My Thirteenth Thing - Publicize the Hustle

Publicize the side hustle.

If we start every 'thing' with a comparison - then I would liken this to Thing 6 where I only had to submit our contract for Gypsy - but the act of doing so legitimized our journey into a huge reality.

Thing 13 did little more than my physically appending my 'Linked In' portfolio to include me naming and stating that I do design work on the side.

Adding to your profile on Linked In does not go unnoticed. It releases a mini news story to all of your hundreds of connections saying 'Amber has added a new position to her portfolio to her profile - send a her a congratulations!'.

I could have turned this off. I could have made the change silently and only for the eyes of possible recruiters to see or maybe the one or two connections that randomly ventures to my page to glance around. But I didn't. I kept it as an announcement. I did this because this was my publicizing that I am now someone who does not solely work within the confines of her 9to5 - but I am definitively working a second job pursuit on the side.

It was intimidating because I have been moonlighting as a custom wedding paper suite designer for almost ten years and never once made it a publicized announcement. I think I was scared. Or maybe I was intimidated. I still am not sure. I was good at it - I never took on more work than I could actually complete - but I still didn't want anyone to know.

So this announcement was me coming out in the open that I have these abilities and I am openly and actively pursuing jobs with them.

I also see this as useful for new recruiters that look at my profile in the future so they can understand that I can be a multi-faceted acquisition. I have more than just a single set of talents to offer and I can be useful in more than one area of your business if you were so inclined to need someone like this.

So it was a bit scary to press that save button but the insane amount of congratulations and even the questions sent 'what do you do exactly' were exciting because I could personally explain to the interested individuals in my circle what I loved and what I had to offer… ya know… just in case they had a need in the near future. Wink Wink.