Entrepreneurship is a journey, it’s something that’s glorified and celebrated. The escape from the 9-5, total freedom and control over your life. The reality is, this could not be further from the truth. In 2021+, entrepreneurship takes on many forms and Scott’s living proof.

Scott D. Clary (@scottdclary) has always balanced a 9-5, with his own project, or side hustle and it’s worked out well for him, and the companies he’s worked with.

Although this is not the traditional entrepreneurship route, working while building out your own business is becoming a career path that’s more and more popular, championed by business influencers, such as Gary Vaynerchuck (@garyvee).

Scott Speaking to a Group of Students at the Entrepreneurs Exchange at Laurier University

Scott is a living, breathing example of how you can side hustle your way to success and still achieve massive success in your 9-5, and they don’t have to conflict. In fact, they can complement each other.

Starting in tech sales, he quickly accelerated in his career. First in a smaller b2b environment, eventually graduating to large b2b, selling millions in tech and IT to billion dollar Fortune 500 companies.

“I always felt as though I wanted to do more, than just ‘work’ for someone, but I wasn’t from an entrepreneurial family, I wasn’t a developer and I didn’t really have a close group of people who I felt I could speak to, so I just started doing what I did during my job, as a freelancer after hours and on weekends.”, says Scott.

Always having an entrepreneurial inclination, but having a highly successful career, Scott focused on building his own name and brand, working with early stage, high growth startups as a consultant, helping them with their sales, marketing and brand strategies.

Working with over 50 high growth start-ups, Scott worked with some of the most innovative organizations coming through Creative Destruction Labs (Startup Incubator). Building out his own profile and teaching and discussing the strategy he was implementing, he was published in Forbes, WSJ, Hackernoon and several other high profile publications.

Scott Interviewing Reena Nickerson, General Manager of SodaStream Canada

Pivoting into full time fractional CXO work, he built out a playbook for growing businesses from the ground up through various cutting edge sales & marketing strategies. This offered him the opportunity to speak internationally on the subject, get published in over 100+ publications discussing various sales & marketing topics, contribute & co-publish an Amazon best-selling book, judge international sales and marketing competitions (Stevies, CMA Awards) and act as an advisor to various organizations including MyTherapistSays, Growth Genius & Diadem.

“Many people feel as though there has to be a point where you have to make the jump, where you have to decide that you’re not going to ‘work’ for someone anymore and you’re going to go all in on your own business, usually by burning through years of savings and putting massive amounts of stress on yourself, friends and family”, Scott warns. “However this is one of the most damaging myths of entrepreneurship – that it has to be all or nothing.”

Being an entrepreneur gives you a lot of freedom, but jumping in too early before you’re ready can be scary and at the worst, stressful and damaging. Building your credibility and skills while you still have an income is one of the best ways to grow yourself professionally and achieve entrepreneurial goals.

Build something while you have downtime. Research your passions, build your product, and test your ideas. Leverage resources and mentors to fastrack and avoid costly mistakes. Learn and grow and when you’re ready – you can make the jump. Entrepreneurship doesn’t have to be all or nothing. The barriers to entry to “do” something are lower than ever, so start now. The way we build our careers in 2021 is much different than we did 50 years ago.

Follow Scotts’ lead and future-proof yourself and your career by taking your personal growth into your own hands.