5to9

In this episode of 5to9, I had a chat with Emily Kessler, a meditation teacher, artist manager in the music industry, solo traveler across the globe, and fantasy romance novel lover!

While working as a marketing director in the music industry managing artists like Big Gigantic and the Okeechobee Music & Arts Festival, Emily got into meditation as a way to recenter herself in her hectic, busy life. Her personal interest in meditation and professional role in music marketing led her to work with The Big Quiet. Together, they created the first mass meditation ever to take place on the main stage of an American music festival and spent the next 5 years producing mass meditation events all across the country.

She is now a freelance marketing consultant & event producer, a partner at the Big Quiet, a content creator on meditation with over 140k subscribers, and a certified meditation teacher who specializes in helping busy humans make friends with their minds so that they feel calm, happy, and empowered inside their lives.

We talked about how she got into meditation, why meditation is such an important investment for people carving their unique paths, why we should be bored, self-awareness and so much more!

This is Emily Kessler for 5to9.

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Use code "5to9" to get a 20% discount for Emily's upcoming "Meditation for Busy Humans: A 3-Session Learn to Meditate Course". on Jan 16 - 18! You'll learn how to become a self-sufficient meditator for life & start to feel more at peace inside your busy mind.

In this episode of 5to9, I had a chat with Hailin Liu, aka DJ Hailife. She’s a musician, brand strategist, lover of fashion, cat mom, and a tarot enthusiast.

Growing up with traditional expectations of her career, Hailin started in investment banking due to her family and peer’s influence. She quickly realized that she hated the environment and pivoted to brand strategy. While working at Landor and McCann, she realized that she was yearning for more creative expression in her life, which led her to experiment with music and fashion. She is now a brand and design strategist at Pepsi while moonlighting as a DJ playing at dope venues in New York like TBA and elsewhere. She also just released her newest single, Call Me Baby, and is slotted to perform at Groove Cruise, a festival also featuring DJs you might know like Diplo and Tiesto.

We talked about her unconventional journey into music, how knowing what she didn’t want led her to find what she wanted, following her joy, the power of taking small actions, what she calls “creative courage”, the role of her 9-5 job as a strategist while pursuing music and more!

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 Farah Sheikh-Ogoe, a brand manager at META, co-founder of NOTES International, a community of Black and brown people who love natural wine, vibey tunes, global travel and the intersection of all 3, and a lover of all things food, fashion, community and connection.

Farrah’s had quite a non-linear career. She started off as a content manager in the agency world at Ogilvy, then went to the non-profit at Do Something for a few years then back to the agency world as a producer at Big Spaceship. She then spent a few years at Squarespace on their brand team and had a stint at JP Morgan, Peloton and Vivino, an online wine market place. Along the way, she freelanced and had multiple side projects such as Feed & Foster, a peer mentorship dinner for women of color and Notes International.

With each step, Farrah has deliberately chosen to pursue work that fuels her creativity and aligns with her values, always being intentional on what it is that she needs and wants next and building a career that is uniquely hers.

We talked about the power of taking a non-linear path, the lessons she’s learned from shifting industries, balancing a full-time role with passion projects, how they impact each other, and redefining what success looks like beyond a 9-to-5.

Here is Farah Sheikh-Ogoe for 5to9.