5to9 – Details, episodes & analysis

In this episode of 5to9, I had a chat with Kelsey McCormick, a lover of transcontinental travel, mom to Neil, the founder of Coming Up Roses, an educational platform that helps creatives increase their sales, and The “Queen of Marketing Campaigns".

After a decade working in PR and marketing for music festivals like Coachella and artists like Katy Perry, Kelsey realized that her corporate music career wasn't aligned with the lifestyle she envisioned for herself. With a curiosity in graphic design, she took a Squarespace design course and launched her then design studio Coming Up Roses in 2020. She quickly grew it to a multi-six figure business then realized she’s actually much more interested in helping creatives grow their service businesses through educational courses aka what she does now!

We talked about the pivotal moments that shifted her career trajectory, the challenges of leaving behind a corporate identity, navigating self-doubt, finding opportunities in the market, and what it means to follow your intuition as a creative entrepreneur.

This is Kelsey McCormick for 5to9.

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Join the waitlist for Kelsey's signature program, Launch Your Own Way. 

Solo episode time! This includes an update on what I've been up to, a topic that I'd like to unpack with you, and something I'm really excited about! And remember to hit me up on Instagram @spacetogrow.world. 

In this episode of 5to9, I had a chat with Shyne Webster, a multidisciplinary designer, brand strategist, design education creator, Adobe Ambassador, extreme extrovert, and sneakerhead.

At 17, Shyne created her business, Designed by Shyne - a passion project turned clothing brand. After realizing her creative skills can be used as a service to brands, she evolved her business into an agency, offering design, brand strategy, and workshops on innovation and design thinking to over 100 clients. After graduation this year, she’s decided to scale down her business to freelance more freely with the clients she’s built up over the years while making space for slowness and new creative ideas.

We talked about how she started and evolved her creative business at such a young age, how Gen Zs view their careers, self-learning creative skills, the importance of mindset as a self-employed creative, and more.

This is a special solo episode where I'm going to give you some updates on what I've been up to, a topic that I'd like to unpack with you and talk about something that I've been really excited about! Hope you enjoy it!!! And remember to hit me up on Instagram @spacetogrow.world. I want to know you!!!! 

In this episode of 5to9, I had a chat with Olivia Owens, a creator, writer, business coach, lover of personal development books, and digital nomad who's passionate about helping creators and entrepreneurs make impact & money.

Olivia started her career at Under Armor’s HR department then spent 5 years at IFundWomen where she launched IFundWomen of Color, a platform for women of color to raise capital through crowdfunding, grants, coaching, and connections to launch and grow successful businesses. This effort put her on the Forbes 30 under 30 list in 2022 among other accolades.

She's currently a Creator Partnerships Manager at Teachable, a no-code platform for creators to get paid on their own terms.

We talked about her first then second identity crises and how she navigated them, who we are outside of our work, trusting the universe, changing her narrative, separating facts from feelings, and lots of other juicy topics.

This is Olivia Owens for 5to9.

In this episode of 5to9, I had a chat with Ximena Vengoechea, a writer, speaker, illustrator, UX researcher, mother, and lover of fiction.

Ximena has always loved bringing design thinking to our everyday world, which led her to spend a decade in the tech industry at companies like Linkedin, Twitter, and Pinterest as a user researcher. During that time she also manifested many side projects such as The Life Audit (which got written about on Life Hacker, CNBC, and INC), while contributing to articles in Fast Company, and many illustration projects. Her side projects led her to author two books - Listen Like You Mean It (which is about building better relationships through listening) and Rest Easy (a book that’s about reclaiming rest in our work-obsessed culture.)

We talked about her early career, why she’s insistent on not picking a lane, the importance of side projects, her experience with burnout and how it led her to write a book, a deep dive into what is rest, why we need rest, how to rest and more!

This is Ximena Vangoechea for 5to9.

In this episode of 5to9, I had a chat with Justin Bridges, a photographer, holistic financial coach, fractional CMO for tech startups, writer of the Growers newsletter, and a proud plant dad.

Justin started his career as a Wall Street analyst at Goldman Sachs, and quickly realized that he disliked the culture and was craving to do something more creative. He then pivoted into fashion, working as a planner and buyer at Jcrew and Saks Fifth while pursuing fashion and lifestyle photography on the side. He then worked for an OG fashion blog, the Sartorialist, as a photographer, which took off his lifestyle fashion career, shooting for brands like Kith, Pyer Moss, GQ, Highsnobiety, and Everlane just to name a few. He is a also top instructor on Skillshare teaching photography and personal finance to over 150 thousand students. In 2021, he joined the team at El Camino Travel, a company that curates conscious, intimate group travel experiences for women as their co-founder and CMO. After leaving El Camino, he now runs a photography studio, is a fractional CMO for tech start-ups, writer of his newsletter Growers, and continues to tinker with many different projects.

We talked about his ever-evolving creative career, theories on networking, why you shouldn’t pursue your passion, a reframe of imposter syndrome, his policy of constantly trying something new, and more.

This is Justin Bridges for 5to9. 

In this episode of 5to9, I had a chat with Erin Claire Jones, a human design guide & leadership coach, offering high performers a practical approach to full alignment at work and in life.

With a background in social entrepreneurship and tech, Erin has always loved helping people and teams. After discovering human design serendipitously at a party, she delved deep into the system and has built a business supporting people all over the world with practical tools, digestible tips, and deeper self-knowledge through Human Design. Her signature offering, the Human Design Blueprint, a 60-page report on your unique design, has been delivered to over 25,000 people since 2019 and she’s built a community of over 240,000 human design lovers. 

We talked about her background, the different energy types in Human Design, what they mean, how to apply them in work and life, her career journey, why we gotta listen to our curiosity, trusting in the unknown, and more!

This is Erin Claire Jones for 5to9.

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Get 10% off Erin's Human Design Blueprint with code: SPACETOGROW

Look up your Human Design here. 

Erin's instagram: instagram.com/erinclairejones & instagram.com/humandesignblueprint
 

In this episode of 5to9, I chatted with Paff Evara, a writer, creator, founder, and public speaker empowering queer people of color to be their most authentic selves.

Originally from a small village in Australia, they’ve spent their career in digital marketing and most recently heading up a paid digital agency in Scotland. They are now a creator with a community of over 100k people, consultant for companies like Meta on diversity, a touring speaker, and co-founder of Take up Space, a decentralized community-driven media company for BIPOC and queer voices to connect, learn and heal.

We talked about their journey to burnout, their trust fall into the universe aka quitting their job with no plan, how they became a paid touring speaker, why they always strive to get out of their comfort zone, the difference between delusional and abundance mindset and more!

This is Paff Evara for 5to9.

In this episode of 5to9, I had a chat with Rachel Renock, a self-proclaimed creative monster, a rogue lesbian, former freelancer, and now co-founder and CEO of Wethos, an all-in-one platform for freelancers to create proposals, send invoices, and get paid.

In 2016, Rachel co-founded a freelance creative studio that worked with non-profits. After putting together various project-based teams for her clients and making over $1.4M in a little over a year, she realized that there was a bigger problem to solve - helping millions of freelancers double their income and scale their businesses.

We talked about why freelancing is the future (according to data), the most important things for freelancers to learn, collaboration over competition, whether you should freelance in the current market condition, how she persisted in building Wethos after getting rejected by 150 investors then ultimately raised $12M, and more.

This is Rachel Renock for 5to9.