Side hustles = Alternative income streams
You don’t have to have only one full-time job — in fact, the opposite might be more rewarding
Dr. Tanner Welsch is a Physical Therapist, content creator, and founder of the Rehab Rebels podcast series. Through Rehab Rebels, Tanner’s goal is to highlight alternative career and lifestyle choices for rehabilitation professionals, inspiring others to find the work-life balance through entrepreneurship that best resonates with their passions, skills, and goals. Below, he outlines his journey creating a entrepreneurial “portfolio career” across healthcare, media, and technology — and some lessons he’s learned along the way.
So you’ve been learning about side hustles, and are wondering if they’d be a good fit for you. This is a great spot to be in — learning about side hustles (and how they fit with your goals) is the first step you should take before diving straight in.
Let me explain.
First thing, when deciding what side hustle to turn into a business, the ideal place to be is at the intersection of problems you love solving, people you like working with/environment you like working in, and building up a skill set to solve the problems you love solving.
Ideally this is where you want to be when venturing off into a side hustle or alternative income stream (versus chasing something wholly uninteresting — because building a side hustle takes time and effort, and if it doesn’t interest you in some way, the “slow burn” can be frustrating).
Ideally, as you’re doing this, you’ve found a few people to bounce ideas off of and support you — entrepreneurship is not easy, but can be really rewarding both in terms of financial outcomes and meeting new like-minded friends along the way who you can relate to when times are both good and bad.
I really like the idea of “sparring partners” laid out in this other Next Degree blog — finding people who are on a similar journey as your own that you can grow with together.
Second, let’s talk about a “taboo” topic in healthcare — money. There’s a lot of hype behind passive income, and going straight into a full-time side hustle.
HOWEVER…
Be very cautious of anybody trying to sell you on going straight into a full-time side hustle or a quick “all problems solved” passive income opportunity. Any business is going to take hard work and real time to cultivate. Think about how long it took you to get your degree, years of hard work and dedication. That’s what it’s gonna take and more to turn your side hustle into a business. A quite literal example is the massive amount of time we spend with patients who have seen an ad for a “miracle cure” (“Lose 10 pounds in a week!”) — and the frustration we deal with as clinicians in cutting through the misinformation for our patients.
The hype of passive income is to set it and forget it. Once it’s set up, it’ll generate income for you and that’s it. This isn’t really accurate or realistic. If you’re interested in learning more about alternative income options, check out this podcast (available April 25th) I recorded with Stephen Stockhausen DPT. He brings up several income options and points out passive income isn’t all passive. Even after you have built out passive income streams that start generating income for you, they will still need some level of management to maintain, whether that’s by you or someone you employ to maintain them. He mentions exploring your interest, being creative, and leveraging what you already have. I found all of this really valuable during my own journey.
With that being said, “side hustles” are still a fun thing to explore. In my case, I chose the podcast route, and I’m happy to share more about what I’ve learned with all of you.
Let’s dive in.
Question 1 — Why are clinicians well suited to start podcasts?
Question 2 — Why is starting a podcast a good idea for sharing your clinical knowledge?
Question 3 — How do I blend my passions with my clinical training for my podcast, Rehab Rebels?
Question 4 — What are 3 things I wish I knew before I started my podcast?
Question 5 — What are some resources I’ve found along the way that you should know about?
Question 1 — Why are clinicians well suited to start podcasts?
Clinicians are well suited to start a podcast for two main reasons.
First we are natural educators, and presenters. We share knowledge by educating our patients. This skill set is useful for solo podcast episodes or content creation by providing value to your audience through educational content.
Second, we are great at asking questions to get to the core issue of our patient pain points. This inquisitive mindset is great for interview style episodes. Asking the right questions of our interviewee, digging deeper into their expertise, and the topic being discussed.
Question 2 — Why is starting a podcast a good idea for sharing your clinical knowledge?
A podcast is a great platform for sharing knowledge and networking with others in your niche. But before jumping off to creating and starting a podcast, It’s important to know how your audience consumes content.
For example, do they prefer reading long text in a blog format, or listening over audio, or watching videos? This will help you determine if a blog, podcast, or YouTube channel will be most effective for your audience.
In my case, I chose the podcast route because I found out that the majority of my audience and network do not read long blog posts. They prefer to consume information over audio or video. Some would search on youtube but not even watch the video, only listen to the video audio. This pointed me in the direction of podcasting.
Question 3 — How do I blend my passions with my clinical training for my podcast, Rehab Rebels?
I’m very passionate about alternative careers, alternative income, and alternative lifestyles. Things outside the norms of traditional careers, income, and lifestyles are exciting to me. Breaking away from both traditional norms and keeping the status quo is what I’m all about. Rebel Rebels has allowed me to connect with and showcase amazing people who are living alternative careers and lifestyles. Sharing their experience and expertise with listeners who are wanting to do something similar.
Not only have I gotten to share my passions with my audience, but I’ve also learned a ton from some of our guests, such as:
- Prolonged stress causing hormonal imbalances
- Independent contractor opportunities for physical therapists from network development specialist Melissa Erlandson PT in episode 035, and
- Career counsellors. “Career counsellors are more than just a cheerleader. It’s someone who is going to work through your issues and help you understand why you feel certain ways and how you can overcome them in the next step” from Meredith Castin DPT in episode 027.
I’m not quite sure if I would’ve been exposed to this knowledge without starting a podcast — it’s been an amazing two way street of sharing what I’m passionate about, as well as feeding my passions with new information and connections.
Question 4 — What are 3 things I wish I knew before I started my podcast?
First, a podcast itself is not a get rich quick or generic passive income stream. You have to get a lot of listeners each month, often 1000 or more, to even qualify for advertisements on your episodes. This doesn’t sound like a lot especially compared to other platforms like YouTube but building up this listenership takes time and a lot of effort.
Second, a podcast is a great platform to work with others in your niche. Because it allows an opportunity for both you as a podcast host and a podcast guest to come on and share their knowledge about a topic together. So some people you likely would not otherwise have an opportunity to interact with or talk to, are more likely to connect and talk with you if they will be on your podcast. It’s a platform to share knowledge and value from people’s experiences and field of expertise.
Third, a podcast is a great way to build out a business that you already have. It allows you to showcase your knowledge and expertise within a niche. Just starting a podcast without a service already established or a service in mind is much more difficult to generate income.
Question 5 — What are some resources I’ve found along the way that you should know about?
Links to free podcast startup resources:
- Spotify https://podcasters.spotify.com/
- Podbean https://www.podbean.com/
Because these links are free there are limitations to what they offer.
For a list of resources I personally use that will both save you time with podcast management and access to larger audiences click here.
So that entrepreneurial idea that might be a podcast? Go for it. You got this.
Interested in meeting other clinicians (and scientists!) who share your same interests, as well as learning more about startups in the healthcare space? Check out the “Careers in clinic (and beyond)” group as well as Next Degree — the next-gen healthcare job search designed to help you build a career you love, whether that’s in clinic — or beyond.
