Career Therapy: How To Master a Side Hustle While Working Full Time?

What's up, everyone. This is Alex Lieberman, co-founder and Executive Chairman of Morning Brew. Welcome back to Founder’s Journal, my personal audio diary, where I give you, the business builder, the tools you need to think better in order to build better, whether that's building a business, a team, or a new product. We have got a special episode on deck today. I am talking to a Founder's Journal listener about an issue that they are currently facing at work. It is time for some Career Therapy and I couldn't be more excited. Let's hop into it. 

So my co-founder, Austin Rief, and I have spent the last six years building Morning Brew. That includes raising money, hiring a ton of people, making a ton of mistakes, and ultimately selling a majority stake in the business in an eight-figure deal. And I've learned so many lessons along the way, which I've shared many of them on this podcast. Today, I want to do something different. I sent out this kind of open-ended ask on Twitter where I prompted Founder’s Journal listeners to send me some of their most burning career questions that I would answer on my podcast. And I'm taking that a step further and not only answering their questions, I'm bringing on the listener to talk about their question live. I'm joined by one of those listeners right now, Landon Campbell. Landon, welcome to the show. And you contacted us because you're currently juggling a full-time gig while also working to develop your own personal brand. Tell me more about it.

Landon Campbell: Of course, yeah. So just some background. I have a podcast called inTheir20s. I developed this right after graduating college and also at the same time as my post-grad, first post-grad position with a large company. And there were just, you know, at times there was an issue, you know, trying to find ways to focus on the day-to-day, not have my side thing become a distraction, but at the same time, I know that you want to be the CEO of your own life and manage a personal brand. So super excited to talk with you, Alex, just about how to manage those two.

Alex Lieberman: Love it. So just to get more context for myself and for the listeners, first of all, how long have you been working professionally? How long have you had a full-time job? 

Landon Campbell: So I had 10 internships while I was in college, which is kind of–

Alex Lieberman: Ten? 

Landon Campbell: Ten, yes. I moved to a new city. I'm originally from the Bay Area, went to school in Chicago, knew nobody had no resume going into college. So started of course with a lot of those free internships, worked at some cool companies, got to work at Cameo early, early when I was in school. And that's kind of how I got the startup bug. But to that, you know, I'd been working full time, I'd say like towards the end of senior year, just because I had night classes and was managing the full-time position as well. 

Alex Lieberman: Got it. And how long ago did you graduate college? 

Landon Campbell: 2020. That first pandemic year.

Alex Lieberman: OK, so basically you've had, you know, close to three years of like full-time work experience. 

Landon Campbell: Yes. 

Alex Lieberman: Got it. And then this part-time side hustle that you've had. Tell me more about it, like specifically what it is and when did you start that up?

Landon Campbell: So I was getting close to graduation and of course I mentioned the pandemic was happening, which was really, really crazy. And I did have my post-grad job lined up already, but I understood that there were so many of my peers that did not have a job or they had a job and it was completely deleted because of the pandemic. So I was looking for unique ways to help out fellow twentysomethings that were struggling. So I created a show called inTheir20s where I've been speaking with the most influential people about what they did in their twenties. So not necessarily how they became rich and super successful today, but more about the mistakes, times when they had to deal with uncertainty, times when they had to deal with failure. And I've gotten to speak with some cool people like Steve Wozniak, Jason Calacanis, David Sacks, the mayor of Miami this week. And it's been a lot of fun sharing their stories. 

Alex Lieberman: So, first of all, that's amazing and I'm sure like you've learned a lot and you know, I'm sure that this side hustle, this podcast, has lived up to some of the expectations you've had, but I also, I'm sure that you've learned a ton of lessons that you didn't even realize you could have learned before starting this thing. What has been the biggest challenge related to having this podcast? Has it been related to actually just like putting the content out constantly or has it been balancing the podcast with your full-time job?

Landon Campbell: I think the biggest challenge was something that I kind of overcame as I kept going and wanting to create this consistent content. But whenever we start things, I think there's a huge fear of failure, fear that this is not going to work out, fear that this can be a huge embarrassment to my credibility, etcetera. But we started out with this, you know, really strong. I say we, I started this with my best friend, Michael, Michael Holmes, who unfortunately did pass away last year. And it feels good to keep this going for him though in his memory. But yeah, we started this and a lot of guest rejections. A lot of people were curious, like, what the hell is this? And everybody wants to start a podcast, but pushing through that, the fear of embarrassment, the fear of failure, was how we've been able to reach 80 episodes and have a wonderful time doing this so far.

Alex Lieberman: Well, first of all, I'm really sorry to hear about your friend, Michael, and I'm sure it's like not only an amazing professional challenge for you, but it's also, I'm sure a really fulfilling one personally, to, you know, kind of be keeping this thing going that you guys did in partnership together. You talked about the fear of failure, which I think is a huge thing for entrepreneurs in general. Like it's still something I have fear around. Like I have the fear oftentimes about if I was to ever start another business, how bad would it look to fail with the second thing after the first thing went well with Morning Brew. And so like, I don't, I don't think that ever goes away, but I guess my question would be, how did you break through that when you knew that it was a very real anxiety that you had as you were going about starting this project? 

Landon Campbell: We all have big dreams when we start something and seeing what you've built with Morning Brew is super amazing and really has been super inspirational. But something that I know that you talk about often is just really focusing early. So again, we want to tackle these huge obstacles. We want to sell our companies eventually and do big things, but you got to focus on the day-to-day, you got to focus. And one of my guests, Ed Williams, the founder of Twitter, told me this, that if you focus on solving a small problem for a small group of people first day by day, that's how you're able to accomplish big things over and over. So yes, of course, we continue to want this to become a big podcast and speak with bigger guests every single time that we have an episode, but I'd say every single day, every single week we've had these specific things that we've wanted to accomplish. They don't have to be big things. They can be small things like reach X amount of listeners, produce X amount of pieces of content on socials. Don't get turned down by this many guests in one week. So just by having these small little things that we can cross, you know, think about a marathon, you know, it's not just a race, it's kind of continuing to have that focus. That's been helpful in kind of removing a lot of that fear. 

Alex Lieberman: Yeah, I love that. Right. It's it's about just like keeping your head down and doing meaningful work that you think is going to help you grow and learn and having belief and trust that you do this long enough with focus on the present and the future will take care of itself. And you know what, I'm reading a book right now. It's a, the, the autobiography of Will Smith that was written by Mark Manson, the author of what's the book, that–

Landon Campbell: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck.

Alex Lieberman: Yeah, exactly, exactly. And I thought what was an amazing analogy in the first or second chapter of the book was Will talked about how his dad owned kind of like this store that had refrigerators and other machinery. And there was a broken wall and Will's dad made him and his brother basically rebuild this brick wall in his store for an entire summer. And they literally had to build it brick by brick. They created the bricks, then they let them dry. Then they added like the separation in between the bricks built all the layers. And basically the exercise that Will's dad had them do was not only to develop strong work ethic and fortitude, but it was basically his lesson every, every day of the summer was just focus on laying the next brick. That is it. Just focus on laying the next brick and all of a sudden when you have that focus on laying the next brick, but you do it for a long period of time. All of a sudden you have a brick wall. And I think it is so easy to think about the future, to think about how big you want something to become. But if you only focus on that, then all of a sudden you've lost sight of the present things you need to do to make that possible. So I absolutely love that. Let's, let's shift gears for a second to how you balance your podcast, which I'm sure takes up a lot of time, as well as your full-time job. Tell me how do you balance the two and also, has it ever been difficult to work on building your own personal brand and building up a content franchise while having a full-time job in the eyes of your bosses or the people you work with?

Landon Campbell: I think I've found a system that works for me. I'm no superhero, obviously. I just turned 24 on Saturday, so I still have a lot to learn as well, but kind of in my journey, I've figured out early that there's no such thing as a work-life balance. Let me kind of just start with that at face value. I kind of look at it as a work-life harmony. Meaning a lot of times I have podcast responsibilities that I have to deal with and I love to deal with, because I love my podcast. I have to deal with during my nine-to-five. And that's fine. You know, sometimes you got to fill in there and then vice versa. My nine to five sometimes goes to become a nine-to-nine or even nine-to-12 sometimes, which I love because I love what I do full time. So I think that if you are honest with yourself and know that it's difficult sometimes to kinda, you know, balance things and like cut things off I think. When we look at a work-life balance, I think a lot of people assume that you need to cut this off and like not touch this at a certain time of the day, etcetera. But I have, I've just kind of found that, you know, sometimes responsibilities need to be filled, especially during these early years. And yeah, so I look at it like a work-life harmony. That's kind of what I like to call it.

Alex Lieberman: One last thing I wanted to talk about with you before, you know, I open it up for any questions that I, you know, I can hopefully help you with, is this idea of, do you keep church and state separate? Meaning, like, do you talk about your side hustle within your full-time job or do you keep them totally separate? Have you communicated it to your boss, your employer? Like, how do you think about having an employer that supports your side hustle and how have you thought about, communicated in a way where you feel really good about it?

Landon Campbell: That’s a great question. And that's obviously what I'm really excited to talk to you about today as well. I'm fortunate now where, you know, where I currently spend my time, you know, with my current employer, there's a lot of alignment, you know, for reference, I lead our events strategy and then also our podcasting strategy at the company I'm with now, inside.com. So there is heavy alignment and that's what, the reason for my podcasts. They wanted me for that reason, I should say. But yes, I've had past positions and that's kind of what I wanted to talk about. Especially like as a young twentysomething, it doesn't have to be a podcast, but like starting a new side hustle, how do you not let it become a distraction? Because I feel like, you know, there are always eyeballs, especially, you know, people are looking and they're curious like where you're spending your time and I haven't had this issue necessarily, but if you're not performing as well as people think you can be performing in the nine-to-five, there could be a lot of pressure to stop that side hustle. But what I learned is, I mean, I'm glad that I did start my side hustle because you know, it's continued beyond, you know, my, the past positions I've had, it's led to new opportunities and someone, I think I mentioned this earlier, told me that you want to be the CEO of your own life. And that really comes in the form of building a personal brand. But how do you do that? You know, and not become a distraction in the workplace. I think that that's a question I want to answer, especially in this new, like work from home model where like there isn't a lot of people sitting next to me all the time and you know, I think employers are a little more nervous now, you know, how individuals, employees are spending their time at home, like, are they finishing and doing all their responsibilities? Are they like really actively involved in their side hustle and personal brand? So that's just what I want to figure out.

Alex Lieberman: Well, let's talk through this together. So I think like most answers that I give to questions, it really depends. Like, and I think in the context of this, it depends on your risk tolerance. It depends on the goal of your full-time job. It depends on the goal of your side hustle and if you want it to become a full-time job. And I say all of this, because in order to answer your question, which is like, how do you not let your side hustle distract you from your full-time job? What we need to know where we're starting from, which is like, what are you trying to achieve with all these different pieces? Right. So, you know, to throw back to you, what's, what's your goal with your full-time job?

Landon Campbell: I kind of have like a few different buckets and things that I see myself doing in the coming years. I don't think there's one, like, this is what I want to be exactly doing in five years, in ten years. Kind of thought about, okay, like what these buckets that I do have, is there alignment with what I'm doing now, currently for my full-time job? And is there alignment with what I'm doing for my side hustle? Can they get me to where they want to be in the future with these buckets? And, you know, I can’t say yes, like what I'm doing is leading me towards, you know, getting closer to like what I want to be doing full-time, you know, in the future. But yeah, let's give an example. I mean, you know, I have a friend whom is at a company that has nothing to do with their side hustle. And I've obviously been in many positions like this as well. My friend’s trying to develop a video editing company that has nothing to do with his side hustle, which is more focused on real estate. Do you think that there are opportunities in, like, should he be looking to find ways to collaborate, you know, these two ideas or is it best to keep them separate?

Alex Lieberman: Yeah. Well, I think whether it's in the context of him or the context of you, what I think you using him as a, as an example, I would say, well, is his goal, like, does he ultimately want his side hustle to turn into his full-time job? And if his answer is yes, then I'd say, well, let let's just think about this from different perspectives. There's probably the one, I would say very career competitive perspective where it's like, you have to be a top performer in your company because that's what it means to be good at your job. There's another perspective where it's like, okay, but if I'm optimizing for more than just my full-time job, what does it look like for me to be good at my job? Not great at my job. Do the job I'm asked to do because by going from great to good, it gives me a lot of time to potentially take my part-time role, to have the possibility of going full-time on it. And that's kind of like a radical way of thinking in the sense that like for people who are very type A, who want to absolutely crush it in everything they do, you know, you probably hear this and you're like, wait, you're telling me not to be exceptional? Well, no, I'm not telling you not to be exceptional. What I'm saying is there's trade-offs, right? And to be exceptional in your job may mean it doesn't always mean this. You may have to spend more time on your job or even more specifically, you may have to take more of your mental space and dedicate that to your job. And that is, the opportunity cost of that, is the time or mental space you could have been spending on your side project, which could impact what is the possibility of your side project turning into a full-time thing, if you want it to be a full-time thing? And so all of this to say that it really depends on his goal or your goal, but I would say there's a world in which actually like you really think about the trade-offs of your full-time job and your part-time job. And you may actually be an A minus employee instead of an A plus employee in order to give yourself the possibility of doing what you really want to do with your part-time side hustle and turning it into a full-time thing. And it sounds crazy, but I actually think it makes a lot of sense when you think about your life or your purpose portfolio fully. And to the last part of your question, which is like, should you combine these things? My answer would be, it shouldn't be forced. If it naturally makes sense, so like for you in the context of, you have a podcast and you work at a media company, it could make a lot of sense. You know, the things I would be thinking about if I was in your shoes is okay, it's great to be working on your podcast within the context of a media company, but how do you maintain your own, like rights around your content? So if you decided that you didn want to leave and do your podcast full-time, do you have the flexibility to do that? Whereas for this other person you're describing who has a video production company and a real estate company, maybe that overlap doesn't make sense and that's okay as well. So I really do think that's situational based on how similar or different the full-time job and the side hustle are.

Landon Campbell: No, I think that's wonderful advice and kind of to follow up there as well. How can young professionals begin to build a personal brand? Like when I think about my podcast, yes, I get to speak with amazing people. It's fun to share information, but this is also a way for me to build my personal brand and credibility, which is very important. It always has been, but let's say a young twentysomething doesn't want to make a podcast. I know writing a newsletter can be another example, but like, I'm trying to think what are some other ways where people can begin to build their personal brand slowly while having that full-time job? 

Alex Lieberman: So basically three things in mind: goal, focus, and community. And we can talk about this for a full episode. So just, you know, to provide some quick thoughts, goal, meaning: Why are you building your personal brand? Everyone has different reasons for building a personal brand. Some people say, I want to build a personal brand because I want to build audience so that I can then monetize that audience. Some people say, I want to build a personal brand so that I can attract like-minded people and build a network. Some people say, I want to build a personal brand, actually not because I care about the brand it'll, that's a by-product of creating content. And I just want to create content because that is my outlet for being creative. So the first is choosing your goal with your personal brand. The second is determining your focus: Where are you going to create your content? TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, podcast, email newsletter, YouTube, etcetera. And who are you going to be creating for? And one kind of determines the other. Once you know who you're creating for, it actually helps inform where you're going to focus on creating. And the third is community. Like I've always found as a creator, the best way to come up with ideas, the best way to workshop content, the best way to think about how to scale my brand has been having a community of like-interested people who have diverse perspectives. And so having a creative community for myself, specific, I have a Twitter crew. I have a TikTok crew. I have a YouTube crew. And it helps me push myself more and think about building my brand on those platforms. So that's, that's the quick question about how would I approach building personal brand.

Landon Campbell: Diversification. No, I love that. Are there any platforms that you're specifically bullish on for 2022? 

Alex Lieberman: Uh, in my mind, it's a it's Tik TOK and Twitter. And if you could only pick one, I would say, go with the one where your audience lives and the one you feel the most comfortable in creating content around. So whether it's text or video. So that, that's my thought on that. And again, it comes down to your goal for your personal brand, your focus, and having a community around you. But, Landon, this has been such an amazing conversation. I really enjoyed Career Therapy. I think that our listeners are going to as well. And hopefully we, we get to do this more going forward because I think people can learn a lot from your experience. 

Landon Campbell: Alex, I really want to say thank you so much for having me for the first episode. This was a lot of fun, as I mentioned, being on the other side of the table and thank you so much for your advice.

Alex Lieberman: Yeah, man. Thanks for taking the leap with us. Well, that was an amazing conversation with Landon Campbell, everything from how to balance side hustle and full-time job to how to build personal brand. Again, as I said, this was our first edition of Career Therapy and I am so incredibly grateful that Landon took the leap with us. If you want to be on a future Career Therapy, assuming we continue to do this, shoot me an email at alex@morningbrew.com. Introduce yourself and tell me what professional challenge you want to talk through. And while you do that, please subscribe to Founder’s Journal and leave a review on the podcast player of your choice, whether it's Apple, Spotify, or any other player. It is the number one way we grow the show. It's the number one way we get to the top of the charts. And it's how new people find out about Founder’s Journal so they can join the community as well as always. Thank you so much for listening and I'll catch you next episode.