Today I received some of the best emails I've ever gotten.

Today I got to pretend I was a student again by going to Harvard Business School for the 18th annual Cyberposium conference. I got to hear from the founders of LinkedIn, Dropbox, and Paperless Post, plus many other executives in the tech industry. The event kicked off with Alexa Hirschfeld, the co-founder of Paperless Post, an online invitation company based in New York. Alexa shared a few things she's learned over the years of running this startup with her brother - things she was surprised by as she ventured out into the startup world.

A lot can change in a week. Just 5 days ago, I was happily in a role I had had for a full year (which is actually surprising for me in my 4.5-year tenure at this startup) and had no intention of changing anything. Now it's Saturday morning and I'm waking up at the crack of dawn because I can't sleep from excitement for a new role I'll be taking. Or maybe it's stress. Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between the two.

There was a time when I loved the Passover holiday. I don't really remember this time, but I believe my parents when they say that it happened. Sometimes it's hard to believe - after all, I could probably survive on pita and hummus year-round if I needed to. But today - after two nights of 5-hour seders at my parents' house - I do remember a couple of the reasons I so enjoy Passover and many other Jewish holidays throughout the year: ritual.

It's been much too long since I last blogged, and much too long since I did a speech at Toastmasters. So here's me killing two birds with one stone: my second speech in the Toastmasters book, focused on Organization, while also sharing a bit more about me and my family.

This is a piece I prepared for my first Toastmasters speech, presented at the HubSpot Chapter of Toastmasters last week. It was surprisingly tough to talk about myself for a full 7 minutes - both when I was writing the speech as well as delivering it. One of the interesting comments I got from my evaluator is that it was a very intimate, personal speech, which I realize is my way of sharing stories generally, especially on my blog. So here you go, blog readers, my first Toastmasters "Ice Breaker" speech!

It's been a while since I've blogged and, while I have an excuse, it's not a particularly good one. There have been a lot of changes going on at work (it's our constant state) and I've taken on a new role. Two months into the new role, I'm at a familiar point and looking back at the fun and excitement that is Beginning.

Only people who work harder to achieve their goals. I'm lucky in that my parents drilled this into me as I was growing up. Maybe not in these words, but they refused to believe that I couldn't do something. And it's not just because I was their darling little girl.

It's not often I get to present on lead nurturing at events - it's not exactly what you'd consider a flashy topic - but I had the pleasure of doing so for the Tampa Bay American Marketing Association. Below you can check out the presentation (with audio coming soon hopefully)!

I've been thinking a lot lately about winning (no, not the Charlie Sheen-esque #winning). I've never really been into winning competitions (as my last post touches on) - I didn't play team sports as a kid (what, you didn't peg me as the quiet artsy musical kid?) and generally didn't participate in a lot of competitions. Oddly enough, though, I've recently entered into a competition at work that I'm very much getting into: the mixed doubles foosball tournament. Thanks to my teammate, I've been working on my foosball skills and now, I must say, we are quite the formidable team. I've been practicing and loving the games and can't wait to kick some foosball butt.