Nick Loper: Yeah, Buddy, let’s do this.

Interviewer: Yes. Nick helps people earn money outside of their day job. He’s an author, online entrepreneur and lifelong student in the game of business. His latest role as the chief side hustler at SideHustleNation.com; a growing community and resource for aspiring and part-time entrepreneurs. Nick, say what’s up to Fire Nation and share what’s going on in your world.

Nick Loper: What’s happening, John? Thanks so much for having me. So I’m a Seattle kid, a north westerner. I’m a skier. I love traveling. I’m a baseball fan, so as cool as it was to see the Sea Hawks in the Super Bowl and lose that heartbreaker –

Interviewer: To my Patriots.

Nick Loper: – to your Pats, I would much rather see – I would love to see my Mariners in the world – I would just love to see the Mariners return to relevance because selling baseball cards at the end of the driveway, like that was one of my first entrepreneurial memories. But I’m a little bit of a displaced north westerner now as I’ve been in California the last eight years or so where I married my high school sweetheart and have run a couple different businesses.

But today, like honestly, I think I have one of the best jobs in the world with [inaudible] [00:01:13]. So through the blog and the podcast, this is my attempt to spread the gospel of this lower risk brand of entrepreneurship and tell people you don’t need to jump off a cliff and build a parachute on the way down. You don’t need to raise venture capital. But you can legitimately build something on the side, and I get to share my own experiments, my own successes and failure along the way, plus the stories of some awesome, awesome, current and former [inaudible] entrepreneurs as well.

Interviewer: Fire Nation, I love Nick’s energy, his vibe, his transparency. His podcast, by the way, is killer, if you can’t tell how awesome his audio is it’s because he has a great podcast himself. And I love the whole side hustle mentality because you’re right, Nick. A lot of entrepreneurs – or I should say wantrepreneurs – never actually become entrepreneurs because they think it has to be this massive leap into this black abyss. They think it has to be this all or nothing roll of the di, you know, go raise ten million dollars and be the next Uber.

But no, it doesn’t have to be that way. That can be a road to go and if you want that road, it’s there for you. But there’s also a great road for sidepreneurs, for those side hustle nation. So we’re gonna be talking about a lot of great stuff, Nick, but first and foremost I’m gonna dive even more into your mind with what I call the one-minute mindset. These are five insights into your mind, about a minute-ish each. The first question being ideally, what do the first 80 minutes of your day look like?

Nick Loper: Well, to start off with a productive morning really starts the night before where I make a point to write down kinda my top three to five priorities for the next day. So when I get up I know immediately what to work on. Now, I can’t say I immediately get to work, but I do a little stretching. I make a power smoothie, which I adapted from a previous guest of yours, Arie Micell. It’s a very high fat, high calorie thing with –

Interviewer: Give me a few ingredients. I love to hear them.

Nick Loper: It’s vanilla protein powder, blueberries, almond butter, coconut oil, avocado, very, very good stuff, very dense. But that keeps me going for hours after that. Take the dog out and then I jump on the treadmill desk upstairs and get to work.

Interviewer: Now, see, one thing that I love that you brought up, Nick, that – let’s be honest. I’ve asked this question now to over 100 entrepreneurs and only one or two has actually talked about the night before when I bring up what do the first 80 minutes look like? Which is understandable because I’m talking about the first 80 minutes, but it does, Fire Nation, start the night before if you really want to lay the groundwork. Because the less mental bandwidth that you can take and take up in your first 80 minutes the better those 80 minutes are gonna be.

So lay out those clothes. Write down a couple things you’re gonna do right away. Make it routine. Make it strategic. Love that. And Nick, what’s your biggest weakness as an entrepreneur?

Nick Loper: I’m gonna go with focus. So what’s that stand for again, John?

Interviewer: Follow one course until success. You are like my favorite guest so far.

Nick Loper: But there are so many fun courses to follow, so I really struggle with that one.

Interviewer: You have the weapon of mass distraction, Nick Loper. You have it, that bright shiny object. You’re probably looking at [inaudible] [00:04:29] right now but you know you need to have that nose glued to your pot filter because we want to hear what you have to say. And that is going to be what’s your biggest strength?

Nick Loper: So my biggest strength is probably work ethic. I just love the building process. It just feels good to put your energy toward something that you care about, whether that’s a short term thing or a long term thing. And as much as I love the four-hour workweek and the passive income dream, I think I’d be bored out of my mind if that ever came true for any length of time.

Interviewer: Yeah. I hear you there. And don’t let Tim Farris hear you say that, though, because I will say – because the four hour workweek, in his definition, has been construed in the incorrect way. And there’s definitely people that go after that working four hour workweek. You know, Tim Farris is really about how can I spend four hours just crushing it in one area so I can spend the other however many hundred hours doing things that I actually want to do, not have to do.

But what I love, Nick, is your word hustle within your brand name. Like if there was one thing I could go back and change – and I wouldn’t change, necessarily, the name Entrepreneur on Fire, but if I had to exchange something in, I would definitely want to see where I could work in hustle in there because it’s so key. It’s such a right word.

And I love how fizzle has their shirt heart and hustle. I mean, it’s so true. That’s what I take as an entrepreneur, heart and hustle. And that’s why I love where you’re talking about being a sidepreneur, but guess what? You’re not taking out the fact that it’s still gonna take hard work and hustle to make it happen. So speak to hustle just real quick. Why do you love that word, too?

Nick Loper: It’s about controlling the controllables. Right? Like despite all of the outside distractions and influences, like the one thing you can control day in and day out is the effort you put out in your hustle. And so, I had some shirts made that say, “Every day I’m hustling, so it’s kinda my [inaudible] [00:06:27].

Interviewer: LMFAO, baby. Love it. So Nick, you have a lot of great habits. We’ve gone through them. But what’s a habit you wish you had?

Nick Loper: So the sexy one to pick lately is meditation. And I tried a few of the apps that are out there. And I don’t know. I can’t help but feel – I can’t get over this feeling, like there’s something more productive I should be doing with this time. And so, that’s a big struggle. And I actually shifted just this week to instead of doing it first thing in the morning, to doing it like as I’m lying in bed. And so that kind of really has helped just – it’s been three days.

So I can’t say if this is a big thing. But like to relax your mind or kind of like – in doing the breathing exercises and stuff, that’s actually helped me fall asleep pretty quick lately.

Interviewer: Oh, I love that. Now, I can’t lie to Fire Nation either. I’m a big believer in meditation and I am still in the active stages of trying to incorporate it into my daily life. Right now it’s more weekly for me. I’ve tried great apps like Head Space and Calm.com. That’s C-A-L-M dot com. And I’ve had some great success with it and some great failures, too. I just haven’t been able to be consistent with it, so Nick and I will keep you – we’ll keep you notified, Fire Nation, if we ever are able to make that happen.

And Nick, you have a lot of cool things going on, brother. But what’s the one thing you’re most fired up about right now?

Nick Loper: Well, I think you’ll like this answer because it’s podcasting. Putting together the Side Hustle Show is absolutely the highlight of my week. I couldn’t do it every day, but it’s absolutely the highlight of my week. We were just nominated Best Business Podcast at New Media Expo. Really excited for that, and I owe it all to you, my listeners and the incredible guests that have come on.

But one of the coolest things related to the show in the last few months is how I’ve been able to convert listeners into email subscribers by creating these episode specific opt-in offers. So it takes a little bit of extra effort up front, but the response has just been awesome.

Interviewer: Well, you are speaking my language. That is absolutely an awesome medium that you and I are both really focusing on, which is podcasting. There’s a lot of exciting things building up around it and a lot of people are proclaiming that 2015 is the golden age, the golden era, of podcasting. Time will tell. Who knows?

Nick Loper: Get in now. Get in now.

Interviewer: Who knows what’s gonna happen, but I know that you’re having a great time at it. I am, too. Congratulations for that nomination [inaudible] [00:09:01]. Are you gonna be there at the podcast awards?

Nick Loper: I’ll be there.

Interviewer: Good man. Well, you and Pat Flynn, I have two horses in the race, so I’ll be rooting for both of you from afar. So, best of luck to you in that.

And Nick, now we’re gonna be talking about you and your journey. And we’re gonna talk about the good stuff later, but we’re gonna talk about the bad stuff now. And that’s your worst entrepreneurial moment. So take us there and tell us that story.

Nick Loper: Oh, my gosh. There’s been – there’s been some rough ones, but that’s every entrepreneur, right?

Interviewer: Yeah.

Nick Loper: So let me take you back. So I have been building – like after college I got a real job. That’s what you’re supposed to do, but I’ve been building my Side Hustle nights and weekends for three years. And it was a footwear shopping – it was like a footwear comparison shopping site. And so, we’d earn money from Zappos and Amazon and whatever as people would come and find shows through the site.

Three years go by, I finally have gotten up the nerve to quit my job. I’m out to dinner with my boss, and actually, it took a couple beers deep before I really got up the nerve to be like, “Look, I’m gonna go try and do this thing full time.” But then on day one of self-employment, day one of retirement – and I have the naïve four hour work week visions and the lifestyle of margaritas on the beach in my mind – so on day one the server crashes.

And in itself that’s not a huge deal. Like okay, I’ll go the gym. The tech team will get this taken care of. But what happened was Google decided this is the day they were gonna crawl the site for like their quality metrics. And they say, well, this is a crappy site. It doesn’t even load. Like, we can’t have this.

Interviewer: Oh.

Nick Loper: And so, I get back and turn the thing back on. It’s working now, but it’s kind of like raised a red flag on their radar. And they say, “Well, on second examination – now, it’s working again but now we’re taking a closer look at it. This site is pretty crappy. The only purpose of it existing is to drive traffic to other websites.” And so that’s just – how are you to talk? That’s the sole purpose of Google for existing.

But they didn’t really like that explanation. So –

Interviewer: Shopping.

Nick Loper: – they shut down my ad account and that was accounting for 80 percent of the traffic and revenue at the time. And so, that was a very, very scary moment. I mean, the first stage is denial. And the second stage – but really, how could you this be happening? I just quit my job. Like what do I do? Because you had no problem with the site for the last three years but it was – that was a very, very scary moment.

It took three months of kind of making adjustments and tweaks to get back into their good graces, but I was all in. I couldn’t go back or it would have been embarrassing to try and go back. So I had to figure out a way to make it work.

Interviewer: Audie Murphy was a tanker in World War II. And from that we have what’s called Murphy’s Law that we use all the time in the military. And that’s what can go wrong will go wrong. And that really applies for entrepreneurs, Nick. It just seems like Google and your site and everything, the forces of nature were waiting for the exact worst moment to drop that bomb on you. And it happens.

And let’s be honest. It was tough for you. You had that denial phase and you went through the rest of those phases. And it took you three months to get back to where you were, and a lot of people would have given up and wouldn’t have persevered. So what do you want to make sure that Fire Nation takes away from that story, that failure, that moment?

Nick Loper: Well, a couple things. The first is probably like the timing is never gonna be perfect, so had I waited even just one more day to quit corporate, I might never have done it. Right? Because now all of a sudden I’m like terrified of all the bad things that could happen. But I’m so glad that I did get out when I did and fought through that.

And the second lesson – and this is kind of one of the things I preach at Side Hustle Nation – is diversification. Right? So if you’re relying on that one source – and it’s typically like, look, if you’re relying on one source of income, for most people your day job, that’s an inherently risky position to be in. But even as an entrepreneur, I was relying on one source of traffic for the lion’s share of my traffic and revenue. And so, I was in an equally risky position.

Interviewer: Looking back, that’s terrifying, actually, that if you had just waited one day more what could have happened. Because waiting one day more to quit would have meant that you would have said, “Wow, I am so lucky I didn’t quit because look what happened.”

You would not have been all in. Your back would not have been against the wall. You wouldn’t have spent three months with your nose to the grindstone every day getting the site back to where it needed to be. No. You would have just said, “You know what? I’m gonna double down now on work because this is the safe career. This is the secure career. And that site might have never seen the light of day again and we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now. So that kind of gives me shivers just thinking about –

Nick Loper: I know, those forks in the road, you know?

Interviewer: Oh, those forks, they’re dangerous. And Nick, I want to shift, though, to an aha moment, to a lightbulb, to an epiphany that you’ve had, that you know Fire Nation’s gonna resonate with specifically. So take us to that moment in time and tell us that story.

Nick Loper: So I think I was fortunate enough to have this pretty early on in my career. I was still in college and had accepted this – well, they called it an internship. Essentially, this company assigns you a zip code, assigns you a territory and says, “You’re in charge of painting as many houses as you can in this zip code over the course of the summer. Of course, you’re a college kid. Maybe you’ve painted at your parents’ house or whatever before, but like this is a pretty serious endeavor to get real live homeowners to trust you with their biggest asset.

And I remember driving around my territory, and this is near Seattle in like a cold, rainy March evening. And this is like pre-GPS, so I have like my Thomas guide map and I pull into this little subdivision. I’m like, “Oh, this looks like a good a place as any to start.” And I remember sitting in my truck, like trying to psych myself out, like going through my pitch in my head and probably 15 minutes in the car, like trying to build up the nerve to go knock on that first door. We didn’t have any advertising budget. This is all cold calling.

And just coming to this slow realization for my introverted self that nothing’s gonna happen until you go knock on that first door. Like, you have to be the captain of your own ship. You have to be the CEO of your own life and so I finally go up to the first door, and probably thankfully, nobody was home. I’m like, “Okay. That wasn’t so bad,” and go to the next one.

And what I would do, I would actually jog in between the houses, No. 1, for productivity. You could cover more ground. And No. 2, because I figured somebody running up to the door would seem more enthusiastic than somebody trudging up the driveway with a corkboard.

Interviewer: Or dangerous, one of the two. No.

Nick Loper: Yeah. I don’t know.

Interviewer: Boom. Boom. Boom.

Nick Loper: But the funny thing is at the end of the summer, the company kind of posted this essay on like their intranet. And they say, “Hey, College Works,” the name of the company, “College Works ruined your life.” And they wanted to explain if you made it this far into the summer, you’re not gonna be able to work for somebody else. You’ve had that taste. You’ve had that taste of working for profits, not wages. You’re not gonna be able to work a traditional job ever again and you kinda brush it off at the time, but it was very, very true.

Interviewer: There’s a lot of things that you said there that I love, but the one that I want to really zero in on is you have to be the captain of your own ship, Fire Nation. That’s why you’re listening to our voices right now. That’s why you’re listening to Entrepreneur on Fire and why you will be listening to Side Hustle Nation if you’re not already because that’s what you want. I know you want that because, again, you’re tuning in right now. And it’s all about mindset and mind reframing.

Nick was able to just take a deep breath and say, “You know what? I’m an introvert. I’m scared. This is scary, but it’s something that I have to do if I want to actually control my own destiny. And there’s a great reframing that one of my past guests, Nathan Lacka, Episode 300, does a great job, he begs for the no. Because he knows that it takes nine nos before he gets to one yes.

So if you can just reframe if you are in that position again, Nick, and just say, “I am gonna go up to that house, knock on that door and I’m gonna thank that person for saying no. Because I know it’s gonna take nine of those before I get a yes.” That’s a total reframe. That’s not failing with a no. But that’s succeeding. That’s really a huge takeaway for me.

And Nick, in just one sentence, what do you really want Fire Nation to walk away with here?

Nick Loper: Nothing happens until you make it happen.

Interviewer: So Nick, we’ve got some good stuff coming up, my friends, like some really good stuff in the lightning round. But before we get there, let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors.

Nick, welcome to the lightning round where you get to share incredible resources in mind-blowing answers. Sound like a plan?

Nick Loper: Yes, sir.

Interviewer: What was holding you back from becoming an entrepreneur?

Nick Loper: Nothing really, because it was something that I’d always been kind of working on, whether it was on the side or not. But there was still this fear of going at it full time, like is that even allowed?

Interviewer: What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

Nick Loper: It’s not a piano and that’s something my dad would say when we were working on like home improvement projects when I was kid. And what he meant by that was it doesn’t have to be 100 percent perfect, which isn’t to say he didn’t care about quality but just sometimes done is better than perfect. And rather than stressing over every last detail maybe we can just wrap this thing up. And so, perfectionism is something that I struggle with and so I try and keep this in mind and apply it to my work today.

Interviewer: I love the Reed Hoffman quotes. He’s the founder of Linked In. He said, “If you’re not embarrassed by the first shipping of your product you waited way too long.” So Fire Nation, Nick and I are giving you permission not to be perfect, but we’re giving you the challenge to get it out there, to ship your product, your service, your blog, your podcast, whatever that might be. Get it out there. And Nick, what’s a personal habit that you do have that you believe contributes to your success?

Nick Loper: How about cold showers?

Interviewer: Hmm. Let’s talk about this.

Nick Loper: So last year, Nick Reeves, I know a previous guest of yours, challenged me to start taking cold showers. And he was on my show, so I was like, “Okay, I don’t –

Interviewer: From start to finish, by the way? Is that the challenge?

Nick Loper: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Interviewer: Okay.

Nick Loper: So I said, “Okay.” I didn’t want to look bad in front of my listeners. So I said, “Okay.” I figure I’ll do this for a month just to prove that I could or whatever. But then the weird thing is some good things started happening. I started getting more freelancing requests, more coaching client inquiries and now I’m kind of afraid to break the streak. And it’s probably placebo, but it’s been over a year since I’ve had a hot shower. I don’t know. John, you ever try this? Like do they make you do this like in boot camp or something?

Interviewer: So I’m sure they make actual soldiers do this in boot camp but as an officer we kinda get the soft treatment.

Nick Loper: Oh, you get the cushy –

Interviewer: Yeah. But I actually have taken up not that challenge exactly, but my mentor, Sean Stevenson, my fitness mentor, challenged me to do contrast showers. So I do end with 20 seconds of ice cold water before I step out. So I end with cold but man.

Nick Loper: And it’s supposed to be good for you.

Interviewer: Yeah. And I enjoy it. And I feel like it really gets me up a little bit and it gets that blood flowing and I love it. But –

Nick Loper: Let’s do this. Let’s throw down the gauntlet and challenge Fire Nation to 30 days of cold showers.

Interviewer: You know, let’s do that. Okay. Fire Nation, let’s challenge you to 30 days of cold showers from start to finish, not the wussy kind like me, which is just 20 seconds at the end, start to finish cold shower. Shoot Nick and I an email. And Nick, what’s your email?

Nick Loper: Nick@SideHustleNation.com or leave a comment in the show notes for accountability.

Interviewer: Both. Yeah. We’ll do both. And let us know what you’re experiencing, like maybe at day ten, 20, 30 and then I really want those post-30 day, those people that are troopers. I bet there’s less than five people that complete this challenge. I’m just gonna say it, even though we had a million unique listens last month. I bet less than five people complete this challenge just because that’s pretty much the reality of life. And I hope you’re one of those five, Fire Nation, because I’ll be proud of you and Nick will be, too.

And we’re gonna share the success stories on an episode. Maybe we’ll bring Nick back if there’s enough awesome ones and we’ll talk about it. So if you want Nick back on the show you better complete that.

Nick Loper: I love it. I love it.

Interviewer: Nick, what’s an internet resource like Ever Note that you can share with our listeners?

Nick Loper: You bet. So John, as you know I’m kind of obsessed with this question and last year actually compiled all the internet resources mentioned on your show, plus a bunch of extras and put them into a book called Work Smarter. So today, my resources is gonna be this meta resource, and if your listeners would like to learn every internet resource mentioned in the history of Entrepreneur on Fire through all 900-something episodes, they can visit WorkSmarter.co and if you let me know approximately when this will air I’m gonna do everything I can to get that book updated and free for the first few days after we go live.

Interviewer: Cool. This is May 11th right now when they’re hearing these words.

Nick Loper: Perfect. Perfect. So that will be my gift to Fire Nation. WorkSmarter.co will redirect you to Amazon, so no opt-in required or anything.

Interviewer: It’s gonna be free today if it’s May 11 for you, Fire Nation. And for the next few days Nick’s gonna make sure of that. If not, shoot me an email, Nick@SideHustleNation.com and be like WTF, Nick, this is supposed to be free.

Nick Loper: Yeah, what’s going on?

Interviewer: And he’ll make it free. So Nick, if you could recommend one book for our listeners, what would it be and why?

Nick Loper: My first recommendation is to actually write your own book, like Fire Nation is filled with these incredible entrepreneurs. And so, I would love to see you take a break from consuming and start creating. Like tell your own story, share your own unique experience and expertise with the world. The barrier to publishing has never been lower. It’s free to put something up on Amazon. It’s the world’s largest store. It’s really, really cool. I think it’s gonna be one of the most challenging and rewarding projects that you can tackle.

Interviewer: I love it. And did you say you had a second one?

Nick Loper: The second one would be the Go Giver from Bob Berg that really kinda solidified a shift in mindset. It’s a cute story told in parable about giving value first and the world will repay you.

Interviewer: Well, Fire Nation, Nick’s all about the challenges, so he’s thrown down a 30-day cold shower challenge. He’s thrown down a challenge to write a book. I mean, Nick, you’re putting Fire Nation to work, Brother.

Nick Loper: Hey, it’s all about the hustle.

Interviewer: You live in the hustle. And Fire Nation, I know you love audio so I teamed up with Audible. And if you haven’t already you can get an amazing audiobook for free at EOFirebook.com. And Nick, this next question’s the last of the lightning round, but it’s a doozey. Imagine you woke up tomorrow morning in a brand new world, identical to earth but you knew no one. You still have all the experience and knowledge you currently have. Your food and shelter taken care of, but all you have is a laptop and $500.00. What would you do in the next seven days?

Nick Loper: Well, I think the food and shelter taken care of part of this question is one that a lot of people overlook. I mean, if just with that I’m already better off than a pretty decent percentage of the population. And that in itself affords a lot of freedom, so I’m already looking at – you remember Maslow, like I’m already looking at climbing up his little hierarchy of needs pyramid. And so the next tiers on that pyramid are relationships, esteem and achievement and ultimately kinda of creativity, working on something with purpose with people that you care about.

And so, here’s what I might do. First up, I’d put that shelter up on Air B and B. So boom, all of a sudden I’m making money and meeting new friends from all over the world. I like to call that the two birds with one stone strategy. And in the meantime, I’m rejoining, re-engaging all my existing social networks and groups online and locally because probably like yourself I can trace nearly every big win of mine, at least on the old earth, to relationships. And here I’m starting from scratch. So that’s got to be a top priority.

And next I’m asking what can I create that has value? And given that I already have all the skills and experience I already have, that’s not that hard of a question to answer. And so, if my cush setup with my food and shelter is like expiring and I need to ring the cash register right away, I’m gonna hustle up and sell some freelance service like writing or editing or marketing. And I’m gonna get clients the Brian Harris way by giving free samples of my work to my expanding first and second degree networks.

And if I’m not pressed for cash in the near term I would just love to re-create what I’m building at Side Hustle Nation because I believe in the mission. And of course, it sucks to start over from scratch and it will take some time, but I think it will go faster the second time around. So that kind of tackles the relationships, the esteem and achievement and the creativity part.

Interviewer: Well, I believe in your mission, Nick. So Fire Nation, believe in his mission and let’s end it today on fire with you sharing one parting piece of guidance, the best way we can connect with you. Then we’ll say good-bye.

Nick Loper: Adopt an experimenter’s mindset. What I mean by that is think of the scientist in the lab. She never really fails. Even when that test tube blows up in her face it still just either proves or disproves her hypothesis. And this is how I try and position each new project, each new business opportunity. I try and look at it as an experiment because a couple of things. It lessens the sting of failure when the inevitable failures come. But it also gives you the permission, gives you the chance to take a risk and test something out.

Best place to connect with me, grab all the EOFire internet resources plus many more at WorkSmarter.co for free for the next few days. Check out the Side Hustle show podcast for new part time business ideas each week and stop on by SideHustleNation.com for all the latest in building job free income streams.

Interviewer: Fire Nation, you’re the average of the five people that you spend the most time with. And you’ve been hanging out with Nick and JLD today so keep up the heat or the ice cold shower, whatever you want. And over to EOFire.com. Just type Nick in the search bar. His show notes page will pop right up with all the links, everything we’ve talked about. Go straight to WorkSmarter.co, SideHustleShowPodcast.com and SideHustleNation.com. I got both those right, Nick?

Nick Loper: SideHustleNation.com and then that will get you to the show – or the podcast.

Interviewer: Beautiful. So Nick, I just want to thank you, my friends, for sharing your journey with Fire Nation today. And for that, we salute you and we’ll catch you on the flip side.