I don't think it is fair to imply that people who don't have side projects aren't passionate about improving their career skills. I don't have a lot of side pro

I don't think it is fair to imply that people who don't have side projects aren't passionate about improving their career skills. I don't have a lot of side projects, and the ones I do have were hastily hacked together out of boredom or convenience and aren't anywhere near the quality I'd want to show to a potential employer, but I do lots of other stuff to improve my skills, like reading books, listening to podcasts, attending conferences, etc. All of these things improve my career skills, but the improvement is primarily demonstrated at work not through a bunch of side projects.