Balancing side hustles + a full-time job
“Wait- so you have a clothing line, a wetsuit company, work a full-time job, help manage your family’s business, do content creation on the side, AND manage social media?!”
The answer is always, “I guess I love chaos?”
Truly, I probably do. And maybe it has something to do with my ADHD, but working on one thing has never been normal for me, and something I can never see myself doing. The biggest question is how the hell do I do it all? I have no clue. I personally think my ambition is one of my biggest blessings and biggest curses.
As a child of 2 immigrant parents who came here on boats during the Vietnam War, it’s crazy to see how they’ve been able to make a life for themselves as entrepreneurs. From my early memories, my dad started his career as a taxi driver in San Francisco, and my mom was operating a grocery store with my grandma in Oakland’s Chinatown. As I got older, my dad transitioned into working as a full-time stock trader and my mom as a bookkeeper. Now, they’re able to build their portfolio in commercial/hospitality real estate, and it taught me so much about hard work and where it can get you.
With a prestigious education, and is equipped with more resources than my parents ever had (i.e knowing technology and English), it obviously is a lot of pressure to level up my family’s legacy. I have all the tools I need in my toolkit- of course, I should be able to take my life and my family’s legacy to the next level. My grandpa owned an auto shop, along with other small real estate holdings, and my dad started running Airbnbs and short-term rentals- what will I do as the primary Tran matriarch in my family? The reason why I bring this up is that sexism is also very prevalent in my family, and people think I have “Daddy’s Money,” which is far from the truth. I grew up around guys my entire life- no kidding; my dad has 8 brothers and I have a brother myself. That added pressure of being a young female building my own name under my dad’s shadow is another challenge I face. In my head, the main thing I’m always thinking is “How do I not f*ck this up? How do I prove them wrong? For myself and for my future family.”
As a result, this is probably why I’m juggling so many things at once. I think the key thing to understand about why I do so many things is my personality. I’m a very curious person and live many different lives. I mean, who wouldn’t want to live out all of their alter egos? I’ve had the amazing opportunity to travel to different cities for influencer work and started 2 companies before the age of 25, and it’s been a whirlwind. Ever since I was a kid, I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur. Though back then I wanted to be one of the suits-type-entrepreneur, and I have shaped myself into a beach bum boss instead…. Oh, how the tables have turned….
Anyway back to the main point. The key to being a good entrepreneur is exposing yourself to as much as possible. If your entire marketing team falls into shambles, what are you going to do in the meantime with no marketing experience? The same goes for engineering or production, etc. You have to know a little bit about everything, which is why I take any interesting opportunities to learn and master different skills. Of course, every entrepreneur should have their bread and butter (mine being marketing), but a tool belt of different skills is necessary. Growing up with immigrant parents who lacked a proper education, it was also challenging not to have guidance or exposure to different careers outside of your traditional trifecta of being a lawyer, doctor, or following some other prestigious career. I never knew what was out there and all the possibilities, so I had to try a little bit of everything to expose myself.
Now am I saying go do all the things I’m doing? Absolutely not. I’m definitely doing over-the-top things and honestly, sometimes I wish I could focus on 1-2 things, it’d be way easier. Truth be told, I’ve been burnt out one too many times. However, I am saying you should be open-minded to different opportunities and how they can shape you as a jack of all trades, a manager, a CEO, and more. Though if you want to do it all, and you truly want to do it all, you’ll always find a way to make it work and find normalcy in the chaos of it all.
The other question I get a lot is why not take my wetsuit company, LOCO, full-time instead of working your day job? There are 3 answers I have to this:
I, unfortunately, do not have a piggy bank to fund LOCO, so gotta pay the bills somehow!
I think I still have a lot to learn, especially about how to be a manager and a good CEO.
I want to continue mastering my bread and butter- marketing.
End of the day, it’s a huge risk I'm ready to take on yet
One of the main things I’ve learned in the midst of all this is what makes or breaks a good CEO is arrogance and humility. Through all the side hustles and chaos that I throw myself into, I’ve learned in many different circumstances how my arrogance and lack of humility at times have cost me financially, time-wise, and resources wise (which as a startup, you want to preserve as many resources as you can). I could go out and be my own CEO at the moment and learn these things along the way of course- there are a million different ways to learn life lessons. Though it may take longer and I’m taking risks on my own dime and name. Not to say let’s waste other companies’/people’s resources and time, but it is a safer place to fail and to fail forward.
Long story short, my answer is an extensive combination of things. Family, self-doubt, ego, curiosity, and ambition are how I find a way to balance it all. There really is no guide to balancing the things you do to get to where you want to be in life besides doing it. It’s like Maverick says in TopGun, “If you think, you’ll die.” Ok a little dramatic- obviously you won’t die and you should definitely think about the important decisions, but generally yes, don’t overthink it and just do it.