So as the title suggests I have ADHD (African American male in my mid 20s) I’m kind of young. Id really like to start a side hustle online doing something, anything really. I love learning and I love the idea of creating and music however I don’t want to just fit the stereotype and have nothing come from it. So what side hustles can I do and what can I learn now to escape customer service jobs and actually get a flow of money going while MAYBE making music a hobby?
Right now I’m looking to study cyber security however I don’t really know what books I need or If I need to go to college for that.
What are some side hustles I can start with ADHD and a love for learning
r/Advice
Comments
Stop waiting for clarity to strike because ADHD is your superpower not your setback. Dive into cybersecurity and side hustles now since momentum builds faster than motivation and action kills self-doubt every time.
stop settling for boring jobs your ADHD needs a challenge cybersecurity will keep you sharp and pay well without waiting years for a degree.
AHDH (I have it) is not an excuse. There are plenty of drugs (caffeine works for me) to mitigate it.
Cyber? Yes you will likely need training.
You want to break out? What about ROTC? What about enlistment with cyber as the target and finish your education on the way out.
Cyber security is an incredibly difficult field. You need to be a programmer, networking expert, social engineer, and be ready to do some incredibly difficult work with decompilers, assembly code, hexcode analysis, and a whole host more. I was in the field for 5 years and I’ve retired to backend engineering because it’s incredibly demanding. It also tends to attract a lot of sociopaths and people who are hard to work with. You will spend dauntless hours trying to crack something. It’s not like the early 2000s where you could run scripts and pop a root shell. Most “easy” hacks nowadays are just viruses sent over emails and tricking people to click the link, or tricking people to click links over the phone.
If you want to give it a taste, try to get OSCP certified. It’s an incredibly difficult certification to get, but if you can complete the coursework and final test, then you can confidently work in the field. Look into OWASP top 10: https://owasp.org/www-project-top-ten/, stay up to date on CVEs https://www.cve.org/, learn to use Shodan: https://www.shodan.io/ and have some fun playing with google dorks: https://www.exploit-db.com/google-hacking-database BurpSuite: https://portswigger.net/burp
Look for a local DefCon club if one’s around you to try connecting to people. However, the people who tend to go to those things… aren’t exactly the best at making friends either.