Welcome to Don’t Hide Your Hustle, a new series on Finding Delight that explores the myriad of ways to make a living in 2017. I’m asking folks to share how they hustle over the course of one work-day (which usually extends far beyond a 9 – 5 situation).

Today, I present you with Emily’s story. Emily blogs about all things career over on cultivitae.com. After a whole lotta long days, she turned her career coaching side-hustle into a full-time gig and now travels the world by day and works by night (thanks to wifi and time zone differences). Let’s check out her hustle!

Hi, everyone! My name is Emily Liou and I am the founder of CultiVitae, a career coaching company that helps millennials in transition reach their career goals. I started CultiVitae (which means Cultivate Your Life, a play on words from Curriculum Vitae) because I wanted to empower the underemployed and help others navigate through one of the largest aspects in our lives: career!

When I was in college, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I just chugged along and eventually graduated while thinking the world was going to be my oyster! That thought quickly faded in my first sales job when I realized selling expensive undergraduate programs for an online university wasn’t my jam. I could have really used a career coach back then but didn’t realize they existed.

Luckily, I fell into recruiting shortly thereafter. As a recruiter and HR professional, I was able to be on the other end of the interview table for once and that was so enlightening. I recruited for Fortune 500 giants to Silicon Valley startups and saw firsthand what companies were looking for – but most importantly – not looking for.

One of the things I wanted to do as a recruiter was give advice and feedback to everyone who wasn’t given an offer or an interview. But I couldn’t. It wasn’t my job and we were trained to give a politically correct canned response. Fast forward six years later, I started to consult on the side. From giving free career advice to my friends to eventually building a following out of trusted referrals, CutiVitae was born. (Here’s an article I wrote an article about the 5 steps I took to turn my hobby into an online business.) In my first year, I helped over 150 professionals all over the world figure out how to conquer their dream jobs! It is extremely rewarding and my favorite job yet! Here’s a day in my life…

Friday

1:35 pm – Just landed in the Keflavik airport in Iceland! One of my favorite things about owning my own business is the freedom to work anywhere with reliable wifi connection and a laptop. Because of this, I can take advantage of cheap air flights. $300 round trip ticket sale from LAX to KEF? Yes, please! I can’t wait to blog about my adventures over on my travel blog Happynfull.

2:00 pm – Just got my luggage and bought a bus ticket to take me to the city Reykjavik (thank goodness for autocomplete). 

2:05 pm – Stepping outside of the airport terminal… what is this white fluffy stuff falling from the sky? Oh my goodness it’s snow! My SoCal/Arizona background can’t contain my excitement. This is the first time I’ve seen snow falling from the sky!

2:15 pm – As we take off from the airport, I can’t help but stare outside my bus window and look at all of the beautiful snow pile on the ground. The terrain out here is so beautiful with so much open farmland. I admire the hairy horses and sheep, and take mental snapshots of the rocks that are stacked on top of one another for what seems miles and miles.

2:30 pm – Just realized this bus has wifi! Woohoo. I thank T-Mobile again for giving me free international data. I boot up my email and see I have 3 new client meetings scheduled and questions from 2 clients about their job search strategy needs. I respond to each of them just in the knick of time as I hear the bus driver shout out we have arrived at my stop.

3:00 pm – I check into my Airbnb. I admire the Scandinavian design. Everything here is bought from Ikea but I love the simple, clean lines. I am admiring the kitchen when I realize our host was gracious enough to stock us up with fresh ground coffee beans and a French press. Woohoo! I know I will be depleting this fast.

3:30 pm – My fiancé and I are starving. We decide to explore the town a little in search of food. It stopped snowing but since we’re cold, a restaurant called Noodle Station catches our eyes as we see people slurping noodle soup through the window. I order a Vegetarian noodle soup dish because the meat is $6 more and I already feel like $10 for a bowl is expensive.

4:30 pm – We head to the Tourist Centre and chat up a nice man who says he is off shift but would be happy to help us. What customer service! 🙂 We tell him how many days we are here and he looks up the weather conditions and helps us plan our itinerary. Apparently, 3 of the days are going to be rain/snow so those are good city/museum days (and also working inside the Airbnb or a coffee shop). There are 3 days of sunshine so I plan on taking full advantage of the good weather. I look at my calendar and rearrange my schedule to plan accordingly. Luckily, my calls are already pre-scheduled on the bad weather condition days.

5:00 pm – We decide to explore for a few more hours just to get the lay of the land. I find a bookstore and am inspired by the design and layout. It reminds me I need to update my social media and I snap a photo for Instagram.

 6:30 pm – Tired from our flight and the cold, we head back to our Airbnb. One of my biggest goals this week is to rebrand my website. My graphic designer just sent me back my logos so I update my website with the new colors to match. 

7:30 pm – Website looks a lot cleaner now! I quickly save before I lose all of my edits. Next on my list is compiling my weekly newsletter. I send out to my subscribers every Sunday. I just received 23 new subscribers so I’m happy about that and want to make sure I deliver the most useful content!

8:30 pm – Happy with my newsletter, I decide to tackle a client’s resume. I put on my Spotify playlist and the first song that comes up is Ryan Leslie’s “Gibberish”. I am so productive when I’m in my groove. 

9:30 pm – Woohoo! Finished the resume edits. I email it over and realize I have 5 unread emails. I respond to these, too. I’ve learned I’m most productive by limiting the amount of times I open my email each day, but when I do open them up, I respond in chunks. 0 unread messages is my favorite thing! Well, only after receiving messages. If it were always at 0 I’d be discouraged. Keep the emails coming! 🙂

10:00 pm – The flight was exhausting and I didn’t sleep well. I decide it’s best to shower and get ready for bed as we have an early departure tomorrow for a tour taking us to the Golden Circle to see waterfalls, geysers, and a national park.

Saturday

4:00 am – Oh no. Jetlag. I can’t seem to sleep so I decide it’s a good idea to work on a client’s resume. It’s actually quite a therapeutic thing. This time, I put on Light’s acoustic album hoping it will help me sleep.

5:00 am – Very much still awake. I decide to work on another client’s LinkedIn profile audit.

5:30 am – Woohoo! Just finished. OK. I really should go to bed.

7:30 am – Waking up very excited as today is our 7 hour tour to explore Iceland! Feeling good that I got out several clients’ requests so I can focus on photographing this beautiful country for the rest of the day.

Thanks so much for sharing your hustle, Emily! Do you guys have any questions for her? Do any of you hustle while traveling the globe?  

P.S. Are you a hustler willing to share your story? Let’s chat! I would love to know how you’re making money while following your dreams in 2017. Shoot me an email — ebeth.berger@gmail.com. Thanks!