Up Close! How a 50-year-old husband's 'attempted' side hustle involved his family and led to his awakening.

I think I might open a cafe on a remote island. I can't brew coffee, so I'll just use instant.

One day, the topic of what kind of side hustle would be good came up, and that's what my husband said. As I listened to him spout nonsense in his usual fashion, I thought, 'Ah, he probably has no intention of ever working anywhere other than his current company...' while feeling exasperated.

I never imagined at the time that just a few months later, I would see him seriously trying to start a side hustle.

I am a 36-year-old working at what is generally considered a 'major' company. I met my husband at work, and we got married five years ago. Last year, we were blessed with our first child, a daughter, and I am currently on maternity leave.

From the outside, it might look like I'm living a smooth, successful life, but I have never worked anywhere other than the same company for the 14 years since I entered the workforce.

I kept telling myself, 'I worked hard to get in, and I'm satisfied with my current company,' but not knowing any other world without comparing it to anything else is a little scary. However, taking risks and jumping into an unknown world is even scarier.

My husband is the same; he is reasonably satisfied with working at his current company and has never experienced a job change. The only difference between us is his age of 50 and the fact that he started working right after graduating from high school, marking his 32nd year at the company this year.

Over the past few years, we have increasingly talked about 'wanting to try a side hustle' in a joking manner.

We got married during the COVID-19 pandemic. I don't know if we became a couple prone to feeling anxious about 'needing to use our time effectively and do something,' if we are just both naturally curious, or if it's because the company started allowing side hustles... I don't know the clear reason.

However, we both agreed on the desire to 'see the world outside.'

Even so, we only ever spoke of dream stories and never actually took action. While thinking that perhaps a day would come when we would jump out of the world we are in, that 'someday' never arrived. The days of commuting to the familiar company where we have our place continued.

Then, six months ago, my husband suddenly said it.

'I'm thinking of starting a side hustle.'.

Suddenly, one day, a 50-year-old man who intends to seriously start a side hustle is right in front of me.

This might turn out to be a more interesting documentary than any episode of Passionate Continent.

From here, my six-month coverage as a 36-year-old wife and junior colleague began. I will deliver here the entirety of the record of witnessing the moment a person's life moves, which even started to move my own life.

I want people like this to read this!

・Employees in their 50s or older who want to take a new step right now
・Employees in their 30s-40s who have vague anxieties about the future
・Those who feel uneasy staying in the same environment for a long time but are afraid to suddenly change it completely
・Those whose companies allow side hustles & those whose do not

A busy husband who has only ever worked for one company and whose schedule is packed with meetings from morning till night. I will write about the steps he took after deciding he "intended" to start a side hustle, the good things that came of it, the skills he acquired, and the changes that occurred.

What I want to convey in this article is not "how to succeed at a side hustle."It is "what kind of good things happen just by acting with the intention of starting a side hustle." .

For those of you who have a vague anxiety while working every day about whether things are okay as they are, but don't know how to take that first step... I would really like you to read this.

An observation record of a husband who decided he "intended" to start a side hustle

You can rethink your career by observing those close to you!

To begin with, why did my husband become serious about starting a side hustle?

Although he has worked at the same company for 32 years, he has experienced transfers to various departments. The content of his work has been so diverse—ranging from maintaining equipment sold by the company to system development and operation, and planning and proposing new businesses—that it feels like he hasn't been at the same company at all.

Even though he experienced changes on the level of changing jobs, he had never actually changed jobs, and it seemed he had held a desire for many years to challenge himself to see how much he could handle in the outside world.

Even so, my husband only jokingly said, "Someday I want to open a cafe on a remote island." His mode changed when he turned 50 last year.

While 50 is a nice round number, there was another major topic in our household last year: "the birth of our daughter," which served as a major catalyst.

As we raise our daughter, the thing that crosses my mind is money. We bought a condo the year before last. Although we are both employees at reasonably stable companies, when you consider things like loan repayments, we can't exactly say we are financially well-off. In the midst of this, my husband suddenly started making a table in Excel.

According to this table, in 2039, when our daughter is in her third year of junior high school, my husband will reach retirement age. Considering his age of 50, it's only natural, but I felt like I had suddenly been confronted with reality.

Facing this reality, my husband resolved to take action. He decided to seriously start a side hustle so that he could test his skills in the outside world during his remaining time as an employee, and eventually increase his income for his daughter's sake.

I am also at an age where I am anxious about my future career as my life stage changes. Since I was originally interested in side hustles, I decided to learn by observing the life mentor closest to me.

The first step to a side hustle is applying!

Now, once he said he would do a side hustle, what on earth did he want to do, and what could he do? I had never heard any decent ideas other than "a cafe on a remote island," so I couldn't imagine it either.

That is where my husband used a side hustle support service. It is a service where a trainer who is a professional in side hustles accompanies you, supporting you from taking stock of your career to starting the side hustle based on regular conversations.

By paying money, he made a firm resolution, and by receiving homework from the trainer regularly, he completes tasks without slacking off. In that respect, it is a useful service, but it is ultimately something that accompanies you and creates a rhythm; if you don't move yourself, you won't receive any advice.

The first thing my husband tackled was organizing his objectives and setting goals. Everyone has different reasons for wanting a side hustle, such as "I just want to earn money" or "I want to turn my hobby into a job."

In my husband's case, his top priority was to challenge himself and see how much his experience and skills would hold up in the outside world. Beyond that, he had his sights set on "earning money for the future with our daughter."

So, what kind of experience and skills did my husband have, and what were his strengths? When he wrote down and organized his work history, his job duties included equipment maintenance, system development and operation, and planning and proposing new business ventures. His titles included project manager, organizational leader, and department manager.

Among those, the areas that emerged as his strengths were management and new business planning/development.

With that in mind, he registered on several side hustle matching sites and decided to apply for positions supporting small and medium-sized enterprise managers with management, new business ventures, or development.

When I thought of side hustles, I had an image that it would be tough unless you had a clear title like "writer" or "programmer," but it turns out there is another way: clarify your strengths, apply for open positions, and let that define what your side hustle will be.

Borrowing outside help to promote yourself attractively!

What you need to apply for jobs is a portfolio. In this context, a portfolio is "a collection of documents summarizing your achievements for self-promotion, etc." (Wikipedia). For my husband, this was his first time creating a portfolio. He prepared the following three things.

① Text listing his past achievements
② Design format
③ Profile photo

For ①, since my husband wanted to highlight his achievements in "management" and "new business planning/development," he extracted the projects he handled as a project manager and the things he created as a new business planning/development lead. He summarized them into simple text and moved on to the task of putting them into the design format for ②.

The tool he used here was Canva. If you search for "portfolio" on the site, plenty of suitable templates will come up.

You can create a respectable portfolio just by applying the content you wrote in ① to your preferred format, but in this case, a photo is important to convey his personality to someone he has never met (the SME manager).

That's where ③, the profile photo, comes in. If you search for "business profile photo," you will find specialized studios, so it's a good idea to find one that suits you by considering price, location, time required, and the number of photos provided.

My husband booked an appointment the day before, saying, "I'm going tomorrow," and went to get it taken on his way home from work on a weekday, wearing a shirt and jacket he already owned, without any other special preparation.

I was worried, thinking, "Is that really okay?" but when I saw the finished photos, they looked surprisingly professional. Even though he's my husband, he had a certain "capable" vibe.

I had imagined a fake, unnatural, overly-posed consultant look, but it was nothing like that at all; they captured a natural smile and gave him a friendly impression. I had never seen my husband like that before, and I was impressed by how much a single photo can change one's impression.

Once the materials are ready, just apply! Try leveraging your hobbies too!

My husband successfully completed his portfolio. The days of applying for job postings on side hustle matching sites finally began.

He compiled the available job postings into an Excel sheet, managed the status of whether he had applied or not, and started applying to them one after another.

In my husband's case,he searched for projects involving new business support, marketing support, website creation/operation, and SNS management, and applied to a total of 35 companies. Results come as early as the next day or within a week at the latest, so even if he was rejected, he could switch gears and start preparing for the next one.

What he prepared when applying wasan excerpt version of his portfolio and a complete version as reference material. He says the key isnot to change the content to suit the other party. It seems efficient to just apply to as many as possible.

While waiting for the results, my husband simultaneously started taking stock of his life experiences.

Based on the career he built at his company, my husband applied for projects with his strengths in management and new business planning/development, but are there things other than the experience gained at the company that can be used for a side hustle? To find that out, he decided todig deeper into his experiences outside of work.

What has he spent money and time on so far? What has he worked hard at, been absorbed in, and what has he been praised for?

As a result of his self-reflection, what he arrived at wasbasketball, which he has continued as a hobby for many years.

He started basketball in his student days, but he experienced being a manager for his company's team, and even at 50, he belongs to a team where members from the same area gather, practices once a week, and participates in city tournaments.

As the oldest member, he is also the team's HR representative and regularly recruits new members. He thought thatif he put effort into promotional activities as a public relations officer, he could acquire new skills that would lead to a side hustle as an individual while also contributing to the team's development.

From there, despite having no experience, he created the team's official website and launched and operated Instagram, note, and Facebook accounts. Now, he edits videos of practice sessions using Canva and uploads them, and summarizes and uploads results and reflections after tournaments.

Even if the experience is shallow, being able to add a line saying 'has experience in SNS operation' when applying for a side hustle is significant, and there will likely be opportunities to actually utilize those skills.

In my husband's case, it was basketball, but the theme can be anything. Watching him, I learned thatby centering on one of your hobbies, you can achieve both self-improvement and contribution to those around you.

If you don't have a qualification to differentiate yourself, just study from scratch!

To land side hustle projects, you need to differentiate yourself from the many others applying for the same roles. This is where qualifications come in handy.

Since my husband didn't have any qualifications that would lead to a side hustle, he decided to take this opportunity to try for a bookkeeping certification.

Why bookkeeping? It started with a YouTube channel run by an IT CEO and investor. My husband says he decided to take the exam after learning there that bookkeeping is not only useful for asset building but also for side hustles and starting a business.

Is he just getting temporarily excited after hearing something convincing on YouTube? Won't he just fail to get off the couch anyway? Just as I was thinking that, the study materials arrived a few days after he declared he would do it.

A new habit began for my husband: studying for about an hour every day after work, around 10:00 PM, before going to bed.

I'm not sure if bookkeeping is enough to land side hustle projects, but it proved that even on busy weekdays, you can make time if you really want to. That was the biggest lesson I learned from him.

No matter how small the trigger, if you decide you are serious about doing something, you can take action. He is still halfway to passing, but I am greatly inspired by my husband, who has achieved the great feat of "changing his daily habits."

Rely on AI as a team member!

To land side hustle projects, my husband has enlisted the help of a side hustle support service and, on top of that, AI.

He wouldn't listen to me, and he would grin at his screen while obsessively operating his smartphone, so at first, I thought he might be texting someone he was having an affair with, but... the person on the other end was Navi-san from ChatGPT (as named by my husband).

I have never spoken to Navi-san directly, but just hearing about him from my husband is enough to convey how capable he (I'll call him 'he,' though apparently he has no gender) is.

He gives concrete advice on everything my husband needs to start a side hustle, such as how to build a portfolio and how to study for bookkeeping, and he even gives advice on how to communicate with me.

Even while talking to my husband, I often become suspicious, wondering, "Is this also under Navi-san's direction...?" With his proactive attitude of always asking, "Shall I suggest this next?" and his high communication skills, he is a formidable presence.

By relying on both real people through side hustle support services and Navi-san, my husband is creating a well-balanced, ultimate team. Watching him, I felt encouraged, thinking, I don't have to do everything by myself....

That said, Navi-san makes mistakes often, so you need a "nurturing" attitude. You have to patiently provide the necessary input while communicating. It's like the process of raising a subordinate, and it seems to be helping him strengthen his management skills as well.

The "power to present yourself attractively" and the "power to manage" are universal!

My husband took various actions with the intention of starting a side hustle. His transformation was incredible, but from my perspective, he seemed to have gained two major powers in particular.

One is the power of appeal. For the first time, he summarized his self-analysis into a concise portfolio and made efforts to present himself attractively, not just internally but externally as well.

No matter how good something is, if you cannot convey it in a way that others can understand, that appeal will remain buried.This was something I took for granted during job hunting, but watching his activities made me realize that I had forgotten it after being a working adult for a while.

At the same time, I learned that there is actually no such thing as a person who has nothing to appeal; if you are just conscious of it, anyone can convey their current strengths to others.

The other is management skills. By treating side hustle support service representatives and AI as project members, my husband was constantly managing others toward the goal of "acquiring side hustle projects."

In addition to that, what my husband was steadily improving was "self-management skills" to manage himself.

Prioritizing tasks to acquire side hustle projects, time management, organizing emotions to maintain motivation, and health management to balance his main job with his side hustle in optimal condition.

Without being told by anyone, to achieve the goals he set for himself, he had no choice but to manage himself in this way.

It may look difficult at first glance, but my husband taught me that as long as you have an unwavering goal, you can gradually become able to do it by moving forward with various actions for the time being.

Sometimes he couldn't manage his time well and slacked off, or the results didn't follow despite the time he spent. Of course, I have seen that side of him too. Even so, my husband, who manages his main job, side hustle activities, and private life in a balanced way, looks more confident than before.

The power to present yourself attractively and the power to manage others and yourself. These are indispensable not only for side hustles but for living in the future, and with just these two, the possibilities for both work and private life should expand greatly.

Besides this, the number of detailed skills my husband has acquired is countless. Canva, SNS operation such as Instagram and Facebook, website setup, bookkeeping, AI... all of these are things he started from scratch in the last few months.

As he gets older, he tends to avoid things by saying "I don't really understand" or "I'm not good at it," but seeing him face them with curiosity and excitement makes him look radiant, even if he is my own husband.

Revisiting your main job through a side hustle!

Having dabbled in so many things, does it affect his main job? While I think it might be none of my business, it is a fact that I have that concern while watching him from the sidelines.

However, when I asked him, he said that this series of activities also had a positive impact on his main job.

What was a major realization for him was "the importance of imagining the person you want to be and strategically polishing yourself by working backward from there".

He says that when you are a company employee, you tend to desperately finish the tasks in front of you as told by the company, and even if you can talk about what you have experienced, you end up unable to talk about how that experience connects to the person you want to be.

It is true that I have also been allowed to have various experiences in a rapidly changing environment, such as changing departments, changing bosses, changing clients, and changing job content.

I know my strengths to some extent that I found during that time. But if asked about the connection to the person I aim to be, I cannot answer immediately.

If you have even the slightest image of who you want to be, you can work backward from there to gain the necessary experience and polish your strengths.You can shift from being someone used by a company to someone who uses the company for the sake of the person you want to become.

It was surprising that he, having climbed all the way to a department manager position, realized this at this stage, and it is something we, his juniors, should be mindful of for our own long careers ahead.

He also says that this experience really drove home the point that, along with the image of who you want to be,you must also calmly grasp the "needs required by society."

No matter how much skill or experience you have, if you apply for side jobs without matching the needs of those doing the hiring, you will never land a job.

The management and new business development skills my husband considered his strengths were not exactly what people were looking for as-is. He learned this time that it is a tough world where you have to change how you frame things or demonstrate specifically what you can do.

It is important to push forward toward your ideal self with passion, but that alone will not lead to income. Only with both passion and a cool head can you find work that is satisfying in terms of both fulfillment and money.

One might wonder if it is too late for a veteran employee to be doing this, but by sharing what he learned here with his subordinates, he is cementing it in his own mind while also contributing to their development.

He used to advise struggling subordinates by saying, "Why don't you just do what you want to do?" but after taking action himself, he says his advice has gained more depth.

Revisiting private life through a side hustle!

The changes were not limited to his work. Even from my perspective as his wife, closest to him, my husband has hadvarious updates in his private life as well.

Regarding his basketball team, he says inquiries from people wanting to join have increased due to various public relations activities aimed at his side hustle. Until then, he had only been posting on existing external sites, but increasing the entry points through social media and an original webpage has proven effective.

He is achieving results as the team's HR and PR representative while upgrading his own personal skills. It is rare to find such a win-win situation.

Previously, he seemed to spend his spare time playing smartphone games, but lately, when I glance over, he is doing all sorts of things.

When I asked him, he said he decided to use his time while commuting for English apps and reading, and at home, he focuses on interview preparation for side hustle support services and studying for certifications, as well as PR-related activities for the basketball team.

That said, while the children are awake at home, he often struggles with unfamiliar childcare tasks, yet plays with them with all his might and even handles putting them to bed.

Since he does his work after the children are asleep, he is by no means neglecting childcare, which I am grateful for.

When you hit a wall at work, take time for skill development. When you are tired of skill development, spend time with the children. Once you have played enough with the children, go back to work.

By switching gears like that, he has created a rhythm, and his daily sense of fulfillment seems to have changed significantly.

Even if you don't start, just the "intention" keeps your days moving!

I have written at length about my husband's challenges so far, but he has not yet reached the point of securing a side hustle project.

However, it seems he was able to achieve his primary goal of challenging himself to see how much his experience and skills would hold up in the outside world, and as a result, he reached the conclusion that "as things stand, they won't hold up."

Some might say, "You did all that just to reach that conclusion?" But my husband has already decided what he needs to do and is moving forward positively.

He is exploring where the needs of the world align with his skills, leveraging his management experience along with his knowledge of social media and AI. Based on that, he plans not only to apply for job postings but also to sell his own services on skill-selling websites. That seems to be the plan he has made.

Of course, he is not neglecting his main job and is fulfilling his daily duties as a department manager.

Mixing the experience he has accumulated over many years with the new things he has learned, my husband spends his days with a level of energy that makes it hard to believe he is 50. As his wife, I realize once again that he is a source of hope for me, at 36.

The changes that happened to me, his wife and junior colleague

Turning jealousy toward my husband into a chance for change!

Over these past six months, I have been the one closest to my husband as he took various actions toward his goal of starting a side hustle. I was impressed by how hard he worked, and I respected him for being amazing. But the biggest thing was the jealousy of feeling envious of him.

In my days spent constantly with my newborn child, my mind was only on the baby, and if I had even a little bit of time, I just wanted to sleep. I didn't have the luxury to think about doing something for my own future.

That's what I thought, but the feeling of envy toward him brought about a gradual change in me.

During my maternity leave, when I can finally take a break from work, I want to face my own strengths and think about what I could do if I were to start a side hustle.

While holding onto that thought, what came out after taking stock of myself was "writing" and "planning".

My goal, like my husband's, was not to earn money, but to test my own abilities outside of the company. After struggling with where to start, I followed the example of my husband, who taught me that those who take action are the winners. I made time between childcare duties to regularly update my note and apply for sales promotion planning competitions.

Both are just hobbies, but I encouraged myself by remembering my husband's basketball example, thinking that if I polish them seriously, they might lead to something...

Thanks to that, updating my note has become a habit, and several of my articles have been selected as featured articles of the day. I was especially happy when an article I wrote about my family was selected, and I realized that my creative activities are only possible because of my family.

I don't know the results of the competition yet, but for the first time in a while, I feel a sense of having given it my all.

I don't see how it will lead to a side hustle yet, but I want to raise my writing and planning skills to a level where I can call them strengths, and find a way to earn money outside of the company. I've become able to say that with pride, and I realized that it's wrong to use children as an excuse to give up on what you want to do.

Of course, balancing it with childcare is not easy. It is almost impossible to find the 'uninterrupted time to focus solely on myself' that I used to be able to create when I put my mind to it. I have no choice but to steal moments when I don't know when my child might wake up, and make progress little by little in fragmented bits of time.

Even so, my husband himself taught me that if you have an unwavering desire, you can create time, sometimes by relying on those around you.

Above all, the magnitude of the influence I received from my husband is represented by this note I am writing now. If it were the me from a little while ago, I would have thought of my husband's attempt to start a side hustle as someone else's business, and I certainly wouldn't have thought to observe it and summarize it in a note.

This one note, written while balancing childcare, will surely lead to great confidence for me in the future.

Don't think of someone being serious about something as someone else's business. Observe it earnestly and make it your own.At that moment, it becomes a chance for you to change.

Changes that happened in our home

Even our living environment changed with an unexpected debut as neighborhood association president!?

Because my husband decided to start a side hustle, not only he but I myself have undergone changes, and our home is filled with fresh topics every day. As a particularly unexpected event, my husband became the neighborhood association president of our apartment complex.

In the apartment complex where we live, there is a 'management association' and a 'neighborhood association,' and officers are elected from among the residents every two years to carry out various activities.

Because it is an old apartment complex, most residents have already experienced one or the other. Since we moved in two years ago, we had experienced neither, and this spring, we finally received a request to become neighborhood association officers.

Among the neighborhood association officers, there are various roles such as treasurer, secretary, and greenery manager, but my husband was approached early on with, 'We'd love for you to be president!'

Being president for your debut as a neighborhood association officer is too heavy a burden. While I was worrying on my own about what excuse to use to help him avoid it, he actually accepted it with a look that suggested he wasn't entirely against it.

When I asked him why he accepted, it was largely influenced by the fact that he had started activities aimed at a side hustle. He says it is because he feels the value gained from stepping outside the company and being active more than ever before.

It is precisely because he has a stable environment as a department manager at a large company that he can challenge himself in the outside world to his heart's content. It seems he felt that gratitude anew, triggered by the series of activities aimed at his side hustle.

Several months have passed since he became president, and I am surprised every day at how his strength, his management skills, are being fully utilized. While communicating closely with the other officers and leaving the practical work to each person in charge, he is successfully controlling the whole group toward solving issues.

I learned once again that one's inherent skills are utilized not only in work but also in private life. This is likely a realization that came precisely because he organized his strengths for his side hustle.

Solving trash sorting issues, taking care of the apartment's plants, planning seasonal events...My husband's challenge as the neighborhood association president has significantly changed even our living environment.

10 lessons learned from my husband who decided to start a side hustle

It has been five years since I married my husband, and now that we are each moving in our own directions, our home is more vibrant than ever. Of course, welcoming a new member, our daughter, is a big part of it, but the main reason is likely the courage to step outside of our primary jobs and take action.

Once again, I would like to review the 10 lessons I learned from my husband who decided to start a side hustle.

You don't have to start a side hustle. It's enough to just intend to start one. For starters, it's fine to just observe people who are working hard in that way.

The hurdle for taking a step forward to achieve a satisfying way of working and to balance it with your private life is surprisingly low.

Rather than changing everything at once, try stepping out just a little bit. I would be so happy if this could be the trigger for you to start moving.

There might already be someone right next to you who has started moving. Why not start by observing them?

A side hustle isn't just a way of working; it's a way of rebuilding your life.
Even if you don't start, just the intention to begin can set your life in motion.

That is the greatest lesson I learned from watching this six-month 'real-life Passion Continent' documentary.

Our family's new beginning has only just started.