https://job-interview-answers.com/
I have no fear of job interviews anymore.
For me a good side project "changes my life" in about 18 months. For my current project, I started out printing anime characters on a cheap inkjet printer and soon it was art reproductions, then photos I took. I realized I couldn't give them away without explaining where the images came from so I started adding a QR code that links to a "web side" and invented the "three sided card".
Somebody asked me to explain my motivation for choosing images and when I thought about it, 90% of my thinking was about the system itself and the needs of the system. Sometimes today I feel the cards work through me, just because I practice so much when the opportunity arises I can take 70 square inches of vacant space and make it mine.
That's what a "life changing" side project looks like to me and it's how hard you have to throw yourself at it and even possibly lose yourself.