Growing up in Nara, Japan, one food that was a constant in my home was tofu. It’s truly been a lifelong staple. 

When I was a baby, once I could eat solids, my mom commonly prepared two dishes for me — one was a mix of tofu, rice porridge, sweet potato, kabocha (squash), and nori (seaweed) paste, and the other was miso soup with rice porridge.

I carried on that culinary tradition with my two kids when they were small. I never bought any ultra-processed baby food; instead I opted for tofu. It saved me time, money and stress, and it was a way for us to connect with our roots while living in the U.S.

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When we arrived here in 1994, tofu was harder to come by. If I could only find shelf-stabilized packaged versions, I kept about two dozen of them in the house at any given time. Even today, I always have several packs of tofu in my refrigerator.

In Japan, tofu is enjoyed by folks of all ages. My in-laws are 95 and 88 years old. They still live in Nara, and have tofu, natto (fermented soybeans) and miso soup every day. They attribute their longevity and immunity, in part, to that daily routine.

Here is why tofu is my No. 1 kitchen must-have.

Tofu is traditionally made from soybeans and nigari, the liquid that remains after removing the salt from seawater. In the U.S., calcium sulfate is often used as the main coagulant. 

Either way, tofu contains all the essential amino acids that meat, poultry, eggs, fish and dairy do — but without cholesterol, since it is plant based.

It also is rich in calcium, iron, vitamins, fiber and isoflavones, a type of plant estrogen. 

Studies have shown that the consumption of tofu can help reduce the risk of heart disease, fight cancer and reduce the risk of bone loss. 

It takes 70.6 kilograms of greenhouse emissions to produce just one kilogram of beef, but only 3.2 kilograms of emissions to produce the same amount of tofu.

I typically purchase 14 ounces of organic tofu for $2 or $3, which is often much less than the same amount of poultry or beef would cost me at the grocery store. 

To me, it is simple math. In the course of the week, if you were to swap out one or two beef burgers for a tofu burgers, you would feel better, pay less for groceries and do something small to help the environment. 

Tofu has a very natural, subtle flavor, so it can be matched with just about any cuisine or dish. Since it’s soft, you can also prepare it without a knife and cutting board.

As a nutritionist and cooking instructor, I am always developing new recipes, and tofu makes it very easy to experiment.

I serve tofu in a variety of ways: pan-fried or in soups and salads, in nimono (slow cooked roots and veggies), dumplings, veggie pancakes, vegan curry, burgers, cabbage rolls, mochi and ice cream, to name a few. 

My go-to lunch is a tofu miso soup with seasonal roots and leafy vegetables, seaweed, ginger and goji berries. Generally, I make a large pot and return to it throughout the week, serving it with multigrain rice, natto and nukazuke (pickles). 

My other perfect, simple meal is hiyayakko. It is cold tofu — usually the silken or soft variety — topped with nori, sesame seeds, ginger, shiso, scallions, natto and a little bit of soy sauce. If you prefer it warm, you can always pop it into the microwave for one to two minutes and then add your toppings. 

I often call tofu my best friend for happy living. I hope you are inspired to incorporate it into your kitchen, too. 

Michiko Tomioka, MBA, RDN, is a certified nutritionist and longevity expert. Born and raised in Nara, Japan, her approach focuses on a plant-based diet. She has worked in nutritional roles at substance recovery centers, charter schools and food banks. Follow her on Instagram @michian_rd. 

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This story is part of CNBC Make It’s The Moment series, where highly successful people reveal the critical moment that changed the trajectory of their lives and careers, discussing what drove them to make the leap into the unknown.

Jyoti Bansal got to live out a scenario that most people can only dream about: He built his own startup, got an acquisition offer he couldn’t refuse and sold it for billions.

Today, it’s among his biggest regrets.

Bansal, 46, is the founder of software developer AppDynamics, which was preparing to go public in 2017 when tech giant Cisco swooped in at the last minute, offering to buy the company for $3.7 billion. The deal made hundreds of the startup’s employees, Bansal included, instantly wealthy. But what should have been a joyous moment became Bansal’s “saddest day,” he tells CNBC Make It.

Bansal had long dreamed of becoming an entrepreneur, and worked as a Silicon Valley software engineer for eight years until he got a Green Card — he was born in India — and launched his own startup. He built AppDynamics around the biggest problems he faced as an engineer, creating tools for troubleshooting outages and other software applications flaws.

“When I started [AppDynamics], I didn’t think about a financial outcome,” he says. “I just thought in terms of: This problem needs to be solved.”

AppDynamics developed a reputation for helping big companies fix their wonky apps. But after selling it to Cisco, Bansal realized that he hadn’t finished the job at AppDynamics — which could’ve become a “much bigger” company, he says — and he was aimless without a big problem to focus on.

After six months of traveling the world, Bansal launched a San Francisco-based startup called Harness, which also makes tools for software developers. It was most recently valued at $3.7 billion in 2022, according to the company, the same amount AppDynamics sold for.

Here, Bansal discusses how he made the difficult decision to sell AppDynamics, his near-immediate regrets and why he’d almost certainly turn down a similar offer for his startup today.

CNBC Make It: It’s January 2017. You’ve just sold AppDynamics for $3.7 billion. How are you feeling in that triumphant moment?

Bansal: We announced the sale, and then we had a huge party at our office in San Francisco. Folks from Cisco were there. It was a very happy celebration.

But walking home after, I was sad and depressed. I spent nine years of my life fully dedicated to what we were building there. Suddenly, it’s the end of a chapter.

That’s the bittersweet part of selling your company. It’s a great outcome in a lot of ways, but it’s the end of a chapter, or end of a book, in many ways too. I was kind of lost.

What was your initial reaction to Cisco’s last-minute offer?

It was definitely a surprise. We were about to go public, and we weren’t stopping our IPO. [The AppDynamics board had] six days to figure out how we were going to go on this.

People think: “Oh, that must have been the easiest decision to make.” But it was the hardest decision. For three days, I got maybe three hours of sleep [per night]. We were getting on calls and figuring out what to do, getting all of the point of views.

I was chairman of the board and the biggest shareholder, so I had to drive a lot of those conversations.

What were the biggest factors you considered?

Is it really possible in that timeframe? Is it the right thing to do? What’s the joint story of the two products and the two companies? Does [the acquisition] allow us to continue the vision of what we set out to do?

We could be part of a bigger platform, like Cisco, and their customer base and market. That’s one factor. The second is culture, what kind of home your employees get. Cisco, to their credit, did an excellent job giving a high degree of independence to the AppDynamics unit, I’d say.

The third factor is financial. Is it the right thing for the stockholders — founders, investors and employees? As the only founder, I was fortunate enough [that] any outcome financially would be fine for me. [But] we had about 300 or so employees who made more than a million dollars in the final offer we accepted. We had dozens of employees with $5 million-plus outcomes.

That’s life-changing, so it all became risk versus reward.

You seemed to believe you made the right decision on paper. So, why feel sad or lost? 

When I started AppDynamics, if someone said, “Your company could be worth $100 million,” I would have said, “Oh, that’s mind-blowing success.”

[After the sale] I realized that I really enjoyed building the company, creating products, solving problems, competing in the market, every element of company building that I’d gone through. It was intense and stressful, but I really enjoyed it. I also felt like we didn’t fully finish what we could’ve done.

Everyone told me, “You should retire. Go on the beach. What else do you need to do?” That was my first instinct, as well. I wanted to trek in the Himalayas, hike Machu Picchu, do a safari in Africa, see the fjords in Norway.

In six months, my bucket list was done. And I started to realize: That’s not it for me.

You’re currently weighing a potential IPO for Harness. Hypothetically, what would you do if you got a great last-minute offer to sell it?

We’d have to entertain the offer, but I know the answer is most likely no. 

[At AppDynamics] it felt like we were closer to the finish line. At Harness, we want to get to billions of dollars of revenue. We’re expanding into new markets, new products, solving more problems, and we create the organizational culture that does that. That’s what I want to do, as long as we can.

It feels like our journey is just starting, so it doesn’t make sense to sell to someone else. That’s a big part of what would drive a decision. We have so much [room] to grow from here.

So, the answer is no — unless something crazy happens.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

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This story is part of CNBC Make It’s Six-Figure Side Hustle series, where people with lucrative side hustles break down the routines and habits they’ve used to make money on top of their full-time jobs. Got a story to tell? Let us know! Email us at AskMakeIt@cnbc.com.

Emily Odio-Sutton remembers the exact moment she made her side hustle’s first sale.

She was in the lobby of a gymnasium at a kid’s birthday party near her home in Melbourne, Florida. One of her daughters had just taken a bite of Publix birthday cake, when her phone pinged: She’d sold a $22 T-shirt with a speech pathology-themed design on e-commerce marketplace Etsy.

“I can vividly see the cake, the balloons and remember thinking, ‘This can work,’” Odio-Sutton, 36, tells CNBC Make It.

Odio-Sutton started looking for a side hustle in 2022, after realizing her 9-to-5 job as an internal operations manager at a teachers’ book publishing company would prevent her from picking her daughter up from kindergarten. She started a print-on-demand shop, using Canva software to create designs for Etsy-friendly products like T-shirts and candles. Whenever a customer places an order, a manufacturer called Printify prints the design onto the product and ships it out for her.

Her Etsy store brought in $220,300 last year, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. Odio-Sutton estimates that 30% of those sales are profit. She’s used her side hustle earnings to pay off her entire $20,000 student loan balance, start investing in the stock market, open college saving accounts for her daughters and take a cruise with her husband, she says.

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Last year, Odio-Sutton opened a second Etsy shop — selling downloadable event materials, like sign-up sheets and schedule templates — that’s brought in $17,200 in sales so far in 2024. And in June, she moved into a part-time role at the publishing company that makes $40 per hour, 20 hours per week.

She spends 10 hours per week on her Etsy shops, and often works from her laptop while sitting at her daughters’ gymnastics and swimming practice, she says. She’d prefer not to name her shops, to prevent potential copycats, she adds.

Here, Odio-Sutton discusses how to start a side hustle like hers, her formula for quick-selling designs and the biggest mistakes that she sees beginners make.

CNBC Make It: Do you think this side hustle is replicable? What are its starting costs?

Odio-Sutton: Yes, and I think that’s because there are so many ways to do it. Print-on-demand and digital-resource side hustles on platforms like Etsy have a built-in audience. It’s low risk, and you can really experiment with things and learn and take your time.

When I say low-risk, I mean you can launch a whole business for under $40. Canva Pro is $10 per month, Etsy charges $15 to open a shop and you can download research tools like eRank for $6 per month.

The biggest risk is time investment, because you do have to spend time to learn — and to get your shop established — to earn money.

A lot of people tout print-on-demand as a good source of passive income. What’s your workload like?

I have a good system for keeping my print-on-demand workload fairly light. I’ll batch design 10 candle labels one day, then make the listings for them on Etsy the next day.

My digital products shop, which has a lot of event-related printables like schedule templates and invitations, is almost entirely passive at this point. It’s limited customer service [compared to print-on-demand].

When you order a print-on-demand product on Etsy — for, say, a bachelorette party — you quickly see a lot of shops to choose from. Why do you think yours stands out?

You really can make a very good living by just having simple designs.

I’m not creative. I’m not a graphic designer. I follow what I’d call a template method: I do a lot of black-and-white designs, a lot of plain text. Then, if I have a template that sells really well, I’ll just go in and swap in new words.

I’ll go to ChatGPT and say, “Give me the top 100 careers” or “Top 100 hobbies in the U.S.” From there, I’ll do some design research on Etsy and Pinterest. My goal is more an emotional connection to the item, whether it’s funny, sentimental or relatable, as opposed to something really trendy.

I also Google memes. Like, I’ll look up HR memes. I had a social worker-themed candle about data and reports. You’re not going to find that at Target, or anywhere else.

You also work with a business, Gold City Ventures, to coach aspiring Etsy sellers. What’s the most common mistake most of your clients make?

First, they don’t narrow down enough. Is Etsy oversaturated? Yes, but only with generic listings. If you post a “mom” shirt, it’s going to be very hard to stand out. If you post a “twin mom Halloween” shirt, you’ll have a better chance.

The second piece is thinking you can post 20 designs, and that’s enough. You have to try, and fail, a lot, to figure what works. I have like 1,500 designs that I retired, because they never sold.

You have to invest time, research, experiment and stick with it to be successful.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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When I first heard about the concept of passive income in my 20s, I laughed at the idea. Growing up, I had never met anyone who made money this way. 

My mindset completely changed after a conversation I had with a woman I really looked up to. She earned passive income from her real estate business. Seeing someone who I knew and trusted achieve this seemingly impossible goal, made me feel like I could do it too — although it took some time to finally get there myself. 

Four years ago, I was dealing with postpartum depression and struggling with a 9-to-5 job in higher education administration that didn’t bring me joy. I decided to start selling digital products like business templates and party games on Etsy. To my surprise and delight, the side hustle started to take off. 

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As a 36-year-old mom of two, I now make $10,000 in passive income or more every month from four passive income streams. 

Here is my best advice for starting a successful side hustle: 

Passive income doesn’t mean no work. It means front-loaded work that pays off later. No matter what kind of side hustle or passive income venture you are starting, thorough research can help you avoid costly mistakes.

Many people get excited about their first idea or opportunity and jump at it, without running the numbers. For example, when I first started on Etsy I made budgeting templates. I found that these didn’t sell very well because there was low demand and high competition. 

It was only after I took the time to research keywords and trends through Pinterest and Google Trends in the space, that I started to create more specific — and more successful — items for the shop. 

I highly recommend doing financial projections and understanding the expenses you’ll have before you ever spend a penny. One of the main reasons businesses fail, or never begin to thrive, is because they run out of money. 

In many cases, this problem can be predicted and dealt with proactively if you take the time early on to project your expenses.

Building passive income streams requires an investment of time, and many people underestimate how much time they need to allocate upfront. 

It’s easy to get distracted by day-to-day responsibilities (especially as a parent or full-time employee), but they’ll never come to fruition if you don’t make time to work on your passive income projects. 

Schedule dedicated time each week to focus on and stick to your passive income goals. For example, when I first started, I would spend 8-10 hours each week developing the skills I needed for my business, and I did this for months. 

Once I became serious, I started spending 20-30 hours a week actively creating products. Now I spend as a little as 15 minutes a day working on it, responding to messages and client inquiries. 

Studying successful passive income earners has taught me that success doesn’t come from quick wins but rather slow and steady progress toward a specific goal over time. In short, consistency is key.

The beauty of passive income is that it allows you to earn money without everyday active involvement. Automation is your best friend in this process. 

Because I sell digital products on Etsy, the platform comes with the ability to deliver automatically once a payment is processed. I use Convertkit to automate my email marketing.

Automation can save you time and help your income streams remain steady. I’ve found that failing to automate means more manual and mental work, and less freedom.

No one achieves success entirely on their own. Seeking help from mentors, financial advisors, and experts can significantly boost your chances of success. 

I dabbled with side hustles for years, but it wasn’t until I found a course by Gold City Ventures while listening to a podcast that taught me how to sell digital products on Etsy that I successfully created a passive income business.

After taking the course, I was able to get my business up and running and making money in about a month. It took about nine months before I started making passive income consistently. 

Surround yourself with people who have the knowledge and experience you lack. They can offer valuable insights, keep you accountable, and help you avoid pitfalls. 

Most importantly, they can encourage you when you feel like giving up.

Relying on a single source of income can leave you vulnerable to market fluctuations and unexpected changes. I’ve talked to so many business owners who are still recovering from the effects of the pandemic because they put all their eggs in one basket: Their business. 

My passive income portfolio includes stocks, bonds, real estate, and my small business, which sells digital products on Etsy and on my website. 

Diversification is essential to spreading the risk and increasing the chances of consistent returns.

I’ve seen countless people get stuck in the planning phase, waiting for the “right moment” that never comes. I’ve made that mistake too.

I credit studying positive psychology in grad school with helping me break free of those fears. Marilee Adams’s book “Change Your Questions, Change Your Life” helped me develop more of a growth mindset and change my internal dialogue from asking questions like, “Why bother?” to more optimistic ones like, “What can I learn?” 

The truth is, there’s no perfect time to start, and failure is always a possibility. However, the sooner you take action in a smart way, the sooner you can learn, and the higher your chances of reaping the rewards. 

Even small steps, like starting to research and educating yourself, can lead to significant progress over time. It’s vital not to let fear of failure or analysis paralysis keep you from starting your journey to passive income.

Rachel Jimenez is an entrepreneur, professor and mom of two, with a passion for helping others achieve their personal, professional and passive income goals. She runs an Etsy store as well as a blog, Money Hacking Mama, where she shares financial wisdom and practical advice for women navigating their careers, businesses and life.

Want to make extra money outside of your day job? Sign up for CNBC’s online course How to Earn Passive Income Online to learn about common passive income streams, tips to get started and real-life success stories.

There’s one thing successful people do that helps them achieve their many goals, says David Rock, founder and CEO of the NeuroLeadership Institute, a science-based leadership company: They “manage their brain better.”

Highly successful people “make better use of the limited decision-making ability that they have,” he says. They’ve also “worked out when it’s good to switch off trying to solve a problem and just let their unconscious solve it.”

With so many demands on your time and attention, it can be hard to know how to use your brain in the most optimal way.

Here’s an exercise Rock suggests trying — and why it can help.

When you’re trying to get a better handle on how to use your brain, Rock suggests “paying attention to your attention.” He describes this as noticing “patterns in the quality of your thinking across the day.”

For example, he says, maybe you “notice how amazingly focused you are in the morning and how incredibly slow you are in the afternoon.”

Like many people, you might feel more clear-headed in the morning because you’re still unencumbered by the many fires you’ll have to put out and tasks you’ll have to take on throughout the day. By the end of the day, however, your head may be filled with the various to-dos that have popped up, and it can be harder to focus.

Once you’ve taken stock of the quality of your thinking throughout the day, you can start scheduling it out accordingly.

If your mind is clearest in the morning, use that time to do deeper and more complex thinking, says Rock, “because you can just focus better.”

Save less creative work for the moments when you tend to be more distracted.

For many people, Rock recommends doing “creative work first, urgent and important work second, email and everything else third.” All of this can ensure you’re applying your brain’s most powerful moments to the tasks that truly require them.

Rock, who researched this habit in his book “Your Brain at Work,” finds that people who lean into it are “happier, more productive, less stressed.”

“They just have more brain power,” he says.

Want to master your money this fall? Sign up for CNBC’s new online course. We’ll teach you practical strategies to hack your budget, reduce your debt, and grow your wealth. Start today to feel more confident and successful. Use code EARLYBIRD for an introductory discount of 30% off, now extended through September 30, 2024, for the back-to-school season.

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