This is a bi-weekly series where I share stories from others who are redesigning careers that align to their values, interests, and lifestyle. Want to be featured? Reply to this email and let me know!

Juliette came to my Corporate > Coffee meetup in December and since then, I’ve been following along on LinkedIn. She has such an approachable, can-do energy with all of the content she creates.

And while many people have big ideas in life, she actually executes them.

Creating a never-been-done-before conference? No big deal. Throwing a holiday party for experiential marketers and freelancers? She makes it look effortless and fun.

If you’re exploring a big pivot and need inspiration to just do the thing, you’ll enjoy reading Juliette’s story.

I was always a LEGO kid. I used to take apart furniture and put it back together when I was a child. 

When I was in high school, my school built a fabrication lab, and I instantly fell in love with building things. I taught myself how to woodwork, metalwork, graphic design & vectorize, laser cut, and water jet. I used to anonymously transform my school’s elevator into experiences, like a Super Smash Brawl arena or a dance party with a real fog machine. I was doing “experiential” before I even realized I was doing experiential.

So when deciding what to study, I picked mechanical engineering because I was intrigued by physics, math, and theory. I figured it’d help me be a better designer.

I got my dream job at 21 years old: product design engineering on the iPhone at Apple. I was one of the designers on the iPhone 13, 13 mini, iPhone 15, and iPhone 17.

It’s weird achieving your dreams at such a young age because we’re taught to work hard, shut up, and be happy. So I guess that’s just what I was going to do for the next 44 years until I retire at 65, right? Wrong.

I have zero regrets working in corporate tech. I credit it to teaching me how to be a strong designer and engineer. But after almost five years at Apple, I found myself feeling less and less creative. That freaked me out. I also missed creating spaces—it’s what got me into engineering to begin with. One Google search later, I found out that “experiential marketing” was a whole industry.

I left Apple with zero work lined up. In fact, I took 4 glorious months being unemployed to recover from the burnout, which is an absolute privilege. People tell me all the time that I’m so “brave for making the leap.” Don’t get me wrong, I was terrified.

But I was calculative. I saved up financially, put 100% of myself into the pivot, and gave myself one year to figure out freelancing. If I didn’t figure it out, I’d go back to a 9-5 tech job but be proud of myself for trying. It’d be a disservice to myself to not try.

Rookie Move was the LLC I started when I began freelancing. It’s since turned into a project inspired by my time breaking into the industry. I’m building Rookie Move to be an educational platform to create standards and resources in experiential marketing.

Experiential marketing isn’t something people study, but rather fall into. Therefore, the industry is filled with such diverse backgrounds and voices. But there’s no education or standard to creating experiences. I aim to create just that through in-person & virtual education and spaces to connect, collaborate, and learn.

My definition of experiential marketing is this: the creation of in-person experiences and events that manipulate and evoke emotion. Therefore, it is our job as experiential professionals to be inclusive and intentional as possible when creating spaces.

Here’s the thing, experiential marketing is projected to be a $3.2T industry by 2030. With the industry growing so quickly, we seem to think that “experiential” is a photobooth pop-up in SoHo, a tradeshow booth, or bringing puppies to an event.

While I think those things can be experiential, they’re ultimately not unless they are designed with the intention of how you feel when you walk in and out of the experience. And people from all walks of life will be walking into that experience. Have we truly considered creating these spaces in an inclusive way?

That’s the standard I aim to define.

My co-founders Zach Reizes and Brooke Stanley found me on LinkedIn in February 2025. We all have different personal motives for this project. Even as an extroverted person, I think the Slowdown Summit needs to exist because I have seen the consequences of teams that only support and reward the loudest voices in the room.

I firmly believe that quiet brilliance, nontraditional thinkers, and diverse minds make the world go round. And we need to make room at the table for those voices.

Growth happens when we feel safe in our bodies and minds. Ultimately, conferences and events are often designed for extroverted partiers. We’ve been treating conferences and events like raves! This leaves out so many types of minds and learners, making leadership and professional development inaccessible.

I’m so sick of seeing “networking” events be a room full of 10-2000 people with a drink in their hand with no structured programming. We’re here to challenge it and prove that spaces can meet every mind where they are.

I won’t lie, it’s a lot. I’m so anti-hustle culture, but I do work a lot because I’m working on things that get me so excited. I have hit many walls, though. I’ve juggled 6 distinct projects with different clients. I’ve taken jobs that I ultimately hated and gave me a lot of anxiety. I struggled with context switching and learning how to move the needle on many different things.

Now I limit my projects to 4 max. I’m confident enough to say no to projects that don’t serve me or I know I won’t enjoy. I’ve learned about the pomodoro technique: 25 minutes of deep work on one subject only, then take a 5 minute break and switch things up.

And I wouldn’t change it for the world. I have so much agency and freedom that I could never get from a 9-5.

Stop feeling like I owe people things. It’s so easy to feel like you have to give everything your attention. That’s exhausting, and it’s not true. Your time is valuable and needs to be put into things that serve you.

This year, I’m excited to grow Rookie Move into a leader of the experiential marketing industry. I want to create spaces and events where people can come together and grow.

But I will be growing at my own pace and on my own terms. That’s a non-negotiable.

Find me on LinkedIn or my website. Come to Rookie Move events if you’re in or interested in experiential marketing. If the Slowdown Summit resonates with you, see you in Columbus in April.