Side hustle awesomeness: get paid for drinking beer
I have the most bad-ass, awesome side hustle ever for you guys today. Who would like to get paid to travel all over the USA and other countries for four months, drink massive amounts of craft beer, and blog about the experience? Sound amazing?
Even if you have a full time job and a family, I want you to apply to be a World of Beer intern if traveling the world and drinking beer appeals to you. In this post, I'll tell you about the side hustle of a lifetime, why our married with kids readers should definitely apply, and why you need to apply even if you have a full time job you THINK you can't walk away from for 4 month.
A side hustle I can get behind
A Florida-based chain of craft beer pubs is looking for three interns to go on an adventure. They will be paying three individuals $12,000 and covering all expenses for a 4 month tour around the USA and multiple other countries. Here's a snippet about the job:
We’re inviting a team of interns to travel the world, hopping from brewery to brewery, WOB tavern to WOB tavern to explore beer for themselves and share their stories with WOB drinkers across the country.
Whether you’re a photographer or writer, social media maverick or beer blog surfer, we are looking for you. Adventure seekers and storytellers, beer experts or novices, brewery nerds and foodie fans all open to apply. So if you want to live, drink and tell the tale to the world, get ready to apply for the chance to share your experience as a Drink It Intern.
That's one hell of a job description, and I know lots of readers of this blog would LOVE to get this job, even if it's temporary with no benefits.
Here's the deal, though. You need to JUMP on this opportunity. Applications are accepted until the end of THIS WEEK, March 26th.
To apply, you fill out an application, upload a one minute video, and wait patiently. If you do decide to apply, let us all know in the comment section of this post.
Why I'm not applying for this side hustle
I would keep this fantastic side hustle to myself to lower the competition, but I can't apply. Sad.
I am currently getting paid to hustle around Europe, so I'm not even in the country right now. But if I were in the states when the job started, then I would certainly apply.
I can assure you, though. If I wasn't already committed to another awesome opportunity, I would be applying, even though I have a full time job and a family. I think you should apply, too. Even if you decide after the fact that you can't go through with it, you need to try something awesome.
Side hustle with your family
Do you have a family? Apply anyway. You could probably negotiate to bring them along. It might even make for a more interesting story for the World of Beer's PR department to sell to the press. That makes you MORE valuable. Maybe mention that in the video.
$12,000 for 4 months of work is only $3,000 per month. That's not a great salary, but keep in mind your expenses are included. If you can show World of Beer that a touring family is more valuable from a PR perspective than a touring college student, then you could probably negotiate more.
What about your current job? Let's get that out of the way ...
Negotiate with your employer to take advantage of this side hustle
One of the limitations of this excursion is that if you are currently gainfully employed, then it might be difficult to take 4 months off.
If you are already a full-time blogger (I'm looking right at you, J. Money!), then GET ON THIS. I want to live vicariously through you, so I want YOU to be a Beer Intern.
If you work a normal job like me, then here is what I would do. I would apply. If I was accepted, THEN I would negotiate a short sabbatical to take advantage of the opportunity.
First, I would try to negotiate a paid sabbatical, specifically detailing the PR value to my current company of me being a professional Beer Intern with significant media exposure.
If that didn't work (it depends on your industry), then I would try to negotiate a four month unpaid leave of absence if I could make the numbers work out.
If you can't make the numbers work, or you can't get the leave time, then you politely decline any offer that you get. Hey, you tried something awesome. And I think just trying and failing will lead to great things in the future.
You probably won't get this job. But you should try
The competition here will be tough. Even if you do get the internship, making the numbers and logistics work might be difficult or even impossible. That's ok. You should still apply.
Here's why: It would be fun. You will try something you never thought of trying before. This will stretch your problem solving ability way outside your typical comfort zone, even if you never actually have to solve a problem. Just thinking about this particular problem will make you stronger mentally and more bad-ass. How can I make this four month sabbatical work?
What you'll find is that you actually have TONS of options available to you. Sure, you might not get to take advantage of this opportunity because of tough competition, or it's just too soon. But you'll be set-up for future opportunities, and you will open your mind to new possibilities.
I want you to also check out this post by the Mad Fientist about why he applied to be an astronaut. Sure, he would love to be an astronaut. But, he also knew the probability of that happening was VERY low. He applied anyway.
The reason why? You need to think bigger and open up to endless opportunities. You also need to get used to the idea of rejection. It only makes you sharper and more ready for the next big opportunity.
If you think HUGE, eventually something huge will happen.
Let me tell you a story about my own personal life and thinking huge.
I'm getting paid to travel Europe. You could do something like that, too.
I haven't gone into detail about why I'm traveling Europe, and how I'm getting paid. I'm not going to do that here, but I will tell you generally how it came about.
My wife has always wanted to travel when we retired. Well, my weasel brain decided I would start thinking of ways that we could do better. I wanted to travel right now.
Once my mind was open to the possibility, all of the sudden I started noticing opportunities. These opportunities had always been there, but I never had an open mind, so they never really "appeared" to me.
Once I started working on our little travel problem, one particular opportunity popped up. Now, I was in the right frame of mind to take advantage. So I did.
I didn't worry about whether my employer would be on board. I just applied for the opportunity that was in front of me.
I got the gig!
When I told my employer, they immediately realized the benefit for them to have me take advantage of this opportunity, so they gave me a fully paid sabbatical. That means I'm getting paid by my employer AND I'm getting paid for the temporary assignment that I am on.
Try something awesome
I want you to apply to be a Beer Intern, because I want you to try something awesome.
First, I want one of you to actually get the job and brag about it here in the comment section. That way, we can all live vicariously through you.
Second, I want you to start opening your mind to new possibilities, because once you do, new opportunities will follow.
If you think awesome thoughts, and problem-solve some awesome problems, then eventually awesome is going to happen.
So, who's applying?