How Side Hustling Has Worked In My Life (And Why I’ll Never Go “Full-Time”)

My name is Amy Schmidt and this is the story of my side hustle journey. I consider myself a full-time side hustler. My side hustler journey began in college when I started my first cleaning company. This started my obsession for side hustles and business that I carried well throughout my corporate career. I even turned one of those side hustles into a 6-figure food photography business that I still manage today. 

I believe entrepreneurs should create their business models as unique as they are. So often we follow those that have come before us. But what if there was more? I’m a firm believer in creating micro-business development to create multiple streams of income versus chasing a 40-hour work week we have worked so hard to escape.

In This Episode You’ll Hear About:

My views on side hustling did not start this way. In fact, I was chasing full-time success from the very beginning and I looked down on side hustles, thinking they weren’t as significant. In this episode I cover:

• Growing up with parents who influenced financial independence 
• Creating my first business in college in effort to gain a more flexible schedule and season of life after my dad was diagnosed with cancer
• Entering the corporate world (twice) all to end up feeling an “entrepreneur-itch”
• White knuckling my wedding photography career all to have it crash when life moved me from the Chicago area, back home to South Carolina
• Creating my 6-figure side hustle, my food photography business
• Celebrating running two-part time businesses today and saying goodbye to full time businesses for forever

Follow along as I take you through learning how to make car payments at the age of 16 to being business obsessed and a full-time side hustler today.

Growing Up With Entrepreneurs

Growing up my parents were both business owners. This had a huge effect on me as a child seeing their flexibility and availability when it came to parenting. I was able to see both my mom and dad manage two very different businesses; my dad was a Framer and my mom is a Title Abstractor. 

My parents instilled a very strong sense of financial independence in both my sister and I from day one. They taught us how to take out a loan at the age of 16, purchase our first car, and proceed to make car payments. 

A Special Note On Today’s Episode: Today, March 1st, 2023 would have been my dad’s 65th birthday. The day of retirement. I dedicate this episode and my podcast release to my dad, who with my mom, gave me the understanding and encouragement to be an entrepreneur. 

From Corporate to Wedding Photography

Having a corporate title, desk, and suite were always very important for me. However after working my first job for about 1 year, I started to feel the entrepreneur itch again. I created many niche businesses before I landed on wedding photography. 

Wedding photography seemed to be the safe choice for entrepreneurship that I saw a lot of peers doing as well. For years, I worked harder than ever growing a business that looked like a lot of other people. And after white-knucking success, life moved me out of the Chicago area and back home to South Carolina. Thus, shattering my local, service-based business model. 

Creating A Part-Time Business Model (that worked)

Fortunately after moving home to South Carolina, I was able to fall back on my college degree and land my second corporate role. For years I worked in corporate construction, maining that important title I have always dreamt about. However, it would be long until that entrepreneur itch came back…

Wanting to do things differently this time, I pursued a business model that could use my skill set of photography, earn more income in flexible time, and that was built into security, no matter life’s circumstances. I created a food photography business. 

I grew my food photography business on the weekends and after work for about 1 year before going full time. And after running the business full time for only 2 months, I decided to hire a team and transition the business model to part time in order to grow a second business. This method ended up making me more money than had I kept it as a fulltime career. 

Links & Resources:

Ready to Life-Proof your side hustle? Take my free workshop! Enroll in Life-Proof My Side Hustle right here to get started! 

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