The first phone call was made 150 years today. Here’s to the side hustlers.

It's a big day.

One hundred and fifty years ago today, in Boston, Massachusetts, a Scottish speech therapist spilled battery acid all down himself and called for help. Alexander Graham Bell’s appeal (“Mr. Watson—come here—I want to see you”) didn’t need to travel far—Watson was in the next room; if Bell had just raised his voice, Watson would have had his pants off in a jiffy. But Bell, for the first time, used his telephone.

This wasn't his day job. In 1873, age just 25, he'd joined the faculty at Boston University as Professor of Vocal Physiology. He worked—he always would—to lower the communication barrier for the deaf. Hs mother was deaf. His wife was deaf. His father and grandfather worked with the deaf community and studied signs and symbols and speech. Helen Keller—blind, deaf, and mute since childhood—paid tribute to him for helping break through the “inhuman silence which separates and estranges.”

It’s not the biggest conceptual leap from there to removing the distance barrier for all. “If I can make a deaf mute talk,” he said, “I can make iron talk.” But the practical leap was huge.

Others had circled the problem—including Thomas Edison, who became the first person to record and play back a voice a year later—but most worked on the telegraph so were looking for more efficient ways to carry messages not voices. Bell didn’t think like a telegrapher, so he got there first.

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Lots of my former colleagues balanced a side hustle with the day job. A chain of Finnish barber shops. A new gadget for drummers. Froyo outlets. A laundromat. One singer-songwriter saved up his vacation days to go out on tour. Several people made the time to lecture at university.

If you’ve thought about a side hustle—which might mean a hobby or a business or a creative endeavor—Bell offers some lessons:

1. A side hustle with a fresh perspective, informed by the day job, can lead to things that no one else can see.

2. A side hustle born from a mission is the best kind.

3. People grow with their side hustle, and doing both makes them better at both.

4. A side hustle can grow into your reason to get out of bed if you want it enough. It must at least be worth finding out.

5. Wear protective overalls when handling corrosive chemicals.

   
   

Let’s make this “side hustle” month in tribute to Bell and his telephone. Coming up: the Hollywood actress and avant-garde musician who found the essential breakthrough for the modern mobile phone. And the Finnish software engineer whose hangover briefly pulled the recording industry out of the doldrums.

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There’s more to say—this is a momentous day—but I'll save that for later and instead give you back a few minutes to call someone that matters.

And here’s a song to celebrate Alexander Graham Bell and his acid-soaked pants...

Bless the telephone.