Monetize What You Know with Bart Merrell

Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to today’s episode of the Work at Home Rockstar podcast. I’m excited for today’s episode. We have somebody who’s been working from home for way longer than I have, which is super rare. Uh, so this is gonna be a lot of fun. We’re talking to the owner and creator of Bart. Merrell International Consulting monetize your mindset and the Side Hustle Samurai.

So what he does is he helps people to identify their ideal side hustle that is unique to them and their life experiences, and create financial, financial security by monetizing what they already know and do. Love that. That is awesome because that’s exactly what people ask me all the time is how they do that.

So I’m excited for this episode Bart. Are you ready to rock?

Bart Merrell: I’m ready. Let’s go.

Tim Melanson: Beautiful. So we always start off here in a good note. So tell me a story of success that we can be inspired by.

Bart Merrell: So. I don’t know if you’re gonna call this a success or not, but I, I pride myself on being able to monetize anything that comes across my way, good, bad, or [00:01:00] ugly. When life gives you lemons, I say, don’t just make lemonade. If you’re gonna make lemonade, build a lemonade, stand and sell the stuff. So last year, 2024, I had to have my lower left leg amputated from the knee down when I found out.

Obviously I was devastated and I, I was scared. I was like, oh, you know, crap. But when the shock and awe was over, what naturally happens in my brain is, okay, this is gonna happen. I don’t like it, but it’s going to happen. How can I monetize it? Six months post-op. I contracted with my prosthetist to help people go through what it is that I went through to help them through the process, to calm down their mind, to, to just [00:02:00] prepare and to even after the o the surgery, if things come up, how to deal with those issues. And the conversation kind of went like this.

I, I, I look back on my life sometimes and I think I was lucky. Because I didn’t think I was going to do what I’m doing today. It just kind of happened, and so I’m gonna sidetrack here just for a second to kind of talk about how it all got started. My goal in life was to become an FBI agent and chase serial killers. It didn’t happen my, we had a family friend that said. Just go through accounting once you get in the FBI through the accounting process because accounting was the easiest way in. Then once you’re in the FBI, you can apply for the different jobs and you don’t have to stay in accounting. So accounting and studying accounting, going to college, graduating accounting was just a, a means to an end, and I [00:03:00] took some time off.

I went home and helped my dad on the pig farm to help improve my Spanish. Because all of the workers on the pig farm, not all of them, but a lot of the workers on the pig farm spoke Spanish, so it gave me an opportunity. While I was down there, I had RK surgery done on my eyes. This is what was before lasik.

It had just come out and I, it, it was successful. I didn’t have glasses from age 24 till 51, one-ish. And so I was excited, I was happy. I’m gonna go in the FBI get back up to school. I start the application process in the FBI and I found out that that automatically disqualified me from the FBII. I was devastated before I got my leg cut off.

I was devastated one time and I’m, I’m hanging out at college doing my landscaping side side, not side business, but it was my part-time job and I was like, what am I gonna do? I don’t wanna go count other [00:04:00] people’s money. And a buddy of mine jokingly asked me, well, do you want to go to Japan? He had, he worked for a bungee jump company and he, they had sold a bungee tower in Japan and they needed someone to go over there and, and help them get things going, teach the staff, and, and so I contracted with the, the Bungee Jump Company that bought the tower, and I would go back and forth to Japan.

I did it for six years, six and a half years. Until I got married, just I would go back and forth. I’d spend three to six, maybe even nine months in Japan per year. Then I’d come home and I’d just do whatever I want. And so that’s kind of how it all got started. And it got started by preparedness, meeting opportunity, and then being willing to take action. And so now let’s kind of go back to me sitting in my prosthetist office. He’s working on my [00:05:00] leg, and I said, Scott, competition, I met with them before I decided on you. Your competition has a guy. You don’t have a guy. I’m your guy. said, Scott, I don’t want a job. I just want a contract with you. To help people when they need help. And so six months post-op, contracted with my prosthetist to do that, so I monetized getting my leg chopped off. I don’t want your audience to go start chopping off body parts to get a job or to get a side hustle, but that’s, that’s how my mind works. Anything good, bad, or ugly that comes across my desk, through my life, whatever, I always think, can I monetize this?

I don’t monetize [00:06:00] everything, but I always think it, can I monetize it?

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Wow. Which is probably what makes you good at what you do at helping other people figure out how to monetize the things that they’re already doing too, right?

Bart Merrell: Yes, exactly. I, I do it all the time. And so I, I have a process that I take people through that helps them just get the juices flowing.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah.

Bart Merrell: You know, that we can pitch it right now just a little bit is I have an offer for your audience. It’s 25 successful side hustles for 2025. It’s a list. That list is just a memory jogger.

It just gets you thinking and gets you realizing what is out there and it just helps you. Start thinking and you’re like, oh, well I, that’s there. Maybe I can do something like this. And it just gets you started.

Tim Melanson: Wow. Wow. Well, so now [00:07:00] funny thing is that we, we always talk about the good note and the bad note together and the thing that didn’t go as planned. Now, I’m not sure, I think they’re both the same, aren’t they? Or is there another bad note that you can talk about? Something that, that we can, uh, we can learn from.

Bart Merrell: Well, when I was in Japan, this was, so first, my first time over there was 1994. I went over there and there were these big nets, and you would see these big nets everywhere. And so I went to one and what it was, it was a golf driving range,

Tim Melanson: Oh yeah.

Bart Merrell: and it was, it was called F1, F1 Golf is what it was called, and it was ama, I mean, it was top golf on steroids in 1994. The ball would come up out of the ground on the tee already. You adjust the tee and you hit the ball, the the tee sinks down and comes back up with another ball, [00:08:00] and you weren’t renting the space on time. You were renting the space per hit, per ball.

Tim Melanson: Okay.

Bart Merrell: And you would buy this little card with a number of balls on it, and you would put it in this little machine and you would just hit away to your heart’s content.

Before you knew it, you had gone through a hundred balls. I mean, it was just, you were hitting like crazy. It was a money machine. I said, I need to take this to America. And I started doing some research and talking to people and the zeroes were just too big for a young kid in Japan doing bungee jump stuff. There was just too many zeroes behind those numbers and so I didn’t act, I wasn’t prepared. So opportunity came and I didn’t [00:09:00] act.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Bart Merrell: Can you imagine what, how my life might be different? I had, and I was the top golf guy,

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Wow.

Bart Merrell: now I’m not saying I dislike my life, I’m just saying if I was the franchise of F1 Golf in America, things would be a little bit different.

There would be a whole lot more zeros in my bank account.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah, but that’s the thing. When you’re not.

Bart Merrell: a, that’s a, that’s a miss and it’s. Hey, life, life is good. I’m, I’m doing what I like to do. I’m, I’m having a good time. I’m financially stable. Everything is good. I’m just saying there is a miss that I missed that would’ve made a dramatic difference in my life because I wasn’t prepared. Or you can say maybe I was prepared, but I didn’t take action. [00:10:00] So.

Tim Melanson: I’m just wondering, so if you were to go back to that point now, knowing what you know, how would you have made it work? I mean, there’s still too many zeros, right? But how would you have, have you gotten through that challenge?

Bart Merrell: Well, so, so now I have more, more knowledge of how to raise funds,

Tim Melanson: Hmm. That’s.

Bart Merrell: and, and I, I would, I would find the money to make it happen. Which would probably mean I wouldn’t, I would lose, I would lose ownership, not complete ownership, but I would lose a good portion of the ownership. Would I have maintained 50%? I don’t know.

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Bart Merrell: know, so. So looking at those things, how would it have changed? It may have been just a big headache. You know, people often think, oh, I wish I was Elon Musk, or I wish I was Bezos, or I wish I was Mark Cuban, whoever you wish you were in the business industry, but do you really want their [00:11:00] life? Do you really want to do what they had to do to get there?

Sleeping on friends couches, sleeping in the office? Is that the life you want? If it is, great, go for it. I don’t know that that’s the life I would’ve wanted.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, well chances are if that is the life that they wanted, they would be there, right?

Bart Merrell: Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Tim Melanson: You know, it’s just one of those things, right? I mean, we, we pretty much do what we are prepared to do. But now, now what, what you mentioned though is that that whole thing about being prepared for that opportunity, when that opportunity comes around, if you’ve got everything you need to take that opportunity and you still don’t take it, that’s a much bigger miss, right?

Bart Merrell: exactly.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Now, now it’s, it’s one of those things where fear kind of takes place, right?

Bart Merrell: Yep. And you have to, you have to work through fear. I that’s, that’s one of the things that stops people is taking that [00:12:00] first step. Whether it’s not understanding what opportunities they have right around them or what, you know, what’s them either not being prepared or maybe they are prepared, like you said, and it’s just fear they’re afraid to, to take that action for one reason or another.

And you have to, to overcome that. And people ask me, well, how do you do it? And my answer is, you just take that first little step and get the momentum started. And once you get that momentum started. It becomes easier, but you have to, you have to try. If you want, if you want me to share another story, I will.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well that, that’s it, eh. It’s one step at a time. It’s one bite at a time, whatever it is. Like you gotta break it down into something that you can manage, right.

Bart Merrell: Yes. And, and just take those little steps. I, one of my side hustles is dog training right now. And if I’m teaching a dog to do a trick. I don’t teach the [00:13:00] whole trick because they can’t do it. I break it down into pieces and then put the pieces together and then we get the trick.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, yeah.

Bart Merrell: So it’s the same thing when you’re starting a side hustle and doing, doing things that you don’t want to do or you’re afraid to do, I should say.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. You’re afraid to do it. I think you want to do it. You’re just afraid to do it. And so kind of that leads into the next section where we, we could talk about, you know, how do you, uh, you know, do you have mentors? Do you have people that you look up to? Do you have, do you masterminds? Like, how, how do you learn everything you learn?

Bart Merrell: So this, this started at a young age as well. I, I grew up, I, I don’t remember not having a horse. I, I grew up with horses and I, my horse, when I was about seven years old, his name was George and he was a tall horse. He stood about 17 hands high I [00:14:00] always had to have someone put the saddle on, but George was not my horse.

It was a hand me down from my brother and I went to my dad. And it, obviously it was owned by my dad. I said, dad, when is George gonna be my horse? My dad’s like, what are you talking about? George is your horse? And I said, no, dad. When is George really gonna be my horse? And so Dad thought about it a second, and he says, well, when you can put the saddle on all by yourself, George will be your horse. We’re not talking an English saddle, we’re talking a western saddle, adult western saddle. But I was excited. I, George was tied up to the back in the backyard. I ran and grabbed a chair from the table. I drug the saddle over there and I picked it up just enough to push it on George’s side, and George stepped away and I fell on my face. But I tried this. I worked [00:15:00] every Saturday after cartoons. I don’t know if you remember when we used to have Saturday cartoons, but after cartoons, George was tied up in the back and I was with the saddle trying to put it on, trying to put it on. Finally, at age 12, I was able to put it on and George became my horse.

Tim Melanson: Wow.

Bart Merrell: Why did I stick with it for five years? Because my, when I couldn’t do it, I had to go get my brother and my dad, and I saw them do it. showed me how to do it. I knew that if I just grew and got stronger, eventually I was gonna be able to do it. Contrast this to the early two thousands. I thought I was gonna be a poker player.

That was my new side hustle. I was gonna play Texas hold them, and I was gonna go to the World Series of Poker and win a million dollars. And I studied books. I mean, I studied harder than I studied in college. I read thick books about [00:16:00] poker and strategy and all this good stuff. Six months later, I looked at my online poker account and it was plus $500.

I kind of did the time, divided that by the time spent playing poker, actually playing poker, and it came out to like 29 cents an hour, 29 cents an hour, isn’t gonna pay the bills. And I gave up. I, I say I gave up, I, I put it on the back burner and I, you know, I, I don’t play poker for money, any, I mean anymore.

You know, it’s just like, it’s just a fun little thing to get together and, and, and so why did I give up after six months? But I stayed with George five years. It’s because I had a mentor, a live mentor right there. Now, if I had a mentor in the poker scene, the, the [00:17:00] outcome could have been the same. My mentor could have said, dude, you just ain’t good enough.

You need to quit playing. It could have been the same or I could have learned and done better and had a coach to help me through things. And so the difference in a mentor can be, it can help you get there faster. Save heartache, headaches, and just help you get to success quicker.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Bart Merrell: They just, they just get you there.

And so mentors are so important to help you get there, whether it’s, you know, do you think Michael Phelps didn’t have a mentor, a coach, someone to help him get to where he did? We’ve all met him in interviews. He had a mentor. Any good. Successful person that has done something extraordinary, more than likely had a mentor to help them get there and become successful.[00:18:00]

Tim Melanson: Well, and, and we do have lots of mentors in our lives that, you know, uh, help us through lots of stuff that we do. However, it may not be necessarily people that we would choose. Right. You know, we, we go, we go to friends, we go to family, we go to people that are in our lives and, you know, they help us through things.

However, uh, there’s a big difference between choosing somebody because they’re there, versus specifically going out and finding somebody who’s experienced exactly what you wanna experience and like helping, getting them to help you get there. Right?

Bart Merrell: When it comes to side hustles and things you’re doing, like in this form, you can have. Lots of negative mentors. Um, my, my best friend, his wife said to him once, why doesn’t Bart just go out and get a real job? And I’m just like, why would I want to, why do I wanna, [00:19:00] I, I say I am unemployed, a bull

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah, me too.

Bart Merrell: And so have you’re, you’re exactly right.

Having the mentor who has done what it is you want to do. My mentor when I started was my dad. was a pig farmer, like I mentioned earlier, but he, he had his hands in many different things. He was part owner in a dairy farm in Idaho, which is, I’m down in New Mexico and he’s up in, or the dairy farm’s up in Idaho. then he had part, he was part owner in a mushroom farm in Utah, is where I currently live. Not by the mushroom farm, but I live in Utah. And then he had part, he was part owner in a, a produce warehouse that would bring produce out of Mexico and then distribute to stores. And that was in Phoenix, Arizona.

It used to be where Diamondback Stadium now stands. And so you can [00:20:00] imagine when Diamondback Stadium wanted the property, him and his partners made a good chunk of change.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. Wow.

Bart Merrell: And so having a mentor that has done that, which was my dad and I, I look at people and I talk to people and I say, if you didn’t grow up with someone like my dad or my dad. You don’t think like I do,

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Bart Merrell: and that’s why I’m here is to help you think like I do, where when something comes across your desk, your life, think, huh, can I monetize it?

Tim Melanson: All right. Let’s talk about some tools. So what are the tools that you use in your business to get success?

Bart Merrell: So obviously AI is huge right now. It’s more than just chat. There are so many AI tools that can build websites that can, uh, it can take your business. I, I have one that can take your [00:21:00] business idea. You put it in and it tells you your chances of success,

Tim Melanson: Ah.

Bart Merrell: and it gives you eight to 10 pages of information about your, your ideal client, about your unique. Value proposition, your minimum proposition. It, it gives you, you know, so a lot of people, they get, uh, analysis paralysis and they want it to be perfect before they put something out. This minimum proposition is, Hey dude, I. Get it out there, get out this, and then you can grow to perfect or close to perfect.

I had a mentor once that he, his, what he told us, he says, if you want to influence the least amount of people, ever wait till it’s perfect.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah.

Bart Merrell: And, and so this, there’s just so many tools out there that make starting a business [00:22:00] it can save you time, money, uh. Increase your, your chances of success if you just use them properly.

So AI is huge right now for what I’m using to, from anything, from content creation to business viability, to, I want a name. I don’t have a good name for my business. I want one with a.com. How? How do I find that without just trial and error? There’s just so many tools out there right now when with and, and it’s only gonna get better doing the stuff you don’t wanna do, sending out emails, you, there’s just so many AI assistants that can do anything that you can do on a computer.

I, I had to call HP Tech support the other day, and of course the first person I got was an AI bot.

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Bart Merrell: This bot was [00:23:00] amazing. I mean, there was no lag. I mean, she was just talking to me, and you have to imagine what this bot has to do. It has to take my unknowledgeable computer language, transfer that to computer language, and then talk to me and tell me what to do.

She helped me troubleshoot my computer. I was just going, wow, because I’m talking to her like a lay person. I don’t know what I’m saying. I’m just telling her in my mind what my computer is doing and we need to fix it. It was, I mean, and obviously it’s hp, they better have a dang good bot, so. It was, there’s just so much you can do to make life easier when it comes to running a business and, and even starting a business using AI tools.

And so that’s one of the things I focus on with people is [00:24:00] teach them. How to ask the right questions to, and it’s more than, like I said, it’s more than chat GPT. You’re gonna be using several different AI tools and pulling information and mixing them and putting it together into, and then you get the information you want.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I agree. I, I find, uh, like, and especially what you talked about, about the analysis paralysis situation, like that, that’s a real thing and. I mean, you know, usually, you know, a way to get through that would be to go talk to a mentor would be to go talk to somebody and sort of try to work through it together.

However, you know, there’s a, there’s a bit of fear in even in that now you’re like, you’re taking someone’s time. There’s a whole bunch of like, reasons why you might not want do that.

Bart Merrell: How much is it gonna cost me?

Tim Melanson: How much is it gonna cost you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, if it’s a free person that you’re, you’re taking their time.

If it’s somebody that you’re paying now with, uh, with, [00:25:00] with ai, with these chatbots that, like you say, are super advanced already, and imagine where they’re gonna be in another 10 years, uh, you can take these ideas and you can, you can flesh out quite a bit before you even get to the point where you have to, you know, take it to a mentor.

Right. You may not even have to, you know, B, because, uh, go ahead.

Bart Merrell: sorry, go ahead. Go ahead.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, because that, that’s, that is really what it, you know, you’re gonna hear this over and over again from every mentor is just get started. So, so I mean, at least the, the chat bot can get, can give you enough confidence to say, yep, looks good.

Put it out there. You’re like,

Bart Merrell: Yeah, exactly. And, and so I wanted to side note on one thing that I learned, so. I was in a, a seminar with a guy who, there’s a, a virtual bot that he that’s created, it’s called Lindy, and this is the CEO of Lindy. And he is talking about his, his bot, [00:26:00] which is incredible. Okay. But you know what stuck out more to me than his bot and everything that he’s created.

He’s talking about and he is excited. He loves what he does. He actually said it. He says, I would’ve never guessed as a kid that I get to get up at seven o’clock in the morning and do this every day. He was so passionate about what he did, and so that’s another thing I just wanted to throw in there because you know, we’re talking about bots here and there’s some amazing things that bots can do, but I was watching a CEO and more than his.

Product was, he was excited about what he was doing. And if you can get excited about what you’re doing, that’s, that’s when you’re gonna live. That’s you’re, you know, not having to go to work just to make money. You’re going to work because you want to work.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. And you’re more likely to do that. I [00:27:00] think you’re more likely to do that in your own thing than in somebody else’s thing. Right. I mean, I know I experience it like, uh, you know, PE because I work more than, than most people work, you know, all, all the employees. And they’re like, yeah, but you’re working all the time.

You don’t, you know, what about vacation? What about this and that? And I’m, I’m just kind of like, well, you know. I really like what I do. Like I can’t help it. It’s just, you know, why do I need to escape and take a vacation for a few weeks from something that I really like to do? Right. Like, isn’t that,

Bart Merrell: And, and why do I wanna go on vacation when it like holidays? You know, why do I wanna go out there and all that when everybody else is out there? I can go out there when I want to and not have to fight the people, the traffic.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I, so there was a, I long, long time ago. I remember just, you know, in the mall on a Tuesday afternoon, right at Christmas time, nobody else was there. Everybody’s waiting to get off work and I’m just [00:28:00] doing my Christmas shopping like nothing. You know, it’s just, it’s just having the flexibility to move things around so that you’re not competing with everybody else when they’re doing their thing.

Right?

Bart Merrell: Yeah, and I’m, and I’m going to, what you said is important about you work more than most people probably work.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. I.

Bart Merrell: If you’re gonna do a side hustle, you need to realize that you’re gonna be doing, putting in long, long hours. I mean, I think I told you as we started up here that I had a late night last night and I’ve had several late nights because I’m preparing for an event that I’m putting on on Saturday and, but I like, I mean, I could, when I went to bed last night, I had to force myself to go to bed because I knew how I had to get up and talk to you. But I was, I was exci, I mean, I was going through, you know, preparing for what I’m gonna teach these people about using bots for business and I was creating stuff, you know, fun images and, and so I’m the side Hustle [00:29:00] Samurai and I was working on the image of Samurai with laptops waiting to get in my event. And it’s something I’m gonna post on Facebook today.

Tim Melanson: That’s.

Bart Merrell: are you one of my, are you one of my side hustle Samurai waiting to get in my event? You better be. You know? And I was just, it was fun. I had to say, okay, it’s almost two o’clock. I need to go to bed.

Tim Melanson: Wow. Well, I mean, you know what, the way I I’d like to think about it is imagine if, you know, you, you, you heard that I was, that I was, uh, you know, up all night playing my guitar. Or, or playing video games or whatever. It’s having fun. And then, and then I said, oh, you know what, uh, you know, I had a late night last night.

I was playing guitar all night. Would you feel bad for me? Like, but, but if you say, if you say, I was up late night last night working, a lot of people would feel bad for you. They’d be like, oh, I feel bad that you have to work that late. It’s like, I’m playing my guitar all night.[00:30:00]

Bart Merrell: Exactly,

Tim Melanson: feel bad for me.

Bart Merrell: There isn’t there songs about that? Uh, all night sleep, all day.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. So, okay, we’re running outta time. It, it’s time for your guest solo. So tell me what’s exciting in your business other than your event on Saturday, I guess.

Bart Merrell: So I’m, I’m excited about the event and this is gonna, I’ll be doing, I have 10 events scheduled for next year.

Tim Melanson: Nice.

Bart Merrell: Um, some of them virtual, some of them might. This one’s live and in person in just south of Salt Lake City. In the morning, we, we flesh out your ideas. I take people through a process. What do you like to do?

What do you need to do? What are you already doing? And then let’s take it one step further. What would you like to learn? What do you need to learn? What have you already learned? That you can get compensated by helping people through those same processes. And then, and so then we take those lists that they’ve created and re [00:31:00] we refine them until we come out with a handful of side hustle ideas that they should start with. Then we’ll take one of those and then we’re gonna take it and put it in that AI that I was telling you about, where you plop it in and it tells you, Hey, you have a 70% chance of success. Here is your value proposition. Here is your minimum proposition. Let’s get started with the minimum proposition. And it tells you, here’s the reasons why you should do it.

Here’s some things you should watch out for, and. I think my, so my side hustle Samurai stuff came into 64%. And so there’s another chat, there’s a, a chat bot that you can talk to right, right there inside this app. And I said, okay, I’m at 64%. What do I need to do to make this more than 65%? And it tells me the things I need to focus on.

And so I’m gonna be taking people through this process with their ideas, and then I have prompts to help them [00:32:00] find their ideal customer. We don’t have to guess. I can take them through a system where they know what their ideal customer fears, what their ideal customer wants. It tells them how tope it tells ’em the phrases to use.

With their ideal customer. And so your, your content is, okay, I’m making content I need to talk about, you know, mine is they don’t want a bunch of fluff. Have you ever been to an event and it’s fluff? My, my, my, I call my event an an event on this podcast and I shouldn’t have, it’s not an event, it is a workshop.

If you need to get in touch with your feelings, this is not the event to go to or the workshop to go to. We’re rolling up our sleeves and we’re getting to work where you’re leaving with your handful of ideas and a clear path the things you need to do to get to turn this into a [00:33:00] stream of income.

Tim Melanson: Wow.

Bart Merrell: And so I am excited about my event

Tim Melanson: Wow.

Bart Merrell: like I said, this one is this Saturday, but there’s gonna be, if you get in touch with me and connect with me, I have, so I’m gonna have four live events and probably six virtual events next year.

I have a virtual event coming up in November, and, and so this is, this is what I love to talk about and what I love to do, if you haven’t noticed.

Tim Melanson: So now I imagine, uh, you know, someone’s sitting there. I wonder if I’d be good for this event. Like what, what I, what I get, what I need out of it. Do you have any sort of like, profile of the person that would get the most out of working with this event and, and getting some success?

Bart Merrell: If you’re living paycheck to paycheck, you come to this event and you’re gonna come out of it with ideas and like I said, in a clear path. Then you just gotta have the, [00:34:00] like I said, this isn’t a get in touch with your feelings event.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Bart Merrell: This is a, Hey, I’m there, I’m, I need it. I know I need it, and I’m ready to do, I’m ready to get to work and do it.

And so if you have trepidation about getting started, if you need that push, you might need, you’ll, you, you’re gonna come out of the event with ideas and a path. If you need that push, maybe we need to talk a little more.

Tim Melanson: And so is that something that you offer then? Do you, uh, offer more coaching? Uh, uh, like,

Bart Merrell: If you need handheld holding, I do. At the event, there’ll be an offer that you can do the 90 day challenge. day side hustle challenge, and the goal is to get you to an income stream in 90 days. This comes with prizes because you’re gonna com be competing with the group that comes out of a couple of classes and every six months there’s prizes for those who [00:35:00] have made it to the top.

Tim Melanson: Wow. That’s cool. So how do we find out more?

Bart Merrell: You can connect with me@bartMerrell.com. Bart Merrell on Facebook. Uh, we have the, the, uh, 25 side hustle ideas for 2025. You can get that@yoursidehustle.com, and that’ll connect you with me and you’ll continue to get information about these things. My YouTube channel that I just started is the Bart Merrell, the Side Hustle Samurai, and so this is where I’m dropping ideas and talking about.

Things that people ask when it comes to side hustles?

Tim Melanson: All right. Hardest question. Who’s your favorite rockstar?

Bart Merrell: Oh, that is a hard question. So my favorite rockstar would probably be Iron Maiden. I [00:36:00] went to Iron Maiden somewhere in Time concert tour, and I was blown away. I’ve been to a lot of concerts. I’ve been to score pins. I’ve been to, uh, this is gonna probably blow your mind as well. My least favorite concert that I’ve ever been to was Aerosmith.

Tim Melanson: really.

Bart Merrell: I just, it just didn’t skid row open for them and skid, in my opinion, skid Row was way more impressive than Stephen Tyler and Aerosmith. And so, but, um, iron Maiden, I just, their show, their whole show is just such a, a stage presentation.

Tim Melanson: Cool. That’s awesome. Yeah. And I mean, is that the type of music that you listen to normally?

Bart Merrell: I listened to everything. So here’s one that I, that is, I’ve kind of stumbled onto a while, probably six months ago. Have you heard of Ren?

Tim Melanson: Re [00:37:00] No.

Bart Merrell: So when you get done, you want to go look up Ren and Hello? Hello, Ren

Tim Melanson: Okay.

Bart Merrell: Ren. I, I can’t remember what it is.

Tim Melanson: Okay.

Bart Merrell: again, this, this guy is impressive. It’s, he’s not a rock star necessarily.

I mean, but he does, do they, so he has a, a band that does some street, some street stuff. They’re called the big push, I believe, and they’ve done some pretty cool, um. Bob Marley stuff who shot the sheriff and some, they’ve done some pretty cool stuff. So it, but it’s not necessarily rock, it’s just, I mean, everything he does is, once again, is a presentation.

His music, his his videos. Yeah. Anyway, I, I blown away by him, but he’s, he’s not on, not necessarily my style of music, but I listen to everything from. From melancholy, classical to, you [00:38:00] know, I to Iron Maiden probably the hardest I go,

Tim Melanson: Yeah,

Bart Merrell: but they’re,

Tim Melanson: hard.

Bart Merrell: yeah. And country, I mean, I have, I’m a fan of country music as well, growing up on a pig farm in Southern New Mexico.

You grow up on the countryside of things.

Tim Melanson: I love that. Right on. Yeah. I saw, I, I saw Iron Maiden a long time ago as well. I have a friend who’s a metalhead and he took me to a bunch of concerts and yeah, they, they do put on a show, don’t they?

Bart Merrell: They’re one this past year. I didn’t go to it, I just watched it on YouTube. But their one like last year, or might’ve been two years ago, that was a show. I mean, it, it had a big airplane that dropped down. Oh, it was.

Tim Melanson: Oh, I didn’t see that. Yeah, I, but I’ve never seen Aerosmith, but I can, I can see why they’re, they’re very ballady. They’re probably not the most, uh, fun to watch, but I don’t know.[00:39:00]

Bart Merrell: So it was, it was, it was Stephen Tyler making sexual advances to his microphone stand, and I just wasn’t impressed.

Tim Melanson: that’s his shtick though, isn’t it?

Bart Merrell: It’s, it is.

Tim Melanson: Right on. Well, thank you so much for rocking up with me today, Bart. This has been a lot of fun.

Bart Merrell: Well, thanks for having me. I appreciate that we got connected and got things going.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, absolutely. To the listeners, make sure you subscribe, rate, and comment. We’ll see you next time on the Work At Home Rockstar Podcast. And for more information, go to workathomerockstar.com.