This week, we’re joined by Heather Brendle, to talk about how she got into training dogs and how she started and runs her side hustle, Puppy-K All Day. Listen now:

Visit the ⁠Puppy-K All Day website⁠ to learn more about Heather and her unique training program.

Find our more about Heather’s podcast, Sometimes There’s Side Eye on your favorite podcast app or at ⁠this link⁠.

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Transcript

Jennifer Roland Cadiente Hello, and welcome to the Grow Your Side Hustle podcast. We’re in season two, Episode Eight. I’m Jennifer Roland Cadiente, your host. And the Grow Your Side Hustle podcast is for entrepreneurs who want to grow a side hustle into either their main gig, or just keep it running on the side as a second stream of income. Today, we’re joined by Heather Brendle, who runs puppy K all day, which is a dog training program. And she does that on the side of her full-time gig. Hi, Heather. And thanks for joining us today. Heather Brendle Thank you so much for having us. Jennifer Roland Cadiente Yeah, so you know, we’re not recording video. But Heather has a guest in the in her recording area with her dog Tiago. Yes. And he is… Heather Brendle …laying on the floor with me. Yep. Jennifer Roland Cadiente And I also have have big dogs and know that they never want to leave you alone when you’re doing something that you want to be left alone for. So it is so true. Yeah. So if you hear any barking on the back end, it could be either of our situations happening. Heather Brendle That is true. Jennifer Roland Cadiente Heather is joining us to talk about how she has a regular old day job and runs dog training business on the side. Heather Brendle That is true. Jennifer Roland Cadiente What do you do in your day job? Heather Brendle So I’m a project manager for a commercial construction supply company, essentially. And I have worked there for 15 years. So yeah, I have been working remote for, gosh, 14 years. Jennifer Roland Cadiente Wow. The remote helps so much when you’re doing a side hustle. Heather Brendle It definitely does. And I obviously feel really comfortable. My job. I’ve been there for 15 years. So yeah. Yeah. Jennifer Roland Cadiente And so they know that that you help train dogs in your off hours. Ah, a couple of select people. Okay, no, okay. Yeah, yes. Um, I get tdog people together. And they’re not going to talk about anything but their dogs. So of course, it’ll come up if you work with any dog people, for sure. Heather Brendle And my old boss she knew, but she retired since so… Jennifer Roland Cadiente That happens. So then what made you decide to start a business training dogs on the side. So Heather Brendle it was kind of an interesting journey. I have been training my own dogs since 2003. And I really enjoy it. I do sports with my dogs. I’m not, you know, highly competitive, but I really, really enjoy the training process. Right. And so I’ve been doing that for a really long time. And over the years, I’ve had so many people say to me, Oh, do you train dogs? And I’m like, No, just my train my own dogs. Yeah. And so that’s been a process. And then over the last nine years here, and there, I’ve helped different friends train their puppies or socialize their puppies for, you know, just to help them out. And then, about two years ago, well, no, gosh, he’s going to be four this year. About four years ago, a really good friend got a puppy, and she is also my neighbor. And I helped her train him during her long hours at work, and, you know, take care of him. And then two years ago, my husband started his side hustle, which became his full time gig when he got laid off during COVID. And we were trying to figure out how to consent continue that so that he could keep doing what he was doing. And but we needed to support it because his MMA business is building custom cars, and that is very up and down and up and down. And it takes time to build a reputation. So we kind of were tossing around some ideas. I thought about getting a part time job, but every time I looked at something, I was like, Oh, this is terrible. I know. He worked, you know, some odd jobs and nothing was making sense. And a friend of ours came over and He said, I’m having trouble training my puppy. And he’s like, I really want him to lay down. And I just went and got my clicker, which is a little positive reinforcement tool. And I taught him to lay down, you know, because you know, a little tricks. And somebody said, we had other friends there. And they’re like, You need to train puppies. And it just, I already had a little seed that I wanted to do something. And it was kind of like all these different seeds that planted at the same time and grow into this idea. And so then last May, I opened puppy K all day. So I do focus exclusively on puppies from 12 to 24 weeks. And I’m just really passionate about helping people raise their puppy and stack the deck in their favor as much as possible with training and socialization. And so I came up with this whole protocol that I use for my own puppies, and I turned it into a business. Jennifer Roland Cadiente I love that. I don’t love that a lot of it was precipitated by your husband getting laid off, because that never feels good. Now always want your side hustle will become your main hustle. On purpose. Yes. But it was a blessing on it. Yeah. usually ends up being it just doesn’t feel good at the time. Heather Brendle No, it was terrible. But we talk about it now, because it’ll be three years in October. And we say that we have spent so much time together in the last three years that in some ways we’re closer than we ever have been. And we’ve been together 20 years. So well. Yeah, in some ways, it’s been a big blessing. Jennifer Roland Cadiente Yeah. And I mean, there’s nothing like having to make something happen. Yeah, to get you to actually make something happen. Heather Brendle Yes. And I literally looked at him. And I was like, if we are ever going to make a go at this, now is the time. We have to take advantage of this opportunity and turn it into a positive if at all possible. So that’s pretty much what we’ve been doing, you know, for the last two years, since he, you know, everything happened three years. But really, since last year, when I came up with this idea, and then it actually started to take off. Jennifer Roland Cadiente So how do you structure it around, and around having a day job, I know, probably most people are going to want to do evening training anyway. So that kind of stacks in your favor. Heather Brendle Hopefully, no one is listening. But I actually do things really differently. So boarding train programs have become really popular, which is essentially where you drop your dog or your puppy off, and the person has them for two weeks, four weeks, whatever the setup is. And personally for me, there might be a time and place for that. But it’s not how I wanted to structure things, right, I really want people to continue to bond with their puppy, because I think that’s important. And I also want them to enjoy their puppy. And so I actually structure it that the puppies with me, and so they’re with me nine hours a day, and then they go home at night. And they get to spend time with their family. And then their family gets to, you know, spend great time with them when they’re actually fully enriched and socialized and trained. And then I do higher and higher. Yes. And so it’s kind of cool. I really enjoy it, my clients seem to be very happy. And I just like that they still get to foster that connection with their puppy and see them on the weekends that don’t have weekend hours. But really also, the other side of it was most dog trainers work weekends and evenings only. And I’ve been working a standard nine to five for, you know, 15 years. And I don’t want to work weekends and I don’t want to work evenings. And so as I was thinking about it, I’m like, this is a perfect solve of two problems. I have people taking care of their puppies while they’re at work. And I’m taking care of all the things that they don’t know how to do or don’t have the time to do. And then I’m also structuring a small business that ultimately I would love to become my full time gig during the hours that I want to be working. So it was a win win. Jennifer Roland Cadiente it is a nice blend of the that board and train. But still, I mean puppies are cute. A lot of work. They are a lot of work. But it always made me sad to think about just like, just ship it off for two weeks or six weeks. Some of them. Heather Brendle Yeah. Sometimes there’s a reason for that, but it’s not really what I want to focus on. Right. I really like working with families. I mean, look families have one lives, they have kids, and they have all these things. And so I wanted to be able to offer something that was different. And that made sense for us and for the client. And in the end, it has worked out really nicely. And then I actually ended up adding pickup and delivery, which my husband does for me. And yeah, it ended up just making sense. And we’ve had, we’ve now had clients that have been up to I’m, oh, 45 minutes away and an hour in traffic that we’ve been able to accommodate, because we do pickup and delivery. Right? Jennifer Roland Cadiente Yeah. And I think, you know, you’re solving the daycare problem, too. Yes. In the age when they really can not make it at home. Even if they’re, you know, in the crate. That’s a long time for a puppy to be in a crate. Heather Brendle It is, though, honestly, it’s not ideal, if at all possible. Look, I’ve raised puppies where they’ve been in crates when I was at work for eight hours a day. Yeah. But not all puppies can handle that. And they don’t have the bladder control for that. Right. I thought that those people would be my number one client. And actually, about 85% of my clients work from home. Interesting. I was shocked. But that is the case here. And that is where I’m at. But things are different since COVID. And more people do work from home. Right? So we have more of this population who is trying to work remote and deal with a puppy at the same time. And of course, they asked me, How are you doing it? Jennifer Roland Cadiente Yeah, how many do you work with at a time. Heather Brendle I really the ideal number is 1 to 2. And I understand that that’s not scalable at this point. And I’m okay with it. Because I want to build my reputation. And I am working a day job. And so I want to make sure that I’m still taking care of my customers at work, and right to do a good job there. And then I also want to make sure my clients are taking care of. So I have been at this point, I’ve done up to three, but I don’t think that I would do that again, if at all possible. And I’m okay with a slow burn, I’m okay with, you know, building up a good clientele, and referral network and building up my reviews. And, you know, just tweaking everything, because I have made changes what I thought in the beginning, you know, there have been adjustments, so I need time to figure that all out. Jennifer Roland Cadiente Yeah, I can. I can’t imagine managing more than more than one puppy at a time. But I would think you know, if you have two that at least they can, they can play with each other a little bit while you try to get something done. So funny enough, Heather Brendle I do allow puppies to interact as long as there is something to be gained there. I really truly believe in socializing puppies with appropriate adult dogs. And that that’s where you really get the most bang for your buck. When I brought Thiago home at nine and a half weeks in 2017. I had a list of adult dogs that I was going to socialize him with. He actually didn’t meet puppies for a very long time. And so I personally believe that that’s the best way to go. And so I tell my clients, hey, if I have two puppies at one time, and they’re a good match, and they’re not sort of teaching each other not so great things, and getting overstimulated, then fine, I just had two puppies that were a perfect match together. But I always have Thiago in there and he’s my amazing puppy master. And he’s sort of in the mix to kind of mitigate you know if anybody’s getting too rowdy or whatever. But ultimately the goal is actually for the puppies to spend time with appropriate adult dogs which is my two dogs and then I have friends dogs who I can also switch out if I need to. So nice. Jennifer Roland Cadiente So then, if you have to do you keep like one with Tiago and one with the other. Your other dog or … Heather Brendle It’s interesting. Tater who is my english bulldog is also six years old. And his interactions with puppies is on a case by case basis because taters a bulldog, and they go full bore and he is a great social dog. But if I have a puppy who’s even a little bit timid, then he can be too much because he’s like a bowling ball. And but I do really love the puppies to meet him be because he looks different. He has a smashed face. Yeah. Dogs who meet him who knows Tiago shaking dogs who meet him who have never seen a dog like a bulldog. They’ll walk up to him and be like, well, what are you know, and so I do like the puppies to at least meet him. But whether or not they actually play with him is actually up to Tater. And the interaction between them and everybody being comfortable. So what I actually do is I will set up up, I have like an X pen system. And so I will like tandem kind of do outside sessions and training sessions. And a lot of people don’t know, but puppies actually need to sleep anywhere from 22 hours a day. So you will absolutely if you’re my client, get pictures from me of me celebrating your puppy sleeping, because one of the things I do is put them on an app schedule. Oh, wow. Because it’s a big deal. And I did a trial run with one of my friends puppies first. And I asked her at the end, what was the number one thing that you learned from me? And she said that my puppy needs to sleep? And I was like, Oh, wow. Okay. So I’ll get them on a nap schedule. So it basically looks like anywhere from 30 to 90 minutes, go go, go go go. That’s training that’s play, you know, socialization, it might be just outside time on the turf, it might be chewing on a bully stick, it could be anything depending on what the what works for the puppy. And then I have two to three hours where you’re on nap. And you’re napping, wherever, you know, we’ve structured that is best for you. Right? And that also gives my dogs time to recharge. Yeah. And you time to do the other work that you have to be on time for me to do my work. Yeah, but I start super early in the morning, also. So I’m starting before I ever, ever have clients there as well. And so I structure if I have calls or whatever, I just make sure that it’s all makes sense. And then if I need to work later in the day, I just do that. Jennifer Roland Cadiente Yeah. Okay, so, um, it sounds like, like, you know, you’ve put so much thought into making everything work for you and for, you know, for your employer and your clients. Yes. And that, you know, that is that’s something that you’ve put a lot of time into, how have you learned those lessons? I mean, you know, we can say, oh, yeah, I should probably start earlier. But you know, were there specific things you’re like, Okay, to make this work, my workday needs to start at x time, instead of, you know, say nine or whatever. Heather Brendle So I actually, I’m in Arizona, but I work in East Coast schedule. So I am starting, well, we don’t change our clocks. So yes, Summer, I’m starting at five. And in the winter, I’m starting at six. And most of my clients don’t want to drop off their puppy that are late. So that gives me several hours in the morning to you know, tackle anything that I have, that is super urgent. And then I’m also able to take care of things during naptime. And during, at the end of the day once my clients are picking up. So there are times definitely where maybe there’s chaos at work at my day job. And I’m like, but I also have my husband here and I can say, hey, I have a crisis, can you please come and do XYZ, and as long as I give him a structured, you know, this dog can be here, that dog can be there, you know, and all of that, then I have him to back me up as well. So sometimes it’s chaotic. But all in all, I feel like if I had been at my day job, maybe two years and I have tried this, there’s no way. Yeah, I’ve been at my day job for 15 years, I know my clients really well. And I take care of my work. And I get good reviews every year and I’m very passionate about making sure that my clients are happy. And so I would never let that slide just because I’m doing this other thing. Jennifer Roland Cadiente Right. And I would think that being a project manager helps you project manage everything that you’re doing. Yes, Heather Brendle you definitely need to be organized. Yeah, but at the same time, you have to be willing to go with the flow. You know, especially with so I do personalized training videos, anything I train the dog in I also will video for the client so that they have that to be able to learn themselves and get tips about their personal puppy. And so, last night, or yesterday, towards the end of the day, I was going to record the last training session for a puppy, and my phone was full. And I was like, Oh, wow. And I had left myself just enough time to do everything I needed to do. And all of a sudden, I found myself with a full phone. Yep. So you do have to be flexible and kind of roll with things when tragedy strikes, and have to come up with another plan. But I do agree being a project manager and the skills that that takes, it’s just, you know, keeping everything organized, and making sure that you’re taking care of things the way you need to take care of them. Jennifer Roland Cadiente So do you see a time when you’re only doing the dog training? Heather Brendle Ah, from your lips to God’s ears? I, so we’re in this strange sort of transition time, right? We have so many possibilities that would happen. Yeah. And so you know, if my husband’s but know, when my husband’s business were to take off, you know, one car is life changing and that way. And so he’s been going to be finishing up a build this year to for us to promote. So that’s sort of something that we have on the backburner. And then I have two different expansion plans for puppy K, in my mind of possibilities. And so I just continue to learn about the business, Puppy K in general, and what my clients want, and then continue to build all of that. So that depending on what happens with my husband, and the next year, we will make determinations of how we’re going to move forward. But I would absolutely love for this to be what I do. I have this piece of me, that’s an educator, I love people. I’m an extrovert, but I also love dogs. And so the first a friend of mine asked me after I had my first paying client, she was like, how did it feel? And I said, I feel like for the first time in my life, all of my passions came together into one thing, and that I was actually accomplishing everything that I’m meant to accomplish. And I got emotional, because it felt like this, you know, aha moment. Yeah, I was educating my clients and like, giving them all these tips that I’ve learned all these years. And I was, you know, having a relationship with people, which I love, but having a relationship with their dog. And I was doing it on my own terms. And I really, truly, wholeheartedly believe in what I’m doing and what I’m offering to people. And I know that it’s changing their lives, and it’s making their lives with their dogs better. And ultimately, I’m all about that. Jennifer Roland Cadiente Yeah, and I can, you know, I can see different ways that you could expand, you know, both locally, by, you know, maybe having more dogs if you don’t have work to do outside of that, or through doing courses for people that aren’t near you, Phoenicia. Heather Brendle So, I am very passionate about being a an advocate for ethical breeding, but then also responsible rescue. So Thiago is from an ethical breeder. He’s a Rottweiler. And then tater is from a breed specific english bulldog rescue in Oklahoma. So I have passions on both sides. And so I also have this piece of me that loves to educate. And so I am actually in the middle of building an online course for the average pet owner on how to find an ethical breeder for Responsible breeding. Yeah, it’s not something that I can find that’s out there. And if you are a pet person, and you are not in the dog world, so to speak, it’s really difficult to know how to go about doing that. And over the last, I don’t know, 15 years, I have helped so many people, and pointing them in different directions of, hey, maybe you want to look at this, or them sending me a website and saying, Do you think that this is a puppy mill or whatever? And me saying, Okay, there’s 17 red flags on page one. Nobody knows that. And I came up with this idea of building this online course. And I’m lucky enough that I have a lot of connections to a lot of people who breed who show who are handlers who are dogs, sport competitors, who are trainers, you know, this is my world. And so I came up with this idea and said My friends, hey, what do you guys think? And everyone’s like, we’d love this. And I’m in, you know, final editing stages. So I’m hoping it’s something that’s going to be able to be live in the next month, and then that’ll be available on my puppy K site on my, in my education area. So, yeah, Jennifer Roland Cadiente yeah, I think that is huge. Because, um, you know, we, when we were looking for Greater Swiss Mountain Dogs in the Pacific Northwest, there were only ethical breeders to look at and so it was like adopting a kid. Yes. You know, we filled out forms and so many forms and how you decide say, like, what will happen to the dog, if you divorce or if someone in the family dies, and all of these things that you don’t really think about. You just think you’re going to buy a dog. Yeah. But they want to place it with someone that they know, is going to take care of it. And that it’s going to be a good fit, where, and it wasn’t until we got into the breed that I learned that there are a lot of puppy mills in other parts of the country that are producing dogs of this breed that are in very poor health. Heather Brendle Yes. So actually tragically for the owners. Yes. And I actually grew up in Pennsylvania, in Amish country. And so that is a huge copy puppy mill capital of the US, unfortunately. And so I have a huge amount of experience just growing up in that area. But I was lucky enough that my parents actually showed Basset Hounds before they had kids. They were in the show world. And when I was growing up, my mom was a dog groomer. And so I had this different type of experience. And I learned about different breeds. And one of my favorite pastimes, honestly still is to go to dog shows. I’ve gone to dog show since I was a kid. And so when I moved out to Arizona, we at that point had pitbulls we had adopted pitbulls, and then we had a Rottweiler that we had as well. And I entered in the pitbull community out here. And it was such a strange shock to me because I had come from Rottweilers, where had this amazing community because it’s this purebred dog. And so you have these clubs, and you have these people who’ve been breeding for 40 years that share their knowledge and, you know, all this stuff. And then I entered the pitbull rescue community. And I didn’t feel that I felt the rescue community, but not this sort of breed specific background and support. And then I kind of was looking at my rescue friends saying, Do you guys know anything about sports? Do you guys know anything about you know, doing this or doing that? Do you know anything about ethical breeding, and everyone’s looking at me, like I’m this, you know, crazy person, because I support both sides. Yeah. I spent a lot of time feeling like I lived a little double life there. But I do want the message to get out that there is we need to be making sure that the people we’re purchasing from are not contributing to the overpopulation problems in this country. And then we also need to make sure that people have the resources that they need in every way. So I have sort of everything in my life is all dogs. Jennifer Roland Cadiente Well, that does not sound like a bad life. But no, Heather Brendle no, and I’m very lucky because my husband just rolls with it. Yeah. Jennifer Roland Cadiente So what kind of dog sports do you do? So Heather Brendle my boys are kind of entering retirement area, Jennifer Roland Cadiente but I have six years old. Yeah, Heather Brendle so I have trained in agility, scent work. Barn hunt, duck diving. Wow, obedience, Rally obedience. Pretty much dip my toe in everything. Thiago is a breed champion. He got his championship back when he was a young dog. And then he has a rally title and barn hunt title and we are going to be doing some obedience. Tater though. Surprisingly, I adopted Tater and my english bulldog is actually my competition dog. He loves it. So we are actually going to a Barton hunt trial next this coming weekend. Yeah, so I just I love you know, being around people who are positive and doing fun things with their dogs. And it just really it’s my people you know, and Do we all just get together and we’re enjoying our dogs and we’re talking about our dogs. Dogs saturated? Yeah. But I don’t have kids dogs are my thing. Jennifer Roland Cadiente Yeah, and it’s fun to go to those events and volunteer, help out, you know, even if you don’t have a dog in, in the, in the mix or whatever, just just to learn about the different sports. Heather Brendle And you learn so much in the way of training and in the way of just dogs in general by doing all these different things, because it gives you a different techniques, it gives you different ideas. And I’ve really, so a friend and I, during COVID, we started down the podcast journey, I had actually never listened to a podcast before. Funny enough. And so I got looped into a dog training podcast, and I sent it to some friends. And a friend of mine was like, Oh, I’m going to listen to this. And we ended up binging like three years in? Yes. Jennifer Roland Cadiente And it’s always fun when you find a podcast that’s had a ton of episodes. I know. Because then you don’t have to wait. I know when you run out. And then you have to wait a week or sad two weeks or however long. But yes. Heather Brendle So we had all these amazing conversations. And we went down this training journey. And it’s been so much fun. And, you know, I’ve just really enjoyed that journey as well, because it was someone who wasn’t a dog sport person. It was somebody who I met through the pitbull adoption community. And it opened all of these doors for her, and then her perspective, open doors for me. And so it’s been such a really cool sort of collaboration between her and I. Jennifer Roland Cadiente Yeah, and doing a podcast with someone else can make it so much more fun. Heather Brendle Yeah, you know, and what, actually, we created our podcast, because we were having conversations about these different ideas we were learning about, on these podcasts we were listening to, and we would have these conversations over Facebook chat. And we would actually stop and say, I have a lot of big feelings about this. And I need to talk to you in person. And then we would put a pin in it. And we would get together and we would have outdoor COVID safe conversations. And all of a sudden, one day I said to her, I go, we should make a podcast about this. And she was like, I’m in I’m getting. And so it really just became this thing that we started doing. We only have six episodes that we we literally just started. But we started doing it because we just thought you know what, we really want people going back to why part of the reason I created puppy Kay, we want people to enjoy their dogs. And we want everyone to enjoy their dogs as much as their dogs enjoyed them. You know, you want it to be this symbiotic relationship that is beautiful. And we just started talking about ideas. And so we just turned it into something. Jennifer Roland Cadiente The pot and so your podcast is called sometimes their side eye. It is and if a dog person will know that dog will give you side eye if they think you’re doing anything ridiculous. And most human things are ridiculous. Yes. Heather Brendle And if you’ve ever owned a bulldog, you absolutely know what side is. Jennifer Roland Cadiente Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Okay, so you’re in, it’s available on all the podcasting places. Yes. Heather Brendle All the normal places, you know, Apple, Spotify, all the things and we do we just started an Instagram, which is at sometimes they’re sad. I. Okay. So that’s brand new. And we do have a website. That’s www dot sometimes they’re sad. i.com Jennifer Roland Cadiente All right, perfect. And then where can people find your puppy training? Yeah, information. Heather Brendle I am at Puppy K all day with no hyphens or anything on both Facebook and Instagram. And like I said, I’m in Maricopa County Phoenix suburb in Arizona. And so and then I also have a website. That’s www dot Puppie. Hyphen K. All day.com I thought it was really cute name. Yeah, Jennifer Roland Cadiente I like it. And it does describe what you do. Heather Brendle I thought it did but I get calls. I get calls about a lot of random stuff. So I thought it was really cute but I couldn’t pick Awesome. Jennifer Roland Cadiente Yeah, well, we can’t, we can’t expect everyone to get it. Heather Brendle We can’t proceed for sure. Yeah, yeah. Jennifer Roland Cadiente All right. So we’ll have links to all of those places in the show notes. So people can can find that. And do you have any sort of final thoughts you want to share with our listeners about running a side hustle, and doing it in a way that works for you, Heather Brendle I would say, my husband and I always remind each other to stay fluid. And that when things feel hard, it may actually end up presenting an opportunity. And I don’t downplay those hard moments, because they definitely happen. And they feel rough, and you have no no choice but to work through them. But sometimes, if you can remind yourself to stay fluid, and to see if there’s an opportunity and a left turn that you didn’t expect, it just might present to you something that you would have never thought of on your own, or, you know, had you not had that strife, and ultimately be something that’s even better. And so, for us, we’re lucky, you know, we enjoy being with each other, and spending time with each other, and we like each other. So we are able to kind of remind each other when things get too hard, Hey, can I do something for you? Do you need something? But also, let’s look at this and see if there’s maybe an opportunity and this hard time? Jennifer Roland Cadiente I love that. And I mean, even when things are going well? Yes, staying fluid is really important. Heather Brendle Yes. Because we’re starting two completely different types of businesses. Yes. And we chose to start two small businesses the same year, so yeah, I not. I said to my friend, somebody she had said to her to me that a friend had just bought their vacation home. In the same year, we started our businesses, and I said, Wow, she’s adulting. So well, how do I and my friend said, you started to small businesses in the same year, I’m pretty sure you’re adulting. Jennifer Roland Cadiente I know it only feels like it from the outside. Never from the inside. Heather Brendle Yeah, because I feel like on the inside, you’re just grinding. You’re, you’re doing everything that you need you, you can think of that you need to do, you’re building the website, you’re doing the social media, you’re making flyers, you know, you’re doing everything that you need to do to just grind and try to get things started. And so sometimes it’s hard to have that perspective of wow, I’m really doing something here. Jennifer Roland Cadiente Yep, yeah. And I think that’s an important thing is to take some time, every now and again, to look at how far you’ve come. Yes. Because you do get sort of dragged down into the day to day so many times, Heather Brendle my husband and I have we started last year. So about once every six to 12 weeks, depending on our schedules. We rent an Airbnb for a couple of days. And we take the dogs, and we go, and we on the way home from that trip, we plan the next one, so that we know that it’s something coming and it’s something to look forward to. And it really we call them adventures. And the dogs know when we’re packing for an adventure. But it’s just something that keeps us connected, that allows us to reset, and it’s something we really enjoy. And I think that it’s really important if you’re capable to take those moments, even if you are in the thick of it, which we are. Yeah, so just say I’m carving out this time, and I am making sure that I am recharging, and we are setting everything else aside, and we’re going to go we’re going to do this. Yeah, Jennifer Roland Cadiente yeah. And recharging. The thing that we always say, oh, yeah, I’m going to do that. Tomorrow. Yes. Next week, next month. Yes. Heather Brendle Which is exactly why on the drive we plan the next one. Jennifer Roland Cadiente Yeah. Heather Brendle that has become a new recent rule. Because we would we would push it off. And we’d say, Oh, well, we could go to this car show or Oh, we could go do this event for puppy K, or whatever the case may be. And you know, you you are living, eating, breathing, these things that you’re trying to build because you’re so passionate about them. And so we just try to make sure that we’re taking time. Yeah. Jennifer Roland Cadiente I love it. All right. Well, thanks so much for joining us. This week. Again, like I said, we will have all the places you can find Heather in. the show notes, Heather Brendle I appreciate it. Jennifer Roland Cadiente Our top takeaways from today are, when the universe tells you it’s time, just listen. Find what works for you, if you don’t want to work weekends, see how you can make that work. You know, Heather has done a really great job of making things happen in a way that works for her day job, her business, and for her free time. And I think that’s really great. Then make sure that you’re staying fluid. You know, if things are working, keep doing more of that, if they’re not working, look at different ways that you can try to accomplish the same things and reach your goals with your side hustle. And finally, take time to look at how far you’ve come. Sometimes we can get really buried, you know, in the weeds of what we’re doing every day, you know, trying to balance everything that we forget to see the successes that we’ve had. So make sure that you’re taking time to reflect and look back at where you used to be where you are now. And how you can keep doing more of the same to get to where you want to go. And stay tuned in the next couple of weeks because we’ve got some really exciting things coming some courses, some more coaching options. So just I look forward to hearing what you think of the things that we’re bringing out. If you sign up for the email list, you’ll get access to the resource library, which has some great tools for our side hustlers. I hope to see you on the email list, and I’ll talk to you next week. Would you like to be featured on the Grow Your Side Hustle podcast? If so,