Month: June 2010

luck, opportunity

Step 158: Luck and Preparation

Christa Avampato

“People always called it luck when you’ve acted more sensibly than they have.” ~ Anne Tyler, American author

Every time I bring up the subject of luck with Brian I get his stern look. He doesn’t believe in luck. He says that I’ve been preparing all my life for the good fortune that’s now coming to fruition, and that much of it has been here all along. I just haven’t ever slowed down enough to see it until now.

I experienced the Anne Tyler sentiment earlier today. I told someone about a recent opportunity that sort of fell out of the sky and into my lap. I’m trying to work out the logistics of whether or not I can take it, and those logistics are proving to be a little hairy, which I was explaining to this person. She responded, “I don’t understand how you get all these lucky breaks.”

I told her that I spend a lot of time getting clear on what I want to do. It doesn’t mean I always operate with absolute clarity, or that I’m not open and flexible to change, but I always try to keep moving in the direction that’s right for me. And I network all the time, mostly because I love interesting people and learning and I live in New York City where we’re all packed into this tiny little island like sardines. You can’t help but find opportunity here – there’s nowhere for it to hide!

I’ve also taken up the practice of shouting dreams at the top of my lungs. If I really want to do something, I start telling people about it, and sure enough, that network that I spend so much energy and time cultivating and helping helps me right back. I then explained this idea to this person and she replied, “Well, I want to do all these things you do, but I never have any luck with actually getting the chance to do them.”

Here’s the 3rd piece of the puzzle: no one is going to make opportunities expressly for you. You have to build the opportunity. And that has nothing to do with luck. That means rolling up your sleeves, figuring out what you need to know to make something happen, and then going for it with gusto. We can make excuses for the opportunities we have (or don’t have) all we want. In the end, the life we live is the life we imagine and build.

decision-making, dreams

Step 157: Choosing What to Do

Christa Avampato

“There are many things in life that will catch your eye, but only a few will catch your heart. Pursue those.” ~ Michael Nolan

Opportunities run rampant, so much so that sometimes we miss them. They appear like streaks of light across our line of vision. They wake us up for a moment, and then when we’ve realized they passed, we sink back down and wait. But sometimes, an idea, a dream catches more than our eye. It grabs ahold of our hearts and just won’t let go. As Brian says, “True passion would rather chew its own arm off to free itself rather than die on the vine.” A bit grotesque, but you see what he means. You may even feel it, too.

I have notebooks and blog posts and diaries full of dreams, little sparks and glimmers that caught my eyes from a very young age. They are packed away in boxes in my closest (and thankfully, though not surprisingly, survived my apartment fire last year.) I remember their magic and beauty when I re-open them and read some of their words. I realize how many of my dreams changed and died and were replaced by other dreams. The real ones, the true ones, did not need to be written down. They took up residence in my heart, and they are the ones I still carry and will continue to carry:

1.) To travel
2.) To help
3.) To write
4.) To love

Simple dreams – 8 words in all that express my life as I want it to be lived, today, tomorrow, and always. They comprise the lenses through which I view all the opportunities that cross my path. If it serves one (or more!), I take it up. And if it doesn’t, I let it pass on by without regret. After all, a dream that only catches my eye is better served by being passed on to another person who holds it in her heart.

The image above was created by Eric Perrone.

change, choices, decision-making, dreams

Step 156: Take What You Get or Make What You Take

Christa Avampato

“It is–as we see it–our life. To live … or lose. To form … or allow to be formed.” ~ Tom Peters

Tom Peters has knocked it out of the park this week with his quotes. I wonder if he and I have some secret psychic linkage. Someone once said to me that I have two choices in life: be a narrowcaster or a broadcaster. I think about that choice a lot. Tom Peters says the same thing in this quote. Either form your own road or hop on a road that someone else formed, not for you, but regardless of you. Said that way, I don’t have a choice. I have to go my own way. That’s my nature and I’ve got to be true to it.

I don’t begrudge people who take someone else’s road and do well. I kind of envy them. That must be an easier path than the one I’m choosing to build. I just can’t stomach it. In the very depths of my gut, it feels like the wrong way to spend my days. Brian tried to tell me that yesterday. “The safe road is actually not safe at all,” he said. I sort of believed him at the time.

And then I woke up this morning with a great big illustrative light bulb over my head. Of course I have to build my own road while I’m walking it. One brick at a time. One foot in front of the other. My own instincts as my light in the dark. Would I really be happy any other way?

adventure, change, choices, decision-making

Step 155: Crossing the Chasm

Christa Avampato

“The word … is REFRAMING. Taking a task … and turning it into something-that-makes-a-difference.” ~ Tom Peters

Today, crossing the chasm means more to me than the gap between early adopters and mass appeal as explained by Geoffrey Moore in his excellent business book by the same title. I have two very competent halves: my logical, fiscally responsible side who has done an excellent job of helping me strive, survive, and thrive, and the daydream believer side who must make a difference in the world by doing spiritually meaningful work. Between them exists a very wide gap and I spend a good deal of my energy making the leap on a daily (and sometimes more than daily) basis. To use Tom Peter’s sentiment, I want a better frame.

Where else could I put this energy so that it better serves the bridging of this divide? How can I live my work and work the way I live? Fully. Passionately. Deeply giddy about dreaming and even more giddy about rolling up my sleeves and physically birthing those dreams into the world.

I refuse to believe that these are the idle words that an idyllic life represents and that few can actually achieve. I know that the two can reconcile. And actually, they must reconcile. The chasm has grown too wide for me, and rather than putting my energy into jumping further every day, today I started to build the bridge. Here we go…

The photo above can be found here.

career, economy, innovation

Step 154: Getting Serious About Innovating Your Career

Christa Avampato

“If you’re serious about innovation, you have to get serious … and systematic … about forgetting. PERIOD.”
~ Tom Peters

Tom Peters projects the exact message I need to hear, exactly when I need to hear it. I subscribe to his daily emails and each one gives me a little jolt. Sometimes he times them particularly well, allowing me to share his wisdom with another soul in need of a good talking to.

Today a friend of mine called me to talk about her job. Bright, enthusiastic, and innovative, she toils away on stop-start projects in a very gray cubicle. Today, her CEO gave a rousing speech about innovation and the forward path of the company. “He just gave the speech to the wrong company,” she said to me. “We cut innovative, game-changing projects right and left here, and then complain about being beat out by our competition. I felt like I was living the book The Emperor’s New Clothes. I think he was trying to convince himself of his plan more than he was trying to convince us.”

Despite a very tough economy, she started looking for a new job today. For a few minutes after the CEO’s speech, she said she felt disappointed, let down. Just a few months ago, she felt so excited and inspired by her company. Last week, collective fear about innovation set in around the office, some champions of innovation were let go, the remaining leadership pulled funding for new product development, and she found herself twiddling her thumbs.

I know senior leaders at companies have a lot of pressure on them to produce bottom-line results. In their angst some forget that when they pull the plug on innovation, their most innovative team members, the ones they really need in this tough economy, don’t stick around for things to improve. They look for other opportunities, find them, and take off. Like it or not, CEOs, you can’t keep innovative people down for long. They need appreciation for their efforts, and if you show your appreciation by cutting funding for innovation, you lose their loyalty.

As my friend told me about her story, I listened patiently, and then read this Tom Peters quote to her. She worked hard in her role at this company, and they didn’t recognize the value of her contributions. Now she needs to forget them and start looking for greener pastures. If I put on my yogi hat, I remember that this latest turn of events must mean another place needs her right now. So, she’s setting off on the road toward greener pastures.

opportunity, social media, writing

Step 153: Yelp Review Leads to Freelance Writing Gig

Christa Avampato

What we write online matters more than we know. A few weeks ago, I went to Terroir Wine Bar’s new location in Tribeca with my friend, Sara. My friend, Amanda, and I went to their location in the East Village a while back and I loved it so when this new one opened right near my office I had to check it out. I enjoyed it so much that I wrote a Yelp review, clicked submit, and never gave it a second thought.

About a week later I heard from Neil Squillante, Founder of Technolawyer, a social media company that writes a series of newsletters and a blog covering product reviews, technology tips, and other helpful information for lawyers and law firms of all shapes and sizes. He enjoyed my review on Yelp and then clicked to my profile to see what I do for a living. Seeing that I am a freelance writer and a product developer for a large company, he asked if I knew anyone who might be interested in freelance B2B (business-to-business) writing. I replied, “Yes. Me.”

Several weeks, a few emails back and forth, and a face-to-face meeting later, he asked if I would be interested in doing some freelance writing work for Technolawyer. I never thought a review on Yelp would lead to a freelance writing gig so I certainly didn’t write the review of Terroir for that reason. It’s a great wine bar with an exceptionally wonderful staff, so I wrote the piece in the hopes that it would get them some business. That small piece turned out to be the epitome of a textbook win-win scenario. Or karma, depending on your point-of-view.

Neil looked through my blog, gave me some solid advice about writing, life, and entrepreneurship, and then asked if I’d write about a particular area of my own expertise: positive thinking. While not strictly a required competency for a lawyer, it certainly helps get the job done. Positive thinking particularly helps people, lawyers or not, in this economy. It certainly has helped me and now I hope my post helps others, too.

My article posted on Technolawyer’s blog yesterday. Have a look at http://blog.technolawyer.com/2010/06/remain-sane.html

I must remember to send Yelp a thank you note. It just goes to show that what we put out into the online ether can have far more significance than we ever imagined. Neil’s working on my next writing mission for Technolawyer. I’ll let you know how this unfolds.

goals

Step 152: May Accomplishments and June Goals

Christa Avampato

On May 1st, May Day, I wrote a post inspired by Kimberly Wilson, the Tranquilista. (Again, thanks to my pal, Amanda, for introducing me to Kimberly’s blog!) I laid out my May goals, a monthly ritual that I am going to take up. The days move by too quickly, and this ritual provides me with some structured reflection time every month. I don’t want to get to January 1, 2011 and think, “where did the year go and what did I do in 2010?”

May goals turned accomplishments:
1.) Complete my 200-hour yoga teacher training and testing, and celebrate it.

I completed the training and got all of my required hours and materials in. I celebrated the event with my teacher training pals at a delicious Indian dinner at Balucci’s in midtown. I also celebrated this accomplishment by starting my own business, Compass Yoga.

2.) May is a stressful month for me with visitors, a heavy workload, travel, and the general feeling that I need a serious vacation. I’m going to make the effort to build in some much-needed downtime, letting myself rest and relax between the burst of energy needed. This is interval training to the max.

The stress mounted in May, and then a funny thing happened: by writing out this goal of building in rest and relaxation, I did relax. I focused on the task at hand, and enjoyed the people I was with at every moment rather than always looking ahead to the next activity. And then over Memorial Day weekend, I took off for Florida for some fun with the fam.

3.) Complete my travel plans for my Radical Relaxation yoga retreat.

At the end of this month, I will take off for Greece on a radical relaxation yoga retreat and teacher training with Shiva Rea. Plane tickets to Greece were more expensive than I imagined. I got a decent deal, and luckily the retreat costs less than I planned so in the end I’m on budget with my total vacation costs.

4.) Maintain my meditation practice.

18 minutes a day of quiet lets me tap into my intuition in a more profound way than I could before my meditation practice began. On vacation over Memorial Day, I cut back the time I meditated everyday in exchange for more time with my niece, Lorelei. Every minute of my time counts with her since she lives so far away from me!

5.) Continue building my plans for my own business.

A huge, beautiful milestone. I exceeded my mark on this goal: launched my website for Compass Yoga, drafted a full business and marketing plan, and recognized that I didn’t need every question answered to get going. I also didn’t need to spend a lot of money to get up and running – a wonderful realization. A business is a dynamic, living, breathing being. I know I will make changes and adjustments along the way. I am scared to death and thrilled all at once. I also created the goal of making at least half of my personal income from my own business by my 35th birthday next March.

6.) Setting up some new writing goals for the second half of 2010.

I made one big writing goal: to only write pieces that serve my greater life goals. I synced up with a new social media company via a review I wrote on Yelp, a pleasant surprise that I will talk about in detail in a not-so-distant post later this week. I also made the tough decision to let go of my column on Examiner.com, a column I started writing in February 2009. I wanted to consistently write for Examiner for 1 year, and I exceeded that goal. Time to move onward and upward! Going forward, I will feature inspiring entrepreneurs on this blog instead of on Examiner. I will compile the best of the interviews I wrote for Examiner in an e-book this month. This month I will also begin writing a regular column on relationships, a new writing topic for me, on the re-launched Owning Pink. The Compass Yoga website also has a blog where I will post pieces on health and wellness.

7.) Stay present and in the moment during each task at-hand.

Being a recovering multi-tasker, I created this one as a stretch goal and am really pleased with my progress toward remaining present. I enjoyed the people I was with, the activities I was doing, and the places I went. The more present I stayed, the happier I became.

June goals:
1.) Complete my e-book based upon my Examiner.com column. The book will feature the most inspiring entrepreneurs I interviewed during my 15 months writing for Examiner.

2.) Enjoy every moment in Greece without thinking about any stresses from home. I will be entirely off the grid during that week. I will write ahead for this blog and schedule posts – with modern technology, no need to let the blog waves grind to a halt while I’m soaking in the sun! Rest assured, I will be writing every day from the mountains of Santorini and share all of my adventures here on this blog once I return in early July!

3.) Plan another trip to Florida to welcome my new little niece into the world. She is due June 22nd.

4.) Apply for my International Yoga Alliance certification once I have my teacher-training certificate from Sonic in-hand.

5.) Kick-off my Owning Pink column on relationships, and spend more time on my personal life (which fell a bit to the wayside because of my crazy May schedule.)

I’d love to hear how May went for you and what goals you’re working on in June!