Side Hustler's Perspective with Scotty.D.Russell

Jayworking: Reinvent Yourself & Become a Creative Free Thinker What if I told you, that you had the ability to contribute to something bigger than yourself? What if I convinced you that you could leave your mark and impact our future? Someone who is living life to their full potential and helping others reach theirs is  Jamal Collins , AKA  Jayworking  out of Cleveland, OH. Jamal uses his ambi...

Rolling With the Punches & Pushing Crayligraphy When you’re pursuing work that’s important to you, you’re going to take a few hits to the chin and get knocked down a few times. The real question is how do you respond? Sometimes in life, you have to roll with the punches, dust yourself off and fight to create another day. You don’t get wrapped up in the adversity because you realize some people...

Making Your Own Opportunities with Hoodzpah Design You and I live in a world where so many people expect a hand out with minimal effort required. Then there are those who believe everyone else is catching a break while they constantly get dealt the short end of the stick. Sometimes you gotta take the shit in stride and make something happen in your life...sometimes you gotta get uncomfortable and...

Durham Brand & Co. = Bourbon & Grit When you see big time work for big time players, it's easy to jump to conclusions thinking there's a team of designers, copywriters, project managers, accountants, creative directors, etc. However, little do we know that sometimes behind the scenes pulling strings is a one man / one woman army wearing each hat kicking out mountains of highly crafted work...

Navigating Treacherous Waters The road to making a name for yourself is seldom smooth and sunny sailings. There are treacherous open waters and plenty of storms one will deal with along the way. While someone you look up to is crushing it by sharing their gift with the world, you have no idea what they overcame to get to this point. Sometimes you get stuck in a shitty situation and it takes kind p...

Make Time for You & See Progress on Your Creative Side Hustle Are you the type of person who wings shit each day and wonders why you're not making consistent progress? If you are, it's okay because this used to be me too. Over the past four years, I've slowly gotten to the point where I approach each day with intention like Tony Diaz mentioned in  episode 52 . Each day I have a focused plan of...

Building an Audience with Ian Barnard In life, you often have to experiment over and over again until you find the right thing that works for you. Some may refer to this as failing while others refer to it as progress. You may find "your thing" at a young age or you may discover it randomly later in life. Whenever or whatever it may be, it's never too late to find that thing that lights...

Lenny Terenzi of Hey Monkey Design When you hit rock bottom and are backed into a corner, you’re forced to make a choice. _How do you respond? _ I feel it's easier to throw in the towel then it is to raise up and face adversity. It's take a lot of guts to get back up and attack life from a new direction. Then you have  Lenny Terenzi , who's went from extreme highs, to extreme lows only to climb hi...

Pandr Design. Co & Drunk On Lettering Sometimes there is more going on behind the scenes than you could possibly imagine. While many people see only see the surface, it's those putting in the work when no one's watching that really get ahead in life. My guests today are a shiny example of putting in the hours behind the scenes and it's paying off. Hold onto your biscuits as today I have the mo...

Listen to the raw unedited audio response Losing Sight of Why You Started Sometimes we get down on ourselves and lose our way. Today's episode is in response to an Instagram friend of mine named  Gosha Bondarev . To wrap some context around this, Gosha is a young illustrator and letterer from Saint Petersburg, Russia who aspires to be a full-time freelancer. I've watched him amass a following over...

Showing Your True Self in Your Work I get it, sometimes it's hard to show your true self in your work. We live in a world where we are taught that hyper-curation is the key to success. However, what if people want to know the human behind the account? What if a business wanted to hire a specific personality for their brand that created that work? I think these are strong questions you should ask y...

Master of One Podcast In a world clouded in a mist of negativity, sometimes you find a bright pocket of positivity. That bright pocket (really I'm thinking hot pocket) of positivity is no other than the terrific trio of the  Master of One Podcast . I met Luke, Patrick and Andrew a few years back at Creative South as they had a sign-up sheet that filled up fast for podcast spotlights. These jolly s...

BenRealVsWorld Content tells stories and  everyone  has a story and has the ability to tell a story. The means are there to learn. Find the best way that YOU can tell a story whatever medium that may be. If you're a content creator and this doesn't set you on fire to make something that matters than what the hell is wrong with you?! My buddy Ben Hagarty, aka  BenRealVsWorld  knows a thing or two a...

Melting Faces With Mark Caneso Ready for some down to earth advice and have your face melted with mind-bending letterforms? If so, you're in for a treat as I have a very special guest on the show today none other than Mark Caneso. Mark operates under the name  PPRWRK Studio  and runs  PSTypeLab  which is a Type Foundry and home for his products. Side note: I'm currently loving the shit out of his...

Rise Up to the Challenge What did you accomplish in 2017? Did you build or work on something you can be proud of? If so, you have a chance to build on that momentum in 2018. If not, you have a clean slate to get your hands dirty and put in work. I say it all the time, but you have insane amounts of potential buried inside you. Yet the road to mining it won't be easy. You're gonna deal with plenty...

Looking Back On Shit and Sunshine Wanna know one thing that terrifies me? It's looking back a year later and realizing I made no significant growth in my life. For me, the best way I know how to measure this is by setting goals, reflection and by documenting or journaling it—whatever you want to call it. 2017 was a massive mind fuck yet it provided some of the best highlights of my young creative...

Master on None but Jill of All Trades How many times in life have you felt that internal urge to pursue something yet you're hesitant because it differs from what you currently do? Sometimes it's okay to be a jack or jill of all trades instead of a master of one. Each one of us is a passion weaver and each passion thread we weave has a similar underlying structure to it all? Maybe it's just our jo...

Building Doors With Industry Print Shop When you catch a big break, it usually means a little bit of luck was sprinkled in the mix. However, sometimes in order for you to have an opportunity to be lucky, you have to build your own door to be knocked on or down. That's the case today with guest Tony Diaz. Tony is the head honcho of the artist-run, award-winning screen print shop specializing in app...

Dustin Lee of Retro Supply Co. It’s funny how a change of events can spark a radical shift for the better in your life. Dustin Lee went from rock bottom and desperation to kicking out amazing vintage based designer products for creatives under his business  Retro Supply Co.  His shop specializes in brushes, textures and fonts inspired by historic vintage materials. That's just the tip of the icebe...

Slow & Steady Grind After college, I went through 3 years aimlessly drifting. During that span, I almost quit on art and thought fitness would be my profession. Throughout that year and a half experiment of personal training, I saw a world that mimics the creative world you and I operate in. Many of my clients or gym attendees were looking for a quick fix. Most wanted something that could mani...

Attract Opportunities Through Gratitude I'm the kind of person who will tell you thank you twice for something then proceed to tell you again an hour later. Not only that, I have zero issues with dishing out a hug or two when someone makes my day. You've officially been warned so be prepared to get uncomfortable if we ever meet. This may annoy people, but I'd rather be the person who says thank yo...

I'll level with you, I've been a bit of a conference whore in 2017. All for good reasons as  I mentioned in episode 49 , conferences help you find your people. Another reason is to scope out conferences that I'd like to speak at one day as not all conferences are the same. As I wrap up 2017, I just attended my final conference of the year in Austin, TX. The event was the first  Pop-Up Crop Confere...

Focus on the Next Play Back in the day, I played wide receiver for my high school football team. On a cold Friday night under the lights, we hosted the Cedar Rapids Kennedy Cougars. It was a big game for me as it was one of my final senior home games and I was trying to get recruited to play college ball. Everything started off great for us as I caught a few catches on the opening drive and we sco...

Ready to Dance? As you know I want this show to encourage you to carve out time to build something for yourself whether that’s outside a day job or other life commitments. This show also exists to have the hard conversations we as creatives find it easier to neglect. Today is definitely one of those hard conversations but I think it’s extremely important to bring to light. As you know I deal with...

Creatives are Dangerous I'm a small city dude from Iowa and I need to get out of my bubble to find my people. I find my people by getting out of my comfort zone and heading to conferences across the United States. This past week, I flew solo to  Creative Works Conference  in Memphis, TN. I heard great things about the conference last year so I kept it on my radar. When they finally dropped the lin...