I really wanted to work in tech but wasn't sure how to break in, especially since I don't have a degree in computer science. A college friend worked at an email marketing company called VerticalResponse, and they were hiring. I was hired as a customer support rep, where I used Service Cloud to respond to customers via email (Live Agent) and by phone (CTI). After several months of helping customers design beautiful HTML emails, my manager asked if I was interested in helping our Salesforce Admin. Of course, I said yes!

Since I work at a Salesforce Consulting Partner, everyone is pretty much on board with Trailhead. One of my colleagues, who is a project manager, has recently become obsessed with Trailhead. He sends me messages almost daily about all of the badges he's earning! It's really cool to help him and celebrate his progress. Our HR team has a friendly competition to see who can get the most badges. I like that Trailhead levels the technical landscape for everyone in the Salesforce ecosystem. Trailhead makes Salesforce best practices public so everyone gets a shot at being as technical as they'd like.

I was nervous about doing a demo during my talk this year at Dreamforce, but judging from past Salesforce talks I'd seen, I knew that a demo could illustrate ideas better than anything else. Leading up to my talk, I did the Demo Delivery Essentials module, where I learned how to make my demo slick by flipping between tabs and screens quickly. I also learned the amazing trick of recording a screencast as a backup or in lieu of doing a live demo. I've found that I have a hard time clicking and talking, so taking a screencast of my demo and talking over it was a revelation for me. I'm much more confident in planning a demo now–thanks, Trailhead!

Before Trailhead, I learned Salesforce skills mostly through my manager and implementation guides. Both resources were really helpful when I began my Salesforce career, but ever since Trailhead launched, I've been able to learn at a quicker pace. This has definitely made me a stronger Salesforce Consultant. To date, the certification trailmixes have helped me gain twelve certifications.

When I first moved to London, I didn't know many people. Then, in 2016, I went to my first Women in Tech Community Group event, where I met all of these amazing people who volunteer their free time to help others in the Trailblazer Community. I got excited and signed up for the Speaker Academy Program, led by Jodi Wagner and Keir Bowden. We met once a week to learn public speaking skills and how to create strong presentations. During the first class, we had to talk about ourselves for 1 minute (which was unbearable!). But since then, I've gotten more comfortable and have worked my way up to a 25-minute talk. One of my favorite things Jodi said was that the audience doesn't want you to be nervous, they want you to succeed. I love this and try to remember it whenever I feel unsure of myself before speaking.

Be patient with yourself and remember that learning doesn't happen unless you're challenged. Even if you don't understand a new concept or can't master something right away, it doesn't mean you'll never get there. You will.

My mom lives in San Francisco and decided to visit me at Dreamforce. As we walked around Moscone West, she said, “Don't you think it's kind of amazing that you found a career that has all of these cute characters? It's so you!” Later that day, I heard Domenique Sillett and Amanda Cheung give a talk about Astro and Friends, and Domenique said, “YOU are our characters.” That was kind of amazing to hear. She said that Cloudy represents the Admin community, which is so supportive of one another. There is no truer statement!