Living My Life Like It's Golden

At times like these, I need to do two things.

1. Sit back, reflect, and be thankful for the amazing opportunities that have come my way.
2. REMEMBER this moment during the times I feel discouraged.

As a result of the Jack Brand Camp (which I still need to talk about) I was informed of the FutureM event that is happening this week. I am now home from the first two days of workshops, panels, and networking and recharging for the rest of the week. Let me give you a run down of what my life has consisted of the past few days.

Sunday: Photo shoot with SERAi Hair and Makeup Artistry at the Bridal Garden in East Greenwich. As soon as we walked in the door at 4pm, Gessenia and I played Bride-To-Be: trying on dresses, picking out jewelery, and getting our hair and makeup done by Samara and her team. Our session of playing dress-up was followed by a photo shoot that would have made anyone feel like a celebrity!

After a rush of flashing lights and enough lip gloss to last one million kisses, we left there like two teenage girls who just met Justin Bieber. It was so incredibly fun and Samara was absolutely fabulous. However it wasn't long until the reality sunk in that we were leaving for Boston the next day and had a lot of preparing to do. We attempted to do work at her house, but we didn't even make it an hour before our eyelashes seemed heavier than before and called it quits.

Monday: Woke up at 6:45am to meet Gessenia at the office to print our resumes and business cards. Blasting Adele in the background to calm the stress of our "To Do" list, Adele helped us through a dozen failed attempts to align the business card paper correctly. Exhausted, frazzled, and laughing at our situation, we left with only copies of our resume in hand. Dave picked me up at 9:00am and we were finally Boston-bound. The first event Dave and I attended was The Future of Marketing in Sports Entertainment. It was awesome. People from Hill Holliday, NESN, the Patriots, and a Non-Profit were there sharing their marketing wisdom about the one thing that unites people from all over the world-Sports.

One parking ticket later, we headed over to the Microsoft office to Tap Into Gen Y- a panel led by Edward Boches from Mullen. This event particularly got me excited during the segment where it talked about how our generation "brand" themselves while looking for a job via social media. (Hey! Gessenia and I know all about it!) After that event, Dave and I somehow managed to lose the car which took us 65 minutes to realize it was parked only two streets away. (Thank God I took off my heels). We later picked up Gessenia from the Back Bay train station with a surprise in hand...her Mom went to Staples and printed out our business cards!!!! So proud, we headed to the FutureM kick off event where we met a wonderful woman, Alison from Smarterer. She connected with us immediately and offered to help us in any way possible. It's people like her that keep us going!
 
We grabbed dinner and drinks at Red Lantern before making it back to our hotel.

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Tuesday: We woke up bright and early to make our way back to the Microsoft Headquarters for our first event, Massachusetts: The Future of Marketing is Here. A panel of entrepreneurs, venture capitalist and marketing professionals discussed the ways in which they can keep and attract the talent to Boston in order to grow and foster better businesses in the area. Brilliant people with great ideas.

The last session we attended was by far my favorite, "Boston's Digital Showcase." Young entrepreneurs discussed their career paths, and up and coming success stories presented their elevator pitch. The one that made my jaw drop? Krush. Look them up. This guy is a genius. (I could go on and on about these sessions but for the sake of interest, I'm trying to keep this short!) We ended the day on a networking event that directly followed, and met more fascinating people. Boris: CampusLive. Peter Stringer: Celtics Social Media Guru. We made some rookie mistakes during the next hour, for example: when I was asked "Where are you from?" I replied, "Exeter, RI. You know, closer to the southern end." ....He was looking for where I worked... there were a few more- but hey! we are still learning.

While I am gasping for air, I have to say the first few days of this week were an overall success and I cannot wait to go back for more tomorrow.