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.