Hustle

Hustle!

How do you hustle? Are you grinding it out at a 9-5 and chasing your dreams after hours? Are you a student by day, writer by night & photographer on the weekends? Interning for free and working 2 jobs to get by? Building a brand and being your own boss? Sound Familiar? If so, you’re not alone, I’ve been all of these before and probably will be again but I think it’s a good thing!

Let’s talk about Hustle. To me the word means being driven to get where you need to go by any means necessary, it means staying busy and creating your own opportunities, it means never settling and always pushing forward.

I recently got a chance to interview Keith, one of the Uber driver-partners who was featured in the Uber Presents short film series Da Republic of Brooklyn directed by Spike Lee. I caught him as he was leaving an Uber meeting (did you know uber has meetings for their drivers?) and learned he was giving feedback to his superiors on way to improve the app from the driver-partner experience. Keith has been driving for a year and doing so has dramatically changed his life. Not only does he have more free time and disposable income in comparison to his other jobs, he gets to bring his pup along on the job. As a dog owner myself who gets to stay at home with her dog most days, I can totally see how working with your four legged friend can really alter your mood.

Wanna hear all about my Hustle? Of course you do 😉 Before building Color Me Courtney I had a 9-5 in the fashion industry. I’ve shared this story a bit before, but essentially, I graduated with my MBA moved to NYC and couldn’t get a job at all. I’m serious, no one would hire me! It was humbling, but I put my pride (and degree) aside. I worked retail jobs, schlepping boxes in the stockroom, worked for nothing as an intern, got rejected constantly and started working on my blog. Eventually it helped me land what I thought was my dream job before realizing I wasn’t great at it and I didn’t love it, a year later a transfer to a new department had me doing (and loving) a job I never thought about doing: producing handbags by day and running Color Me Courtney by night. After about a year of that CMC needed me more, and I left with a heavy heart to run Color Me Courtney full time by myself. It’s been about 2 and a half years since that decision, and I’ve never regretted it once.

I’m mostly a one man band, but of course I have help! Paris takes most of my photos and is my support system, plus he’s really smart so I lean on him for creative advise when I need it! I also rely on a lot of other organizations that I would consider my partners in some way, one being Uber aka my second office.

Here are some of the ways I work in a Uber:

Uber is my affordable & personal office on the go. Sometimes it takes me to glamorous blog events (like the premier of Uber Presents: Da Republic of Brooklyn directed by Spike Lee or the Billboard Music Awards) and other times it takes me to dog therapy for Waffles. Either way I use the Uber time valuably, I’ll do my make up in a Uber almost every day, I’ll plan my conference calls in them, I’ll UberPOOL / ride share with valuable people to and from events to network one on one in my Uber by adding a stop, I’ll shoot story content (sometimes sponsored content) in my Uber, I’ll do an Instagram Live in my Uber, I’ll answer emails in my Uber and so much more. It’s not always all work though, I’ll use a long ride to catch up on sleep (like the sometimes 2 hour drive from the airport into the city after a red eye), meditate (doing this in a Uber before a big meeting changes everything), or just chat with my driver, which is one of my favorite ways to learn about the city.

SO that’s a lot right? But there are a few reasons WHY I feel safe enough to do all that work (or play) from my seat belt. And here’s how

Uber has a lot of new (And some old) features that make riding safer. One of my favorite is the track my trip feature that allows me to share my location with someone so they know when I’m arriving, I use this when I’m coming in from an early red eye flight and plan on sleeping on my commute. I’ll share my ride status with Paris so he knows where I am and that I’m safe. I’ll also share the driver information with him, so he knows exactly who I’m with too. I love having these additional safety features so I can focus on working (or sleeping) on my ride and not being stressed about safety.

Okay back to the Republic of Brooklyn My biggest take away from interviewing Keith and the film series in general is that being an Uber driver-partner provides them with the ability to reach their dreams. This series features 5 short (15 min or less) film spotlights that showcase drivers and what they do both behind the wheel and in their free time. Some are artists who support their dream by driving, others are an Uber driver-partner and juggle 5 or more careers. have Uber as one of 5 or more careers they juggle. I won’t give away too much but they all have dreams, aspirations or side hustles that are supported by their ability to drive with Uber.

I wanted to say a few things about the series and the partnership itself. I love this series for so many reasons, but 3 jump out at me.

1 Don’t quit your day job. I love that these stories showcase side hustles, and how you can achieve your dreams while working day to day. It encourages dreamers to work towards these goals and to find something they love to do in the meantime to help them get there. Not every job has to be the dream job, but every job can be a stepping stone to help you get there.

2 Proper activation of a community and culture. I talk a lot about culture appropriation going on because it is important to me as a marketer, as a creator and as a community of some of these often-exploited cultures. Something I will continue to reference is what Paris said at a panel, these brands are continuing to make these marketing mistakes because they’re attempting to activate a community they don’t belong to. Some of you disagreed with this statement and I asked you to tell me why, and the common response was no one can belong to every community so it is unreasonable to expect a brand to be able to do so. To that, I say no it’s not because Uber did that with this Spike Lee collaboration. I think that the point of a collaboration is to work with someone who can bring something of value that you can’t to create something special that you couldn’t create without each other. Uber wanted to tell these Brooklyn based stories of their driver-partners, so they got one of the best Brooklyn storytellers to do it: Spike Lee! I loved this collaboration and felt like it was one of the best ways activate the Brooklyn community and share a message.

3 Visualization of untold stories – I think it’s so refreshing to hear these untold stories of people we interact with everyday, but probably rarely communicate with. No one is what they do, even me! My brand is built around my personality but there is more to me than my blog and more to me than I could ever possibly share online (no matter how many photos I take lol).

Long story short, you have to watch this series.

I’ve admired Spike Lee and his work for so long and love his ability to say what so many are afraid to say even when it’s not the easiest conversation to have. I am inspired by his ability to use his voice through his art and try to do the same thing in my own way with my blog.

With Color Me Courtney every day is different. yesterday I spent the day in front of my computer in my pajamas with a face mask and today I had 2 meetings, event, and a photoshoot before 2pm ! My personal hustle changes everyday and that’s why it’s so exciting. I’m thankful to have found services that I consider my business partners, like Uber, to help me do this crazy dream job of mine. I sincerely, hope you too can find the drive to fulfill your hustle and land (or create) your dream job as well.

Watch the film here || Thanks to Uber for partnering on this post!
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