay, so I asked this final question to everybody that comes on the podcast and that is what belief about yourself did you have to change to get where you are today? And you know, I know I knew that the question was coming, but it's still, it's such a good question. Um, that success was possible, but for everyone else, if it was gonna be possible for me, I needed to wait for someone else to open the door or for permission from God knows who.

Speaker 4: Um, so it is active work every day, but it's positive work sand that actually success is yours, but you've just got to show up and grab at it.

Shannon Mattern: That is a perfect place to wrap up this episode. That's such a good conversation. I could talk to you for another two hours about this. Um, can you share with everyone where we can find out more about you? Um, online?

Speaker 4: Yes. So you can come find me on Sasha core, bob.com and um, I think I sent you a little, a little present for your side hustlers, five hacks on how to just make the day job easier. And so even if you can't quit yet, even though that's the goal, it's how to make your day job a little easier. So find me a Sasha [inaudible] dot com I just started into Instagram, so be gentle, but that's Sasha CORBA bid's one word.

Shannon Mattern: Awesome. Well, I will link up everything in the show notes. Definitely. You guys go get your hands on those five hacks because whether you want to start a side hustle or you know, someone that hates their day job, like there's no reason for us to be suffering through, um, you know, something that we spend so much time on. So definitely go, uh, go get your hands on that. I'll link everything up. Position notes. Sasha, thank you so much for being here today. I really, really appreciate it.

Speaker 4: Thanks so much for having me Shannon. It's been a pleasure.