The $20,170 Kiwi DIY Project (w/ Gary V)
How much time do you spend doing crap? Like just roughly? It’s a vague question but when I sat down to figure out how much time I was spending productively versus how much time I was wasting, it turned out to be 10+ hours… a week. And this was pure crap time.
To those of you who are judging, look, here’s the thing. New Zealand is a beautiful country and as a nation we tend to be pretty laid back… which is great! Except if you’re like me and want to hustle 24/7 and I know there are a TON of you like that.
For those of you who haven’t been here before, this is the view from virtually any spot you stand in New Zealand.
Okay a bit of an exaggeration but you get the idea. It’s pretty, it’s nice and at the moment it’s Summer so it’s gorgeous.
So to satiate my drive for 24/7 hustle, I started searching high and low and stumbled on Gary Vee’s recently issued challenge. It’s all about setting up a solid foundation (in financial terms I think this is called savings) and seeing if you can earn $20,170 on the side in 2017.
My biggest mistake when going into business was starting off too soon and being too ego driven to admit that maybe I need some side income while launching into my first business at the sprite age of 21. This led to a much rockier and riskier first few years than needed be (don’t worry, I wrote a whole blog post on this).
The problem with Gary Vee? The challenge itself is awesome, but I know about 50% of you are going to love Gary, the other 50% are going to think he’s an idiot. He’s quite polarising (personally I love him) so what I wanted to do was to write the challenge out from one Kiwi to another fellow Kiwi (that’s you!).
And if you’re not a fellow Kiwi, I personally grant you temporary Kiwi-ship (it’s like citizenship but completely made up). You may now read on.
Also quickly, this challenge is for absolutely anyone. Whether you’re a stay-at-home dad, a student, in kindergarten, a startup co-founder, a big business owner, ANYONE. Oh and if you have any sort of credit card or loan this is DEFINITELY for you (sorry, that’s my finance background coming up, he gets grumpy when it comes to borrowing money).
The $20,170 DIY Project
Bet I piqued your interest with the DIY. I love New Zealand. Let’s go.
So the challenge is to make $20,170 PROFIT from a side hustle in 12 months time. He suggests doing things like finding arbitrage opportunities at garage sales but I wanted to expand it a little bit more.
The Kiwi $20,170 DIY Project is all about making $20,170 this year on the side. Whether you pick up an extra part-time job, flip cheap items at garage sales, mow lawns before school, or sell everything in your house that you haven’t used in the last month, it doesn’t matter.
The goal is to show you that if you put some of those absolute crap hours I mentioned before, into something a little more productive, you can make some insane side hustle income.
Other ideas include making things if you’re creative, hosting cool events (my parter does paint nights), working at a bar at night, or again, I’m saying it because it’s super easy, sell everything in your house that you haven’t used in the last month.
Frequently Suggested Excuses
Oh here we go. Before you even THINK of any excuses, please go ahead and read Arnold Schwarzenegger’s autobiography. If you honestly can tell me that your life is more difficult than his and you still don’t have time, then I’ll let you off.
BUT.
If you can honestly look me in the eyes and say, ‘Steven, mate, I can’t do this,’ then… psh, you’re lying.
BUT.
If you can honestly look me in the eyes and say that AND you’re not lying, then I wish you all the best! Sorry to waste your time… oh wait you’re still reading this… psh, you’re lying. YOU DO HAVE TIME!
Common excuses:
It’s not the first of Jan — If you’re reading this in Feb, March, June, November, who cares?! Start today! Don’t wait until the new year PLEASE otherwise you’ll never do anything. I didn’t start from the 1st either. Welcome to the club.
I don’t have time — Read the book I suggested above and try to say that excuse ever again. Even the fact that you’re born in New Zealand makes you one of the luckiest people on earth. I personally run my own business, balance a part time job and have a ton of time left over.
There’s nothing to sell — Baloney! There are always things to sell. I sold my computer and am now using a cheaper laptop. It didn’t reduce my quality of life and made me some $$. You might need to be a little more imaginative but you can do it! Even if you fail to reach $20,170 and only earn $1,000 well isn’t that still awesome?!
This challenge is about a few things, but for me it’s mostly about building a strong foundation. If you want to do anything in life, you need to sometimes be realistic. I’m an eternal optimist and I find that this is a huge benefit but the one thing that bites me in the ass is realism. Sometimes you need to understand that things take time and the best way to mitigate risks while not reducing any upside is to consistently build this solid foundation.
My Personal Journey To $20,170
Because I love to share experiences, I’m going to record my journey to $20,170 and beyond. I’ve already been doing this for two weeks and I’m currently sitting on $1,530 in profit. Keen to join me?
First, here is a Facebook group dedicated to the journey to $20,170 — make sure you join! Make sure you join and share your wins throughout the challenge.
Second — here is my $20,170 journey so far (there is currently one blog post and two videos)
Finally — I’ll be creating a Google Sheet to track my sales and profit which will be coming soon.
Finally, finally — Follow me on social media so we can connect. I’m sharing my journey over there so it’ll be a ton of fun :)
That’s it! The idea is simple and as always, execution is everything. It’s time to show the world what us New Zealanders can achieve.
Maybe then they will recognise us as an official country and stop cutting us off the map…
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