A stunning statistic came to me at a meeting this weekend. The speaker stated that 89% of people are unsatisfied with their jobs. They’re biding time waiting on retirement, to finish school, until the kids are grown or until they find a better job. In the book Day Job to Dream Job , Central Ohio entrepreneur Kary Overbrunner likens a day job to being in prison. Working on someone else’s agenda, being there when they want you there and having little, if any, flexibility. Are you trading 5 for 2? Are you trading hours for dollars, wishing away your weeks for weekends? He shows how to take control of your work life. Written in clear steps, Kary outlines the process of creating a job you can fall in love with.

Or, maybe you’re not planning to give up your day job. Maybe you’re like many people who are content to stay in the 9-to-5 pace of life. It’s what you’re used to and while you have to be somewhere every day for a set number of hours, the pay is pretty good.

A young woman we’ll call Beth Ann, told me recently that she loved her job and had finally found something she loved. After slogging away her nights and weekends in the crazy hours of restaurant work for several years, she had found her perfect office day job.  Beth Ann liked the people, the comradery and the bonuses. Recently, after a short family leave of absence, she returned to foreign landscape. They had rearranged, added new people. The ones she had known in the office now behaved differently and were no longer getting along.

Could your side hustle sustain you if your day job abruptly came to an end? Even more important, are you one of the 89 per cent waiting to leave your current job for greener pastures?  It might be easy to forget that this country was founded on entrepreneurship. Fortunately, hundreds and thousands of people did not forget. If you’re a serious side hustler, you have something of the entrepreneurial spark in you.

Chris Guillebeau stumbled into entrepreneurship by trying some of the things others were doing to make money.  The questions he asked himself was,  “How can I get what I need by making something and selling it?” He didn’t want to cut costs or work fomr someone else.  Armed with a list of what he wanted to accomplish, he figured out how to make it happen.

Chris wanted to visit every country in the world before he was 35, and created The Art of

Nonconformity, a blog about unconventional living. He’s authored several books including the $100 Dollar Start Up,  and Side Hustle and daily podcasts for Side Hustle School. Kary had a wife and family to support along with a  home and plenty of responsibilities. Early on, Chris was a young footloose and fancy free single man. Both of them found their dream job and now they share their expertise and processes with anyone willing to listen.  Kary’s website offers not only books, but training and podcasts and many free and live events.

By reading either or both of these books of even following them, you can ramp up your existing side hustle or dive into one and change your life. Much success!