In this episode, we’re chatting with Debbie Millman—who’s been named “one of the most influential designers working today” by Graphic Design USA.

Debbie is a designer, author, educator and host of the podcast, Design Matters where she’s interviewed designers, creatives, entrepreneurs like Malcolm Gladwell, Seth Godin, Steven Heller, Tina Roth Eisenberg and many more.

Debbie spent 20 years as the President of Design at Sterling Brands, one of the world’s top branding firms where she landed the company business with clients like Pepsi, Gilette, Star Wars and more.

But Debbie’s no stranger to the side hustle… she actually started freelancing on the side of her very first day job straight out of college—she did design work for small local businesses in her neighborhood in New York City.

Since then, she’s grown to having numerous side projects including her podcast, writing 6 books, teaching the Masters in Branding program at the School of Visual Arts, being the creative director at Print magazine, a blogger for Fast Company, and president emeritus of the American Institute of Graphic Arts, to name a few.

Special thanks to our sponsor for this episode, Freshbooks: Cloud accounting for freelancers, solopreneurs and side hustlers.