Back in 2007, I dropped out of college, despite owing about $50,000 in student loans. Believe it or not, it was the smart choice for me at the time. 

None of my friends who’d graduated were landing jobs. I knew I’d need to go even further into debt to finish my degree. And I’d already landed a great position as a public policy assistant. 

Still, starting out on such shaky financial ground was far from ideal.

Feeling uneasy about quitting school, I thought all I could do was grind it out at my job. But I’d found a passion that got me excited outside of work: video creation, which included capturing moments and telling stories. I was thrilled when I discovered this site called YouTube where I could upload my videos for free and share the links with friends.

At the same time, social media platforms like Facebook and then Twitter were becoming popular — and I realized I was pretty good at figuring out how to use them. 

I had no idea how much of a game-changer these discoveries would be. Fifteen years later, my fun hobby has become my career: It allows me to make about $18,000 a month in passive income, according to my calculations from a recent month’s deposits, and work only four hours a day.

A couple years after I dropped out of college, a friend pointed out that I had a knack for understanding video content and social media platforms. She suggested I could do it professionally. 

It was the aha moment that changed everything. My side projects weren’t just fun. They were teaching me valuable skills that were increasingly in demand. 

This led me to take the strategies I was learning about content and social media and start a side hustle. I was basically a one-woman show posting on Facebook and Twitter for small businesses to help bring them brand awareness.

I worked evenings and weekends for over a year before I quit my full-time job in 2010 to go all in on my agency.

To market my new business, I leveraged my video editing skills to share tips and tricks around social media marketing, including tutorials, resource recommendations, and content strategies. 

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During a particularly tough month with almost no revenue for the agency, I decided to try something new: selling a course teaching businesses how to create their own videos. I pitched the course to my modest email list of a couple hundred people, offering a special pre-launch price for early sign-ups. 

That was my first taste of passive income — as I recall it, I made about $1,000 in revenue in a single day from one email. 

The early validation and surge to my bank account was all the momentum I needed to create the content, which I delivered via live hour-long webinars once a week for six weeks. 

It took me about 30 hours in total to make and teach the course. But once the course was created, it became an easy source of passive income as I made it available for purchase on my website and social media channels from that point forward. 

Over a decade later, my passive income portfolio has evolved significantly.

I’ve created more than 1,000 videos about productivity and brand-building for my YouTube channel, AmyTV. Each one takes me about an hour to prepare and another hour to film, and can continue earning money indefinitely through advertising revenue and more. 

For example, a video I posted in December 2020 called “Plan Your Best Year Ever! My 7 Step Goal Setting Process” keeps growing in views every month and directing people to purchase my planner.

My community began asking time and again for something that laid out my philosophy on video content strategy. I realized that my audience was telling me they’d buy books, so I started writing them. 

I began with, “Vlog Like a Boss: How To Kill It Online With Video Blogging.” Then “Good Morning, Good Life: 5 Simple Habits to Master Your Mornings and Upgrade Your Life.” Most recently, I published “365 Days of Good Morning, Good Life: Daily Reflections to Help You Go After the Life You Want.”

I self-published through Amazon’s print-on-demand and audiobook creation platforms. Each book took an average of three weeks to write, followed by a couple months of design to get it ready for print and e-book formats. Since 2017, the three books have sold about 40,000 copies.

“Good Morning, Good Life” inspired my first non-book product: a paper planner helping people streamline their morning routines and be more productive. This has brought in over $140,000 in sales.

On average, my personal brand brings in about $18,000 monthly in passive income between YouTube ads, affiliate revenue, brand deals, and books and other products sold. 

I’ve learned that when you show up in service of others, amazing things can happen — including making more money for a better life.

Amy Landino is a personal brand coach and the award-winning creator of AmyTV on YouTube. Follow her on Instagram.

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Even billionaires think about starting side hustles.

If Mark Cuban were 16 years old again and “needed to make some extra money,” he’d start one specific side hustle in just three steps, he tells CNBC Make It.

First, he’d learn how to write prompts for artificial intelligence language models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini. Next, he’d teach his friends how to use those prompts on their school papers. “Then, I would go to businesses, particularly small- to medium-sized businesses that don’t understand AI yet,” says Cuban. “Doesn’t matter if I’m 16, I’d be teaching them as well.”

More than half of Gen Zers in the U.S. currently have side hustles, a LendingTree report found in February. AI prompt engineering — or, the ability to phrase inquiries to chatbots to get desired responses — can be a particularly lucrative opportunity. The average pay for AI tutors starts at about $30,000 per year, and full-time AI prompt engineers can make up to $129,500, according to job board platform ZipRecruiter.

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You don’t need a college degree to become an AI prompt engineer, but you do need practice — and, often, certifications — to learn how those large language models operate. Some online certification courses, like Vanderbilt University or IBM’s offerings on Coursera, say you can master the basics in one month.

Cuban’s hypothetical side hustle is more high-tech than his actual first job, selling garbage bags door-to-door to his neighbors outside of Pittsburgh at age 12 to save up for a new pair of basketball shoes. He continued to earn extra cash as a teenager by selling collectibles like baseball cards, stamps, and coins, eventually helping him pay to attend Indiana University. There, he bartended, hosted parties with cover charges and even picked up work as a dance instructor.

After a brief post-college stint in banking, Cuban turned to entrepreneurship full-time. He sold his first company, a software startup called MicroSolutions, to CompuServe for $6 million in 1990. His second company, audio streaming service Broadcast.com, made him a billionaire when he sold it to Yahoo for $5.7 billion in 1999.

Today, Cuban has a net worth of $5.7 billion, according to a Forbes estimate. He spends much of his time advocating for his online pharmacy Cost Plus Drugs, which aims to make a variety of common prescription drugs more affordable by selling them at cost, plus a 15% markup.

 “I was a hustler … I have always been selling,” he said during an episode of ABC’s “Shark Tank” that aired in 2016. “I always had something going on. That was just my nature.”

Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that Mark Cuban sold garbage bags door-to-door at age 12.

Disclosure: CNBC owns the exclusive off-network cable rights to “Shark Tank,” which features Mark Cuban as a panelist.

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When I was a child, my parents would buy lottery tickets and talk about what they’d do if they ever won. It was a fun discussion around the dinner table, but it was a dream that always seemed out of reach. I often thought to myself, “Why not find a way to get rich with better odds?” 

Now, as the parent of two young kids and the owner of my own business, I feel like I have hit the jackpot — but not by leaving anything to chance. 

Four years ago, I left an unfulfilling 9-to-5 job in higher education administration and started selling digital products on Etsy. Today, I make $10,000 or more per month in passive income from four income streams. 

These are the three books that shifted my mindset about money, helped me build wealth and gave me the ability to live life on my terms.

In “Change Your Questions, Change Your Life,” Marilee Adams, PhD, a leadership expert, professor, and entrepreneur, explains there are two types of questions we can ask ourselves. “Judger” questions are blame-focused, while “learner” questions are solution-focused.

After I read this book, I realized how much my internal dialogue influenced my mindset and the results I achieved. When I faced challenges, instead of being hard on myself and saying “What’s wrong with me?” I started asking, “What can I learn?”

Adams has a great resource called a Choice Map. It’s essentially a flow chart to help avoid judgmental language and overcome roadblocks.  

When I started taking the course that ultimately helped me start my passive income business, for example, I doubted whether I could succeed. However, instead of giving up, I used the choice map and shifted my mindset by asking, “What’s best to do now?” 

This question helped me stay focused, break tasks down into manageable steps, and persist, until I ultimately built the foundation for my passive income business and started to see real financial results.

No. 1 lesson: The language we use to talk about ourselves can shape our reality.

“The Simple Path to Wealth” grew from a series of letters about money and investing that JL Collins, a blogger and expert in personal finance and investing, wrote to his teenage daughter.

At the beginning of his book, he shares “a few key guidelines” about money. Some of my favorite pieces of Collins’ advice are: 

• “Spend less than you earn — invest the surplus — avoid debt.”
• “Avoid fiscally irresponsible people. Never marry one or otherwise give him or her access to your money.”
• “Try saving and investing 50% of your income. With no debt, this is perfectly doable.”
• “When you can live on 4% of your investments per year, you are financially independent.”

To follow his advice, I sat down and created a budget that allowed me to spend less than I earned and invest the difference. Then, in 2015, my husband and I decided to save and invest 50% of our income in low-cost index funds. 

We didn’t chase complicated strategies or try to time the market. We simply focused on consistent, automated contributions to index funds. 

After nine years, we are now at a point where we can work more fulfilling jobs, even if they pay less, because we have a nest egg working in the market for us. Collins calls this “F.U. Money” — enough money not to have to answer to the whims of a boss if you don’t want to, because you are no longer living paycheck to paycheck. 

No. 1 lesson: Avoid debt. Save and invest your money in a low-cost index fund. Use invested money to buy your freedom.

Bill Burnett and Dave Evans, professors and innovators in design thinking, are known for teaching a popular elective at Stanford University called “Design Your Life,” which was the foundation of the book.

In “Designing Your Life,” Burnett and Evans encourage iteration and embracing experimentation, rather than waiting for the “perfect” path to appear.

I first read this book while studying positive psychology in grad school. It was 2020, I had just had my second child, and I was dreading the idea of working a full-time office job. 

By putting the exercises from this book in place, I used design thinking to explore careers that would help me lead with my strengths. I realized that while hours of meetings drained me, project-focused work energized me and helped me get into a creative flow.  

I often return to this book because, as Burnett and Evans say, “a well-designed life is a life that is generative.” As much as we try to plan for the future, our goals and dreams constantly evolve, and life is full of surprises.

I thought earning passive income would be the key to my happiness. However, once I had it, I realized I missed the human interaction I got at work. Continuing to iterate helped me to find teaching and writing — roles that allow me to work on projects and interact with people without having to do a traditional 9-to-5.

No. 1 lesson: Happiness comes from designing a life that works for you.

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.

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The first time Victor M. Sweeney observed an embalming, it was for an 18-year-old woman who had died in a car crash just before her high school graduation. At the time, Sweeney was just 18 years old himself.

He had seen dead bodies before, but this was his first “hands-on experience with someone my own age,” he tells CNBC Make It. “That was extremely challenging.”

At the time, Sweeney was working his first job in the funeral industry as an assistant in a funeral home, “dusting caskets and carrying flowers,” he says.

Already set on a career in the funeral business, Sweeney’s boss asked him to watch the embalming so that he knew what he was getting into. Afterward, his parents — both psychologists — asked if he needed to talk through it.

“What I found then and what I find now, is that I was in a position…where I could actually do something that would help the family grieve — that’s what got me through the tough parts,” he says. “Having the ability to do something provides me with a bit of relief and comfort, so I don’t feel the need to unburden myself to my friends and family with the things that are happening at work.”

Today, 33-year-old Sweeney is a licensed funeral director and mortician in Warren, Minnesota, earning just over $87,000 per year. Here’s a look at what it takes to do his job, and why he’s happy with the life he’s built.

Born in Detroit and raised in a Catholic household, Sweeney dealt with death from an early age.

His older sister passed away before he was born and Sweeney’s family regularly visited her grave. He remembers fighting with his two younger brothers over who got to clean the headstone. At the age of 3, he also experienced a traumatic event when he discovered his best friend, also 3, dead in bed.

Along with subsequent deaths in his extended family, Sweeney’s early exposure to death made it less of a taboo topic in his household. ″I really don’t fear death,” he says, coming from what he describes as a “death-positive” family.

As a teen, Sweeney considered following in his godfather’s footsteps in becoming a priest, but ultimately decided he didn’t have the right temperament for the job.

“When you start to look inward, you discover more about yourself — I discovered that I’m terribly selfish, and I really enjoy taking credit for things,” he says. ​“It’s not terribly honest to want to take credit for the state of someone’s soul.”

In high school, after his family moved to Bismarck, North Dakota, Sweeney was deeply moved by “The Undertaking” by Thomas Lynch, a collection of essays on life, death and the role of a small-town funeral director. Inspired by the book, he approached the father of a classmate, a mortician, and asked for a job at a local funeral home. He worked there throughout his final year of high school, graduating in 2009.

He then moved to Fargo to study pre-mortuary science at North Dakota State University, followed by a bachelor’s in funeral service and mortuary science at the University of Minnesota, graduating in 2013.

In 2014, Sweeney accepted a job as funeral director at the DuBore Funeral Home in Warren, Minnesota, a small 1,600-person town 70 miles south of the Canadian border.

He has since settled down there, buying a home in 2015 for $85,000 where he and his wife are raising their four children.

In Minnesota, funeral directors must also be licensed morticians, meaning they manage the funeral planning and paperwork as well as the preparation of bodies. It’s common in small-town funeral homes in the U.S. for one person to take on both roles.

Being a funeral director in a small town also means “you end up knowing almost everybody who comes through the door,” says Sweeney. “So if you don’t know the deceased, you certainly know some of their family. And that gets emotional at times.”

An important part of the job is balancing his emotions with the needs of grieving families.

“The kind of person who does best in the funeral world treads the middle way, the via media between two extremes,” Sweeney says. “On one end, you have people who are really morbid, and on the other, those who are too empathetic. The best funeral directors find a balance between these extremes.”

At the same time, “You’re more than just the local mortician,” he says. “I’ve buried children and then I see the parents around town. Everyone’s a real person to each other, and it’s not just business, which is kind of beautiful.”​

Sweeney has turned down higher-paying job offers from corporate funeral homes in bigger cities, including one that offered him over $200,000 a year. The average pay for a funeral director is about $100,000, according to the Economic Research Institute.

“I want to be here,” he says. “My only boss is a funeral director who does exactly what I do, so I’m not beholden to someone who doesn’t know how my job works.” 

The flexibility of working in a family-run business also allows him to make decisions that feel right to him, such as offering discounts or helping families in need. “There are no corporate rules against charity,” he says. “That’s something I value probably more than anything else.”

Sweeney’s sense of community goes beyond his funeral director duties. In his spare time, he restores unmarked graves in the town’s Catholic cemetery, hand-carving headstones and inscribing their names in Latin.

“It’s a way of giving back to the people who came before us,” he says. “It’s very gratifying.”

Sweeney’s role begins as soon as the phone rings: “We answer the phone 24/7, every funeral home in the country does.” 

Even if the call comes in the dead of night, Sweeney dresses, grabs his equipment and heads to the place of death. He arrives with a cot, prepared to transfer the body. “Often, the family wants to have a hands-on role in moving their loved one, so I gently coach them through how to do it,” he says.

The body is taken to the funeral home, where it’s embalmed, unless the family chooses a cremation. “The main goal of embalming is to sanitize the body and also preserve it,” Sweeney explains. This ensures that the body will be presentable for the funeral as it prevents decomposition.

If the body has suffered an injury, Sweeney will suture the wound together, then use mortuary wax and cosmetics to smooth it over.

“When I give a body back to a family — a body that’s been injured — I don’t want them to know where,” Sweeney says. By doing this, he hopes to “provide them with some peace,” allowing them to focus on their loved one rather than the circumstances of their death.

Sweeney then dresses the body in clothes provided by the family. From there, it is carefully placed into a casket so that it appears to be resting. “You don’t really want a person looking straight up out of the casket — we call that stargazing — but you also don’t want them looking stiff as a board.”

After the body is ready, Sweeney heads to the church or funeral site to set up the flowers and arrange everything for the service. Some relatives choose to gather around the casket, while others might keep to themselves, away from the body.

After the service, Sweeney takes the casket or urn to the cemetery for burial.

In his role as a funeral director, Sweeney emphasizes the importance of allowing families to participate meaningfully during the funeral. He believes that actions like carrying a casket or passing the urn around around at the gravesite can have a profound impact.

“These kinds of actions really drive the healing process,” he says.

Sweeney has already planned his own funeral and keeps detailed instructions for it in a filing cabinet, right next to the plans he keeps for his clients.

“You only have to bury so many people your age before you realize it could be you,” he says.

His funeral plans also include his obituary, which he rewrites every August. “Each year, my obituary gets shorter and shorter,” he says. “It’s not that I’m doing less, but that there are fewer and fewer things that really, truly matter,” like his family and service to others.

By writing about his death each year, Sweeney also reaffirms his sense of fulfillment with the choices he’s made.

“I’m wildly happy,” he says, “My wife likes me, my kids look forward to my return every day and I love my boss. I don’t think I’ve ever felt I should have done something else, and that’s all a man can ask for,” he says.

“I don’t think I’ve gone home sad a single day since I’ve been up here.”

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There’s no such thing as a perfect parent, says Tovah Klein.

“Being a parent is so humbling. It’s throwing at us probably daily [reminders that] we are far from perfect,” says Klein, a child psychologist, author and director of the Barnard College Center for Toddler Development.

Fortunately, making mistakes and owning up to them is one way that parents can actually help teach their kids how to become healthy, successful adults. “Perfection is impossible, but it’s also important that we’re not [perfect], because our children learn how to handle real life,” Klein tells CNBC Make It.

Even so-called experts are no exception. In her latest book “Raising Resilience,” which was published in September, Klein shares some examples of moments she let her emotions get the better of her when raising her own three now-grown children.

Like most parents, Klein raised her voice in heated moments on more than one occasion: “I could really yell at my kids,” she says. She points to “rough times” in the evenings when her children were younger and could become rowdy between dinner and bedtime.

The rowdiness could sometimes devolve into loud arguments that left Klein “embarrassed if people would have come over to my house at 6 p.m.,” she says. Yelling is common, even understandable, in the heat of an argument, she adds — but it’s far from ideal, and parents should commit to repairing the situation once everyone has calmed down.

“I wish I had never been that parent who went over the top and really got into battles with my children. But I did,” Klein says. “And, when I did, I had to very shamelessly own it.”

In her book, Klein writes about how these difficult moments create a “disconnection” in the relationship that can have harmful effects if they go unaddressed. Raising your voice or lashing out, even in a heated moment like a toddler’s tantrum, can be disruptive and potentially scary for the child. 

A child might mistake their parent’s outburst as something more serious and long-lasting. That can lead to self-blaming and shame, which can cause negative long-term effects to their mental health. Children who are regularly yelled at are more likely to develop behavioral problems, low self-esteem and depression, according to a 2013 study published in The Journal of Child Development.

Parents should quickly apologize to repair the relationship and put their child’s mind at ease, says Klein. She recommends being “honest and direct.” That can be as simple as saying, “I’m sorry I yelled,” or, “I apologize. I shouldn’t have done that.”

Apologizing models exactly the sort of positive, mature behaviors parents want their children to emulate, according to Klein. It “brings relief to your child and provides a model of how to deal with anger and disruptions in other relationships in their lives” going forward, she writes in her book.

Accepting the fact that you can never be perfect, and being open with your kids about your mistakes, will benefit both you as a parent and your kids as they grow into mature adults, says Klein.

“I’m most proud of the moments that I could catch myself and [remember], ‘You’ve got to be the adult in this room,’ even when it was really hard to be,” she says.

Want to earn more money at work? Take CNBC’s new online course How to Negotiate a Higher Salary. Expert instructors will teach you the skills you need to get a bigger paycheck, including how to prepare and build your confidence, what to do and say, and how to craft a counteroffer. Start today and use coupon code EARLYBIRD for an introductory discount of 50% off through November 26, 2024.

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