I’ve worked in startups that moved faster than my Wi-Fi and agencies where 37 Slack channels somehow made sense. I’ve written social copy at 1 a.m., designed launch plans while muting a toddler tantrum, and reworked a subject line eight times because "it just needs more urgency."

Marketing has changed. A lot.
But one thing hasn’t: people still want to feel something.

Some lessons don’t show up where you expect them. It didn’t come from a marketing course or a mentor in a boardroom. It wasn’t something I underlined in a business book or picked up in a podcast. It happened while I was sitting on the floor of a small villa in Turkey, watching Life of Pi on a laptop, trying to keep it together after losing someone I loved.

When I started in marketing, I was obsessed with numbers. Clicks, opens, conversions, impressions, I wanted to track everything. I still do, to a degree. There’s nothing like seeing a clean upward curve in your analytics dashboard. It scratches the same part of my brain that enjoyed color-coding binders in 8th grade. But at some point, probably after launching my 500th campaign and still feeling vaguely empty after it “performed,” I started asking a different question.

Not “Did they click?”
But “Will they remember?”

One minute I’m recording a breathwork script for a mindfulness app. Next, I’m rewriting a headline for a paid campaign that needs to go live in 26 minutes.

Welcome to the chaos. I live here.