This is the Side Hustlers podcast. I'm your host from my Heart Radio, Carla Marie. Whether this is your very first episode or your almost one hundredth episode, thank you very much for being here. The live episode of side Hustlers is going down Saturday February four pm in the basement of Stumptown Coffee in Seattle. Now, it's going to be right after the Full Moon market ends, and my guest is Laura Burkhart, and she's got an incredible story. She's been side hustling for over ten years and she's always adding new side hustles to her list. So I'm excited to talk to her and for everyone to hear her story. If you can't make it live, which it's free, by the way, it'll be really cool. The episode will post later on in the months, so you'll get to hear it. Obviously, you will not miss out on anything other than all the fun we'll be having at Stumptown Coffee this Saturday February at four pm. Now, if this is your very first episode of side Hustlers, you've got a lot to catch up on. But in this podcast, I talked to people who are following a passion outside of their day job. They're always inspiring to hear, and especially this week's guest, Jason, his Side Hustle is creating an online chess instruction program. Now I have never played a single second of chess in my life, but I still loved hearing Jason's story. And his website is called Chess for Anyone dot com. So let's hear Jason's story for a lot of people. You know, why are you wait? Do you know what you want to do? And this is something you want to do? Do it. I'm a hustles side side hust do it. I'm a hustle hut do it. I'm a hustlesde hulove. Come on ask about me, yo yo. It's the Side Hustless podcast we call the roof. Today's topic is something I never thought we'd get to talk about on Side Hustlers. It's chess, and I personally have never played a game of chess in my life, so this will be very fun for me to learn about. So I've got Jason here. Hi Jason, And when I say here, you're not actually here? You are in your car? And how do I pronounce the where you live? I live in La I'm so right now, I'm coming from coaching chess in Spokane. Okay, got it, Cheuila. Okay. You recently have just launched your own instructional website for students to learn chess, and the website is Chess for Anyone dot com. Now this is your side hustle, but your day job has been some form of teaching chess for how long? For seven years of teaching chess. That's so it's crazy to me because, like I said, it's not something that I have been passionate about. But there's so many people out there, obviously you're on this podcast right now, who are passionate about the game of chess. So explain how you got into teaching chess and where this love of chess came from. Well, I started playing chess between like fifth and sixth grade. I kind of took to it right away. I really enjoyed the game, and I always looked for ways of improved bring my game, finding people to play against that we're good at it. But it was just something that I was always willing to do, not something that I ever thought would be a job. So, you know, I joined the Marine Corps out of high school and then when I was done, and I played a lot of chess while I was in the Marine Corps. Lots of people to play. But then when I got out of the Marine Corps, I worked in lumber mill for a couple of years. That wasn't really for me. I thought I should go back to school and make something out of myself. So I did, and I went to school, and I wasn't sure what to make out of myself. So I got really good grades. But I went to school for like eight years, and I got out of school and I was looking for biology jobs, science jobs, because I had a pretty pretty strong science background. All the positions were like lousy hours and really not offering me any more than I was making at the lumber mill. Isn't it crazy when you think about that, you did all of those years for a college degree and you didn't need need to. Yeah, I didn't do anything. It didn't improve any thing as far as the amount of money that I can make, or even make it so that I wouldn't be working those lousy hours. I felt like it was going to be just as unhealthy as a job that I tried to get away from, and I was a little bit upset about that. So I was being very picky and I ended up getting a job as a chess coach, which I really enjoyed that, and I guess it showed. So the schools I was working for, they're like, wait, Jason, you have a biology degree. Our biology teacher just left, so why don't you take over? And so I took over as a biology teacher and promptly was getting my butt kick. I was spending five six hours for every hour of class time where I was prepping, trying to make slides and power points because I had nothing to work with. And uh, I did that and did my best and worked very hard, and instead ended up getting other classes. I ended up doing pe, we did something called reverse engineering, a bunch of other classes, but eventually I ended up getting more and more chess classes. My chess class is very popular, so I was just like, you know what, Yeah, I'll take more chess, Yes, more chess, more chess. Now, while you were doing these chess classes that you said we're getting popular, were you getting students who had never done chess before and kind of wanted to do it just because other kids were doing it? There was always new kids. I probably get at least a dozen new students that have never played per semester throughout all the schools, and that's been a struggle for me. Actually is is having a brand new student and then having all these students of other other levels at the same time. You know, I definitely want to spend one on one time with that student, but there's also other students I have to spend time with, and so that's why I've created this program, the the Intro to Chess. I'm hoping that all of my students will go through this and I can get a feel for where they are, where they need help, and they can give me feedback for improving the course, so I can get kind of a two way feedback loop and make myself a better chess coach at the same time. I think. So, you've been doing this for seven years, so there's obviously been quite the lead up to launching your own website. It wasn't just hey, this is fun here, so let me do this website. There's been a lot in between. So I want to talk about that now. You told me that you had been a chess instructor for a prestigious university. How did you land that job at that university. So when I moved from Spokane to Chewhila, ended up losing a lot of my opportunities. It was just a very small town. I'm living up on a mountain right across from a ski resort in the middle of nowhere. I didn't want to be driving an hour and a half each way to keep some of these schools. So initially had decided to maybe go back to school to get my teaching degree. But then as I was going through it, I realized I was going to be having to quit the jobs where I was a celebrity and like the students would like, you know, mom, there's coach Jason Jon and I just can't lead those schools. I love that, and so I was trying to find ways to make it work. This prestigious university had an ad basically that was like you you you, you you you. You were the one. You're the one we want, and I had like all the qualifications for it. So I got the job and I was super excited about it, and it was fantastic I had. I think I had really good relationships with my students, but the problem was with the arrangement, I didn't really have any kind of relationship with anybody at the university. It was just me and my students, and I knew my students loved me, and we we learned a lot of chess and played a lot of games, analyzed a lot of games. Question, You're in Washington doing this course. These students are from where over the place? Um. I still have a couple of the students from Hong Kong, which is very challenging the times. There's sixteen hours apart right now, so I'm trying to be flexible for them as well. So sometimes I'm getting up at three thirty in the morning to meet with my students in Hong Kong because you have to change am two pm and then add another four hours. That's how far ahead they are. So yeah, I was meeting with people all over the world, Australia, England, Japan, Hong Kong, various provinces of China, all over the United States as well, and generally we were able to work our schedules and make things work for everybody. And it was really nice because I could meet with somebody while we were on a camping trip or something like that. So when you were teaching this course, it wasn't like Okay, everyone log in and I'm going to be in doing this video. At this time, you actually had almost individual students. It was entirely individualized, yes, which I would like to my My package that I haven't even put together yet is going to include one on one which they'll be able to select basically how much one on one they want, and then I will be doing consistent classes on different topics throughout the week and they can join those classes as they like. Essentially, I'm going to make an intermediate course. It's gonna be better than this intro course. It'll be because it will be more polished. I'll get the feedback from my students to make this course stand stronger, and that will be included with several meetings per week about various topics that all kind of I'll post everybody let them know when we're doing these particular topics, and then there will also be individualized coaching. They can select basically how many sessions they'd like to meet with me in conjunction with the course. Is there because I obviously am ignorant when it comes to the world of chess. Are there any other companies out there that do what you are trying to accomplish. Besides the university that I was working for, there's not really anything out there because I was looking for other jobs for like chess coaches to work virtually, and there really wasn't much. Now there is chess dot com, but that doesn't offer one on one coaching. It has all kinds of other things, but it's Yeah, it's not really targeting that audience. You're filling a gap in the world. The chess that a game that has been around for I mean, you tell me how long. I don't know. Well, ever, at least und years. There's writings, yeah, and it's probably longer, much longer than that. So yeah, I mean, obviously we didn't have the Internet for years. But you're filling a gap, which I think is the coolest thing for people who discovered their side hustle. They kind of just come up with, well, this is a problem, how do I fix it? And it fits into my passion boom perfect and it's magical. Now, obviously there's a lot of work, as you know, that goes into it that you know you wouldn't be doing if you didn't love the game of chess. So obviously the website Chess for anyone dot com. It's up and running, it's there, and you also launched your YouTube channel where people can go watch videos. So what was it like at least just that process, launching the website and the YouTube channel, because I'm sure that wasn't easy. I promised to put out two videos a week on chest, but it's more like I'm doing four or five probably right now, and it might be that way for a while because I'm trying to fill out the video There's gonna be videos within the courses itself that will be on YouTube. But once I start making the court the videos for the intermediate course, maybe I don't put those directly on YouTube. Well, you gotta make money off of it at some point, you gotta. You gotta charge people for you're putting work into it making the videos. I've enjoyed it. It's and it's something that I can do from anywhere once again, which is kind of my goal. I want to be able to work from wherever I'm at at some point and I'm not in a hurry. That would be nice if, if ten years down the road, I could work from anywhere I wanted, fantastic. I'm not in a hurry to leave right now, Like I said, I've got schools that loved me. I don't want to abandon my students. What was it like the day you woke up and said I'm going to create my own website? What was it? Did something click? Like? What was that lightbulb moment for you? You know? I I should have been doing this a long time ago. My wife inspired me to do it. I have a weakness that has been problem for a long time, and I so I've never really been around much money. Like talk of money or anything to do with money was really stressful for me. So at a fairly young age, like you know, my twenties or something like that, I was like, you know what, I'm gonna ignore it. I'm not going to think about it, try to avoid any thoughts of it, and just hope things work out essentially, And uh, my wife pointed out to me that that definitely was not the way to look at the world. I mean, it would be nice to be able to do that. Unfortunately it doesn't always work out the best, but I understand it completely. It's one of the most stressful things we deal with, if not the most stressful thing we deal with as humans in society today. So being able to block it out would be great, except the world is functioning around us focusing on it. So your wife told you to start your own online chest course, when you looked at her, where you like, you're crazy. I think at first I was. And then I was actually reading a book by fim Tim Ferriss at the time. The book is for our work week, and I was like, you know what that actly is genius. I don't know why I didn't think of that before, you know, so initially I was, for at least seconds or maybe minutes, I was resistant to it. And then I was like, wait a second, this is maybe this is perfect. And then I started to believe it. And now I'm I definitely believe in it. Now I'm like, yes, this can room work. This is great. I'm actually perfectly positioned to do this. I this is what I do for a living already. I just have to translate into online and I already work online in the school. So how long from the moment your wife gave you the idea? Like when was that day? First or second week of January? And yeah, the product that I'm making now, as far as the chess coort, is something that my students can use right now. It's just something that will be helpful in the classroom. So I have nothing to lose. I need to just get on it, start making it, and I think things will go in the right direction. So your current students that you have at school, have you talked to them about out what you're doing. Have you told them about Chess for anyone dot com. So I've recently been showing them the site and I've gave them some incentive to actually go through and try the challenge questions for a couple of reasons. First of all, some of my classrooms I have students in a in a in a classroom, and so their knowledge gaps can be missed, like I may not know that they don't even know how to set the board up entirely. Probably I don't know how to do that. Yeah, there's something simple like just you're supposed to have a white square on the right when you set up the chess board. If you don't, it kind of shifts everything and you're not going to have the same game. And so there's little details that I've noticed that some of my students that I thought I had a good grasp in the game when I really look at it and like, oh no, how did we miss that? Oh no, So this course, I'm hoping with them actually going through it, I'll know which students are struggling with what aspect of the game. And on top of that, they will be able to discover the aspects of my course that I have goofed up on, which I already found one today as I was showing it to my students that didn't point it out to them, Because it's basically, if they point something out that is wrong with my course, they get an extra bonus. So they're i think excited to do that. Very smart of you to use them to kind of help you build this. It is really cool that you do have kind of these these guinea pigs as you're planning this course, who I'm sure are very happy to help you. I think so yeah, And I, like I said, it's also going to be benefiting a lot of them. Some of my students will just do it because they want that gift basically, and they probably don't need any of that information. I want to go back to when you told me you so you were working for a protigious university teaching this online course. You're not doing that anymore. And I want you to talk about what happened there, because a lot of people have setbacks in their lives and they look at it like this is the end of the world. But really, I feel like you have taken it, and now you've taken everything you learn from there and you're building something even year and better for you and for the product as a whole. So talk about what happened, because I think that will be super inspiring for people to hear. There was a certain number of hours per week that I could work, or actually per year that I could work for the university, and there was also where I posted my hours. There wasn't running number which I thought was a number of hours that I was supposed to be able to work per year. I knew there was a certain number I was allowed to hit, and there was a number where I logged my hours that kept increasing by the amount of hours that I added. As it turned out, that actually wasn't my hours for the year. That was the hour since my anniversary dates starting working there like the anniversary of the year, so it had nothing to do with that number. So I wasn't worried about it. I knew that I had like three fifty hours left to work in the year, and so everything was good, and I got a call one morning, like Jason stopped working. You can't take any more, you know, meetings, just stop everything you're doing right now. And I had like twenty two students at the time him and I was basically supposed to just tell them all that I couldn't meet that with them anymore and not insane. I didn't get fired or anything there was. The issue was I just couldn't work. This was like the beginning of August. I wasn't supposed to work until October, which meant I was losing a significant amount of money to me and my family, and my wife was upset about it. I was certainly upset it. She was more so because of that that issue I had with like trying to blog out the whole money thing and made some bad moves trying to work things out, Like they had sent me this email that I was supposed to sent out like saying basically looked like I was some sort of criminal being dieted. That's what I felt like. It's like, you know, sorry, I canna be able to meet to all my students, and I didn't want to send it out. I told my supervisor I couldn't send it out, and I ended up contacting all my students and kind of letting them know what had happened. And yeah, so I got fired. Oh my god, So are you in touch with any of those students now? I'm still meeting with students from all over the world, England and Hong Kong occasionally, not as much, nowhere near as much as I had when I was working with the university. I tried apologizing, like, I'm sorry, I did not think that this is wrong. Um, I really appreciated the job. I really liked the job. Is there anything we could work it out? And they just like ignored me. So universities have the craziest rules. It's like a that's it. One mistake and then not even a mistake, but one thing, and they're just like done by whatever it is. It is really tough working for a university, but look what's come out of it. It may have taken you to what when did that happen? That was back in August, the end of August, and uh, yeah, I didn't know what to do. I started applying for substitute teaching jobs and I've been trying to get jobs on the mountain working, so I live right next to forty nine degrees north and try to get like a groomer job or something like that. And then yeah, like I said in early January, my wife kind of pointed me in the right direction and I was obviously I should get on it. Yeah, well it is really cool. So then looking at you right now, you're super excited to launch this, You're like, this is my calling. I want to do it. And then rewinding to you seven years ago when you were, you know, saying I don't want to think about money, I don't want to think about this, and you were kind of I guess, tim, and to jump into something like this, what would you now tell you seven years ago to kind of give yourself a kick in the butt. Yeah, I would be nice if I would have started making like video content and stuff right off the bat, start making two videos a day seven years ago. I'd have coaches working for me now, and that that's I mean, that's kind of the like very long term goal would be cool if I could just fill that niche to where yeah, I end up having other coaches that that work with me as well, But for now, I just want to be able to have coaching that I can do in the summer with students year round and all over the world, you know, with a with Alex that would be fantastic. Okay, So then I want to do one last thing. Sell someone like me who has never played a game of chess in their life. Why should I pick up the game of chess? And obviously learn a chess for anyone dot com, but why should I check out the game of chess? Humans are playing chess for more than fift hundred years, so it's kind of like reaching across time and participating with those people from more than a thousand years ago. And chess itself on the surface, it's actually kind of simple when you look at it. It's just six pieces, just six different types of pieces. You know, how complicated could that be? Well, that's that's a loaded question. It is extremely deep when it comes down to it, when you really want to get into the game. It is very deep, and you learned caution. You learn that you know, when when the chips are down, maybe you've made a few bad moves, as long as you're vigilant, you can actually come back and take advantage of the you know, the other person's over confidence. Essentially, Well, you sold me on the whole idea of being able to kind of reach back in time. I think that's really cool and there really aren't many things that we get to do today that have been around for that long. And I think that just the art of chess in that aspect is really cool. And it's amazing that you're taking something that's so old and making it modernized by having an online course. And I hope that people will go to your website Chest for Anyone dot com to learn more and to at least look into the game and help you out with you know, getting YouTube videos. If they can check out the videos and comment, anyone who listens to this podcast to go do that. I think it'll be really cool. I'm excited to see where a Chest for Anyone dot com goes, and I want everyone to go and and check it out and support you. So thank you. This is uh. It was actually kind of overwhelming. I was like, WHOA a podcast? But it was awesome timing and I certainly appreciate you doing this for me. Support Jason by checking out Chess for Anyone dot com. If you see anything you want to let him know about. If you have any ideas for him, he would love to hear from you. Reach out to Jason again. It's chess for anyone dot com. And don't forget this Saturday. I've got the one hundred episode of the Side Hustlers podcast going down live right after the Full Moon Market ends in Seattle. UM. It's at the basement of Sumptown Coffee, but you can get all of the information on my Instagram. It's at the Carla Murray. It's all there, but it is at four pm. UM. Hope to see you there, and if you can't make it, you can obviously listen to all the episodes of Side Hustlers that you miss, or listen to my morning show. It goes down weekday mornings on one or six point one Kiss FM in Seattle. You can listen to it live on our free I Heart Radio app from anywhere in the world, or you can listen to the podcast version of the show. You obviously love podcasts. If you're here, if you search for Carla Murray and Anthony, you'll be able to listen to it. But I'll include a link to all the things I just mentioned in the description of this podcast. Until next week, keep ustling

This is the Side Hustlers podcast. I'm your host from my Heart Radio, Carla Marie. Whether this is your very first episode or your almost one hundredth episode, thank you very much for being here. The live episode of side Hustlers is going down Saturday February four pm in the basement of Stumptown Coffee in Seattle. Now, it's going to be right after the Full Moon market ends, and my guest is Laura Burkhart, and she's got an incredible story. She's been side hustling for over ten years and she's always adding new side hustles to her list. So I'm excited to talk to her and for everyone to hear her story. If you can't make it live, which it's free, by the way, it'll be really cool. The episode will post later on in the months, so you'll get to hear it. Obviously, you will not miss out on anything other than all the fun we'll be having at Stumptown Coffee this Saturday February at four pm. Now, if this is your very first episode of side Hustlers, you've got a lot to catch up on. But in this podcast, I talked to people who are following a passion outside of their day job. They're always inspiring to hear, and especially this week's guest, Jason, his Side Hustle is creating an online chess instruction program. Now I have never played a single second of chess in my life, but I still loved hearing Jason's story. And his website is called Chess for Anyone dot com. So let's hear Jason's story for a lot of people. You know, why are you wait? Do you know what you want to do? And this is something you want to do? Do it. I'm a hustles side side hust do it. I'm a hustle hut do it. I'm a hustlesde hulove. Come on ask about me, yo yo. It's the Side Hustless podcast we call the roof. Today's topic is something I never thought we'd get to talk about on Side Hustlers. It's chess, and I personally have never played a game of chess in my life, so this will be very fun for me to learn about. So I've got Jason here. Hi Jason, And when I say here, you're not actually here? You are in your car? And how do I pronounce the where you live? I live in La I'm so right now, I'm coming from coaching chess in Spokane. Okay, got it, Cheuila. Okay. You recently have just launched your own instructional website for students to learn chess, and the website is Chess for Anyone dot com. Now this is your side hustle, but your day job has been some form of teaching chess for how long? For seven years of teaching chess. That's so it's crazy to me because, like I said, it's not something that I have been passionate about. But there's so many people out there, obviously you're on this podcast right now, who are passionate about the game of chess. So explain how you got into teaching chess and where this love of chess came from. Well, I started playing chess between like fifth and sixth grade. I kind of took to it right away. I really enjoyed the game, and I always looked for ways of improved bring my game, finding people to play against that we're good at it. But it was just something that I was always willing to do, not something that I ever thought would be a job. So, you know, I joined the Marine Corps out of high school and then when I was done, and I played a lot of chess while I was in the Marine Corps. Lots of people to play. But then when I got out of the Marine Corps, I worked in lumber mill for a couple of years. That wasn't really for me. I thought I should go back to school and make something out of myself. So I did, and I went to school, and I wasn't sure what to make out of myself. So I got really good grades. But I went to school for like eight years, and I got out of school and I was looking for biology jobs, science jobs, because I had a pretty pretty strong science background. All the positions were like lousy hours and really not offering me any more than I was making at the lumber mill. Isn't it crazy when you think about that, you did all of those years for a college degree and you didn't need need to. Yeah, I didn't do anything. It didn't improve any thing as far as the amount of money that I can make, or even make it so that I wouldn't be working those lousy hours. I felt like it was going to be just as unhealthy as a job that I tried to get away from, and I was a little bit upset about that. So I was being very picky and I ended up getting a job as a chess coach, which I really enjoyed that, and I guess it showed. So the schools I was working for, they're like, wait, Jason, you have a biology degree. Our biology teacher just left, so why don't you take over? And so I took over as a biology teacher and promptly was getting my butt kick. I was spending five six hours for every hour of class time where I was prepping, trying to make slides and power points because I had nothing to work with. And uh, I did that and did my best and worked very hard, and instead ended up getting other classes. I ended up doing pe, we did something called reverse engineering, a bunch of other classes, but eventually I ended up getting more and more chess classes. My chess class is very popular, so I was just like, you know what, Yeah, I'll take more chess, Yes, more chess, more chess. Now, while you were doing these chess classes that you said we're getting popular, were you getting students who had never done chess before and kind of wanted to do it just because other kids were doing it? There was always new kids. I probably get at least a dozen new students that have never played per semester throughout all the schools, and that's been a struggle for me. Actually is is having a brand new student and then having all these students of other other levels at the same time. You know, I definitely want to spend one on one time with that student, but there's also other students I have to spend time with, and so that's why I've created this program, the the Intro to Chess. I'm hoping that all of my students will go through this and I can get a feel for where they are, where they need help, and they can give me feedback for improving the course, so I can get kind of a two way feedback loop and make myself a better chess coach at the same time. I think. So, you've been doing this for seven years, so there's obviously been quite the lead up to launching your own website. It wasn't just hey, this is fun here, so let me do this website. There's been a lot in between. So I want to talk about that now. You told me that you had been a chess instructor for a prestigious university. How did you land that job at that university. So when I moved from Spokane to Chewhila, ended up losing a lot of my opportunities. It was just a very small town. I'm living up on a mountain right across from a ski resort in the middle of nowhere. I didn't want to be driving an hour and a half each way to keep some of these schools. So initially had decided to maybe go back to school to get my teaching degree. But then as I was going through it, I realized I was going to be having to quit the jobs where I was a celebrity and like the students would like, you know, mom, there's coach Jason Jon and I just can't lead those schools. I love that, and so I was trying to find ways to make it work. This prestigious university had an ad basically that was like you you you, you you you. You were the one. You're the one we want, and I had like all the qualifications for it. So I got the job and I was super excited about it, and it was fantastic I had. I think I had really good relationships with my students, but the problem was with the arrangement, I didn't really have any kind of relationship with anybody at the university. It was just me and my students, and I knew my students loved me, and we we learned a lot of chess and played a lot of games, analyzed a lot of games. Question, You're in Washington doing this course. These students are from where over the place? Um. I still have a couple of the students from Hong Kong, which is very challenging the times. There's sixteen hours apart right now, so I'm trying to be flexible for them as well. So sometimes I'm getting up at three thirty in the morning to meet with my students in Hong Kong because you have to change am two pm and then add another four hours. That's how far ahead they are. So yeah, I was meeting with people all over the world, Australia, England, Japan, Hong Kong, various provinces of China, all over the United States as well, and generally we were able to work our schedules and make things work for everybody. And it was really nice because I could meet with somebody while we were on a camping trip or something like that. So when you were teaching this course, it wasn't like Okay, everyone log in and I'm going to be in doing this video. At this time, you actually had almost individual students. It was entirely individualized, yes, which I would like to my My package that I haven't even put together yet is going to include one on one which they'll be able to select basically how much one on one they want, and then I will be doing consistent classes on different topics throughout the week and they can join those classes as they like. Essentially, I'm going to make an intermediate course. It's gonna be better than this intro course. It'll be because it will be more polished. I'll get the feedback from my students to make this course stand stronger, and that will be included with several meetings per week about various topics that all kind of I'll post everybody let them know when we're doing these particular topics, and then there will also be individualized coaching. They can select basically how many sessions they'd like to meet with me in conjunction with the course. Is there because I obviously am ignorant when it comes to the world of chess. Are there any other companies out there that do what you are trying to accomplish. Besides the university that I was working for, there's not really anything out there because I was looking for other jobs for like chess coaches to work virtually, and there really wasn't much. Now there is chess dot com, but that doesn't offer one on one coaching. It has all kinds of other things, but it's Yeah, it's not really targeting that audience. You're filling a gap in the world. The chess that a game that has been around for I mean, you tell me how long. I don't know. Well, ever, at least und years. There's writings, yeah, and it's probably longer, much longer than that. So yeah, I mean, obviously we didn't have the Internet for years. But you're filling a gap, which I think is the coolest thing for people who discovered their side hustle. They kind of just come up with, well, this is a problem, how do I fix it? And it fits into my passion boom perfect and it's magical. Now, obviously there's a lot of work, as you know, that goes into it that you know you wouldn't be doing if you didn't love the game of chess. So obviously the website Chess for anyone dot com. It's up and running, it's there, and you also launched your YouTube channel where people can go watch videos. So what was it like at least just that process, launching the website and the YouTube channel, because I'm sure that wasn't easy. I promised to put out two videos a week on chest, but it's more like I'm doing four or five probably right now, and it might be that way for a while because I'm trying to fill out the video There's gonna be videos within the courses itself that will be on YouTube. But once I start making the court the videos for the intermediate course, maybe I don't put those directly on YouTube. Well, you gotta make money off of it at some point, you gotta. You gotta charge people for you're putting work into it making the videos. I've enjoyed it. It's and it's something that I can do from anywhere once again, which is kind of my goal. I want to be able to work from wherever I'm at at some point and I'm not in a hurry. That would be nice if, if ten years down the road, I could work from anywhere I wanted, fantastic. I'm not in a hurry to leave right now, Like I said, I've got schools that loved me. I don't want to abandon my students. What was it like the day you woke up and said I'm going to create my own website? What was it? Did something click? Like? What was that lightbulb moment for you? You know? I I should have been doing this a long time ago. My wife inspired me to do it. I have a weakness that has been problem for a long time, and I so I've never really been around much money. Like talk of money or anything to do with money was really stressful for me. So at a fairly young age, like you know, my twenties or something like that, I was like, you know what, I'm gonna ignore it. I'm not going to think about it, try to avoid any thoughts of it, and just hope things work out essentially, And uh, my wife pointed out to me that that definitely was not the way to look at the world. I mean, it would be nice to be able to do that. Unfortunately it doesn't always work out the best, but I understand it completely. It's one of the most stressful things we deal with, if not the most stressful thing we deal with as humans in society today. So being able to block it out would be great, except the world is functioning around us focusing on it. So your wife told you to start your own online chest course, when you looked at her, where you like, you're crazy. I think at first I was. And then I was actually reading a book by fim Tim Ferriss at the time. The book is for our work week, and I was like, you know what that actly is genius. I don't know why I didn't think of that before, you know, so initially I was, for at least seconds or maybe minutes, I was resistant to it. And then I was like, wait a second, this is maybe this is perfect. And then I started to believe it. And now I'm I definitely believe in it. Now I'm like, yes, this can room work. This is great. I'm actually perfectly positioned to do this. I this is what I do for a living already. I just have to translate into online and I already work online in the school. So how long from the moment your wife gave you the idea? Like when was that day? First or second week of January? And yeah, the product that I'm making now, as far as the chess coort, is something that my students can use right now. It's just something that will be helpful in the classroom. So I have nothing to lose. I need to just get on it, start making it, and I think things will go in the right direction. So your current students that you have at school, have you talked to them about out what you're doing. Have you told them about Chess for anyone dot com. So I've recently been showing them the site and I've gave them some incentive to actually go through and try the challenge questions for a couple of reasons. First of all, some of my classrooms I have students in a in a in a classroom, and so their knowledge gaps can be missed, like I may not know that they don't even know how to set the board up entirely. Probably I don't know how to do that. Yeah, there's something simple like just you're supposed to have a white square on the right when you set up the chess board. If you don't, it kind of shifts everything and you're not going to have the same game. And so there's little details that I've noticed that some of my students that I thought I had a good grasp in the game when I really look at it and like, oh no, how did we miss that? Oh no, So this course, I'm hoping with them actually going through it, I'll know which students are struggling with what aspect of the game. And on top of that, they will be able to discover the aspects of my course that I have goofed up on, which I already found one today as I was showing it to my students that didn't point it out to them, Because it's basically, if they point something out that is wrong with my course, they get an extra bonus. So they're i think excited to do that. Very smart of you to use them to kind of help you build this. It is really cool that you do have kind of these these guinea pigs as you're planning this course, who I'm sure are very happy to help you. I think so yeah, And I, like I said, it's also going to be benefiting a lot of them. Some of my students will just do it because they want that gift basically, and they probably don't need any of that information. I want to go back to when you told me you so you were working for a protigious university teaching this online course. You're not doing that anymore. And I want you to talk about what happened there, because a lot of people have setbacks in their lives and they look at it like this is the end of the world. But really, I feel like you have taken it, and now you've taken everything you learn from there and you're building something even year and better for you and for the product as a whole. So talk about what happened, because I think that will be super inspiring for people to hear. There was a certain number of hours per week that I could work, or actually per year that I could work for the university, and there was also where I posted my hours. There wasn't running number which I thought was a number of hours that I was supposed to be able to work per year. I knew there was a certain number I was allowed to hit, and there was a number where I logged my hours that kept increasing by the amount of hours that I added. As it turned out, that actually wasn't my hours for the year. That was the hour since my anniversary dates starting working there like the anniversary of the year, so it had nothing to do with that number. So I wasn't worried about it. I knew that I had like three fifty hours left to work in the year, and so everything was good, and I got a call one morning, like Jason stopped working. You can't take any more, you know, meetings, just stop everything you're doing right now. And I had like twenty two students at the time him and I was basically supposed to just tell them all that I couldn't meet that with them anymore and not insane. I didn't get fired or anything there was. The issue was I just couldn't work. This was like the beginning of August. I wasn't supposed to work until October, which meant I was losing a significant amount of money to me and my family, and my wife was upset about it. I was certainly upset it. She was more so because of that that issue I had with like trying to blog out the whole money thing and made some bad moves trying to work things out, Like they had sent me this email that I was supposed to sent out like saying basically looked like I was some sort of criminal being dieted. That's what I felt like. It's like, you know, sorry, I canna be able to meet to all my students, and I didn't want to send it out. I told my supervisor I couldn't send it out, and I ended up contacting all my students and kind of letting them know what had happened. And yeah, so I got fired. Oh my god, So are you in touch with any of those students now? I'm still meeting with students from all over the world, England and Hong Kong occasionally, not as much, nowhere near as much as I had when I was working with the university. I tried apologizing, like, I'm sorry, I did not think that this is wrong. Um, I really appreciated the job. I really liked the job. Is there anything we could work it out? And they just like ignored me. So universities have the craziest rules. It's like a that's it. One mistake and then not even a mistake, but one thing, and they're just like done by whatever it is. It is really tough working for a university, but look what's come out of it. It may have taken you to what when did that happen? That was back in August, the end of August, and uh, yeah, I didn't know what to do. I started applying for substitute teaching jobs and I've been trying to get jobs on the mountain working, so I live right next to forty nine degrees north and try to get like a groomer job or something like that. And then yeah, like I said in early January, my wife kind of pointed me in the right direction and I was obviously I should get on it. Yeah, well it is really cool. So then looking at you right now, you're super excited to launch this, You're like, this is my calling. I want to do it. And then rewinding to you seven years ago when you were, you know, saying I don't want to think about money, I don't want to think about this, and you were kind of I guess, tim, and to jump into something like this, what would you now tell you seven years ago to kind of give yourself a kick in the butt. Yeah, I would be nice if I would have started making like video content and stuff right off the bat, start making two videos a day seven years ago. I'd have coaches working for me now, and that that's I mean, that's kind of the like very long term goal would be cool if I could just fill that niche to where yeah, I end up having other coaches that that work with me as well, But for now, I just want to be able to have coaching that I can do in the summer with students year round and all over the world, you know, with a with Alex that would be fantastic. Okay, So then I want to do one last thing. Sell someone like me who has never played a game of chess in their life. Why should I pick up the game of chess? And obviously learn a chess for anyone dot com, but why should I check out the game of chess? Humans are playing chess for more than fift hundred years, so it's kind of like reaching across time and participating with those people from more than a thousand years ago. And chess itself on the surface, it's actually kind of simple when you look at it. It's just six pieces, just six different types of pieces. You know, how complicated could that be? Well, that's that's a loaded question. It is extremely deep when it comes down to it, when you really want to get into the game. It is very deep, and you learned caution. You learn that you know, when when the chips are down, maybe you've made a few bad moves, as long as you're vigilant, you can actually come back and take advantage of the you know, the other person's over confidence. Essentially, Well, you sold me on the whole idea of being able to kind of reach back in time. I think that's really cool and there really aren't many things that we get to do today that have been around for that long. And I think that just the art of chess in that aspect is really cool. And it's amazing that you're taking something that's so old and making it modernized by having an online course. And I hope that people will go to your website Chest for Anyone dot com to learn more and to at least look into the game and help you out with you know, getting YouTube videos. If they can check out the videos and comment, anyone who listens to this podcast to go do that. I think it'll be really cool. I'm excited to see where a Chest for Anyone dot com goes, and I want everyone to go and and check it out and support you. So thank you. This is uh. It was actually kind of overwhelming. I was like, WHOA a podcast? But it was awesome timing and I certainly appreciate you doing this for me. Support Jason by checking out Chess for Anyone dot com. If you see anything you want to let him know about. If you have any ideas for him, he would love to hear from you. Reach out to Jason again. It's chess for anyone dot com. And don't forget this Saturday. I've got the one hundred episode of the Side Hustlers podcast going down live right after the Full Moon Market ends in Seattle. UM. It's at the basement of Sumptown Coffee, but you can get all of the information on my Instagram. It's at the Carla Murray. It's all there, but it is at four pm. UM. Hope to see you there, and if you can't make it, you can obviously listen to all the episodes of Side Hustlers that you miss, or listen to my morning show. It goes down weekday mornings on one or six point one Kiss FM in Seattle. You can listen to it live on our free I Heart Radio app from anywhere in the world, or you can listen to the podcast version of the show. You obviously love podcasts. If you're here, if you search for Carla Murray and Anthony, you'll be able to listen to it. But I'll include a link to all the things I just mentioned in the description of this podcast. Until next week, keep ustling