The Productive Life : 2026

Monday, February 2, 2026

The Challenge with Everyone Starting a Side Hustle

For: Management & Project Managers

I've been observing our mission to ignite agency with participants through side hustles, and I wanted to share some thoughts on how we might strengthen our approach. This comes from a place of learning and reflection, not criticism.

Starting a side hustle is essentially starting a business. I don't claim to be better than most Enviro Champs. But I have exposed myself to more business books and tried more ideas than most participants. Thus far, I've failed for 5+ years, but what has been working—or what I'm naturally drawn to—is investing my money (capital).

This short diagnosis focuses on different temperaments and offers a contribution toward avoiding the mistake of placing 1,000+ people into the single category of "start your own side hustle."

Two Frameworks to Guide Participants Better

1. The Four Quadrants (Robert Kiyosaki)

E = Employee → S = Self-Employed → B = Business Owner → I = Investor

Our current approach: Get everyone toward S (self-employed side hustles)

Better approach: Help participants identify where they naturally fit, then coach accordingly. (Needs more effort, of course.)

2. Leverage (Naval Ravikant)

Three types of leverage to build wealth:

Labor: Other people working for you (e.g., to scale factory outputs or manufacturing goods). Still works, but complicated + you need loans to begin.
Capital: Money working for you. Investments, assets, things that generate returns while you sleep. Powerful but you need money to start.
Code/Media: Software you write once and sell forever. Content you create once and distribute infinitely. This is the new leverage, and it's the most accessible. Products with no marginal cost of replication. But also highly competitive.

Real Examples from Our Programme

Example 1: The Artist's Girlfriend (Imbali - strategic employee)

I bought paintings from a guy in Imbali (not in SEF). His girlfriend (in SEF) showed me his work.

Current pressure: She's trying to compete selling hot dogs and perfumes.

Better fit: Become his employee/marketer—create online content that attracts buyers. For every sale, she reports shared profits on the SEF Monthly Income Tracker because she's directly involved. This is labor leverage.

Example 2: Ayanda Zondi (Plumber - Self-employed)

Currently under SEF but also self-employed. Posted on DUCT socials.

Next level: Train 2+ ECs on his methods and 1 marketer. They become his labor. He becomes a business owner whose income doesn't stop when he's absent. Each trained EC reports individual profits from jobs they assisted on. This is business ownership.

Example 3: My Investing (Capital Leverage)

Current monthly income (from dividends): $2.45 Real-Estate Fund + $0.50 Microsoft = ~R53/month.

Not impressive. Wouldn't make the Profit Leaderboard top 10.

But: In 5 years of consistent feeding, that R53 becomes R500-R800/month. This is capital leverage. Feed your investments for the first half, they'll feed you in the second half.
I'd do terribly selling hot dogs or plumbing—not my temperament.

My Porfolio + Individual Companies that are Growing.

The Reality Check

Mission: All 1,000 ECs start businesses

Problem: I still struggle to support my neighbor selling eggs (R90 for 30) when Checkers sells them for R69 plus discount cards, plus I get everything else I need in one trip. Efficiency wins.

Suggestion

Don't force everyone into self-employment (Quadrant S).

Instead:

Identify temperaments: Who's a natural employee? Business builder? Investor?
Match strengths to quadrants: Some thrive as skilled laborers in someone else's business. Some build teams. Some deploy capital.
Expand "side hustle" definition: Include collaborative ventures (artist + marketer), apprenticeships (plumber + trainee), and capital deployment (investing stipends)

The goal isn't 1,000 hot dog stands. The goal is 1,000 people achieving self-reliance through income leverage that fits their temperament —while learning business skills, artistry, and value creation."

I hope this helps.

Sam Madlala

Thursday, January 1, 2026

2025 Powerful Insights

Read more books than those who have a formal education, developing this into a lifelong habit. — Robert Greene

Please, read books. Not just captions, or carousel posts, or what made it to the top of your feed. Read books. Long ones. Complex ones. You cannot build a mind with weight on the back of social media ephemerals. Intellectual depth demands patience. — Twitter

You don't look like your goals. You look like your habits. Effort never lies. — Twitter

Do so much work it would be unreasonable that you don’t succeed. — Alex Hormozi

The old paradigm: go to a good school, get a degree and get a good job... is dead. The new paradigm: find your purpose, start a company, create and lead is our future. Entrepreneurship is the only future career. — Peter H Diamandis

The most productive periods of your life in terms of original ideas and initiatives were probably when you were lonely, broke, with no one to believe in you, and no one to support you, that’s when you grew the most, because you had no other choice: these moments of despair are actually opportunities, you just need to recognize them and use them to your advantage. — Orange Book

“The hardest thing to teach a student—and the hardest thing to believe consistently—is that there is nothing ‘out there’ to go and get. There is no part, no career, no opportunity for which you should be searching and scrounging and coveting. All of the preparation is within, and you keep yourself mentally and physically fit; you remain generous with yourself and others; you stay deeply in study about your craft. Whatever is yours will then arrive.” — Marian Seldes

"Evil is whatever distracts.” — Franz Kafka

“Hell is other people.” — Jean-Paul Sartre

How to win at life

Commit to doing a hard thing

Do the hard thing

Feel good about doing the hard thing

Become someone who enjoys doing hard things

— Mark Manson

Unhealthy addictions happen when you have too much free time and not enough purpose; no one who has a clear idea of where they want to be ten years from now would voluntarily reduce their chances of success. — Orange Book

Even if not everything that we have learned is explicitly used, the accumulated knowledge gives a hidden resonance to our words, and this fullness earns the confidence it inspires. It is a great secret: to give radiance to an idea through the twilight that surrounds it. It is a further secret to preserve its power of convergence in spite of that radiance.

What you have failed in now will prepare you to succeed in something else—to succeed, ultimately, in the way that everyone who is worth anything, and who truly persists, is sure to do. — The Intellectual Life

Acting with Power: ⭐⭐⭐ ****“In the theater, what it means to give a powerful performance is to accept and own the truth of what it means to be a human being: to be strong and weak, accomplished and fallible, powerful and powerless, all at once. This, actually, is the challenge that professional actors face every time they get in character. To play any part authentically, an actor must accept the character without judgment. And this is true for the rest of us as well. By accepting that each of us is all of these things, by learning to value all of these truths and show all of these sides of ourselves when appropriate, and by handling our mistakes with grace and equanimity, we become more resilient, less ruled by shame and self-loathing, and, ultimately, more powerful. Ironically, this is where authenticity comes from: not trying to be more yourself, but learning to accept more of yourself.” — Deborah Gruenfeld

2025 Best Writings: In here you’ll find book summaries, quotes, and powerful paragraphs similar to the above. Approach it with a notebook. IT’S POWERFUL.

Sam Madlala