Month: November 2010

choices, creative, creative process, creativity, decision-making, design

Step 334: An Impossible Goal

Christa Avampato

Today I had lunch with General Counsel of the company I work for. I asked her how she fostered creativity among her team and she told an interesting anecdote. One of her teams manages a very large portfolio of patents, and while valuable they are very expensive to obtain and maintain. She challenged her team to devise a solution to cut the cost of the patent program in half, a ridiculously provocative goal (her words, not mine.) While she has a great deal of confidence in the talent of her team, she had serious doubts about being able to reach that goal.

So why did she do it? Why set a team up to “fail”? She wanted them to really get into the problem and find a new way of doing things. If she had set the goal at 10%, they probably could have made a few tweaks here and there, and met the goal. She wanted radical transformation and extreme creativity to come into play. To get at that, she needed to set the bar so high that it seemed out of reach. Even if they didn’t hit it, she was certain that they’d find a new way forward that would be beneficial.

And with the ingenuity of her team operating on all cylinders, they did find a new ways forward and they did hit that crazy goal of a 50% cost reduction. And as an added benefit, they also liked the new system much better because it was much easier to manage.

Impossible goals can be very valuable. They can push us to our edge and then some. They ask us to not tinker, but to go out to the wide open white space of our minds, into areas that we would likely never even approach because our logical minds would get in the way. If we make a goal far out of sight, it ceases to be a roadblock to our creativity. It can actually free us to do our very best work, to imagine a whole new world of possibilities.

choices, decision-making, design, goals, imagination, inspiration

Step 333: Harry Potter, Muhammad Yunus, and How to Build a Business

Christa Avampato

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been doing a lot of think about small bets and goals, and the enormous benefits that can be gained by an individual and an entire community. Muhammad Yunus, founder of Grameen Bank and one of my social entrepreneurship idols, is famous for saying that he didn’t set out to help the whole world, or even his whole country of Bangladesh through microfinance. He wanted to help one village of 10 people in 1976 (incidentally, the same year I was born.) 34 years later, it’s deposits now stand at ~$1.4B and the organization has helped 8.3M people out of poverty, 97% of them women. (For more indicators of Grameen’s impact, click here.) He advises entrepreneurs not to build enormous business plans to scale. He tells them to just set one simple intention – help 5 people out of poverty.

Over the weekend, I took my family to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, part of Universal’s Islands of Adventure Theme Park. What they’ve done with the tiny bit of land set aside for Harry Potter is truly wonderful, with a few exceptions which I’m detailing in a letter to send to their President as guest feedback. What was abundantly clear is that they don’t believe that the appeal of Harry Potter will last too long. The Harry Potter part of the park is adjacent to several junky exhibits that should have been ripped out and used to expand the Harry Potter section. With such rich content, an entire park could have been built around that franchise, rather than just a sliver of an existing park land-locked between exhibits with little appeal. So much opportunity wasted due to a lack of belief by Universal in the powerful connection that fans feel to Harry Potter. Sometimes you need to bet the farm, or in Universal’s case at least the Islands of Adventure.

What does Harry Potter have to do with Muhammad Yunus? Quite a bit when we think about passion, belief, and priorities, and how those 3 pieces come together to form a new product that inspires and ignites creativity. Universal went small on an idea that warranted a far bigger bet. Muhammad Yunus bet small, knowing that his success could be replicated the world over if he could help his original group of 10.

The moral of the story – bet small on a brand new idea, but don’t go so small that you paint yourself into a corner.

Christmas, holiday

Step 332: Magic In Believing

Christa Avampato

“And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.” ~ Roald Dahl via the very cool art blog http://prettygoodforagirl.blogspot.com/

This always feels like a magical time of year, when anything and everything is possible. The snow sparkles and the music, food, and decorations bring us back to simpler times. Smiles come easy and people give the best of themselves, to those they love and to those they will never meet. We give our best during this time of year, whether or not Christmas is a part of our faith.

As much as I wish this special feeling would last all year, it never does. Maybe this kind of merriment just isn’t sustainable. Maybe it needs to ebb and flow to keep itself fresh and new. Every year just before Thanksgiving, I run out of steam a bit. I feel a little heavy in the heart. In some small way I always lament the passing of another year. Maybe because I see the time ticking by too clearly. Time passing assures that change is coming, too. I get a little quiet during this time. I listen and watch.

As my thoughts turn to all things Christmas, my spirit feels renewed. My energy picks back up. Somehow Christmas makes even the most ordinary things special. A party has a little more cheer. A shared holiday meal has more significance. We remind ourselves how grateful and lucky we are to have people we love in our lives. As practical as I am, I really do think that there’s always magic working in the background of our days, pointing the way, nudging us in the direction we’re meant to take. I just feel the magic a bit more in December than I do at any other time of year. I’m not really sure if the world itself actually changes in December, but I know my heart does, just when I need it most.

The image above can be found here.

generosity, leadership

Step 331: Giving Our Best

Christa Avampato

“You get the best out of others when you give the best of yourself.” ~ Harvey S. Firestone

“The hardest thing on earth is choosing what matters.” ~ Sue Monk Kidd

I’ve been thinking a lot about leadership recently, and its elusive, mutable nature. I believe that the very best leadership is rooted in a deep desire to serve others. Though in its final expression it is outwardly focused on others, if we are to lead well we must have a deep understanding of what lies within us first. We must learn to enjoy and respect the company we keep in the empty moments before we can fully engage with others. We must know our own heart’s longing before we can uncover the same in others. To bring forward the very best in others, we must know and cultivate the very best within ourselves. To know ourselves, to really come face to face with who we are, who we mean to be, and how we should spend our time this time around is a lifetime endeavor.

Amid the stresses of daily life, how do we ensure that we leading a life composed of the very best we have to give? How do we make our days and years really matter? Here are 5 ways that I measure the quality of what I’m giving:

1.) Does an activity give me energy? I’m all for a good work out that leads me to a long, restful sleep, but aside from that I’m more interested in activities that boost me up rather than ones that leave me feeling depleted. If I start to feel my mind going numb, it’s best for me to move on.

2.) Am I giving and receiving something positive simultaneously? I may do a service project that helps someone else and makes me feel good about contributing to my community. I may write a blog post that helps me work out a challenge I’m having while also helping someone else. When I hang out with my nieces, the hope is that we’re all having a great time. If I’m doing anything that doesn’t strike this balance most of the time, chances are I’m not putting my best into the world.

3.) Is there laughter involved? By nature, I tend more toward the serious side of life more than the humorous side. (I’m working on balancing that out in 2011 – more details to come in a later post.) I can always rest easy when the activity I’m doing is somehow triggering laughter. Of course, always better to have people laughing with us than at us, but I’ve also been known to never be above self-deprecation if it increases the chances of a happy ending. Humility doesn’t get all the respect it deserves.

4.) Is what I’m doing furthering one of my larger goals? My blog posts are a great example of this principle. Each post isn’t in and of itself an audacious goal, but each one is adding to my goal of living a writer’s life. Smalls steps make the journey.

5.) Am I resting easy? My sleep cycle is my greatest signal of the value of my daily activities. I had insomnia for a good chunk of my life and my yoga training really helped to correct that, as did a lot of the work I’ve done with Brian. When my heart’s at peace, my mind and body follow. A day well-lived leads me into a night well-slept.

How do you measure what really matters and how do you keep track of whether or not you’re on the right path?

choices, decision-making, goals, love

Step 330: Focus on Small Intentions

Christa Avampato

“We can do no great things, only small things with great love.” ~ Mother Teresa

There is a desire in our culture to make everything big, to have all experiences be life altering. We want the very best of everything, always. We are not by nature happy with incremental change and improvement. We are a society focused on drastic shifts; we like to go to extremes.

As I’m reflecting on 2010 and thinking about 2011 goals, I feel that temptation toward big ambitions. And then today I read the quote above and reminded myself about the incredible accomplishments that can come from doing a small handful of things really well. So rather than saying I’ll own my own yoga studio, I’ll rent a tiny space in someone else’s studio and see how it goes. I’ll continue to try to make connections in the medical field to teach yoga as part of an integrative approach to health and wellness – and I’ll do it for free if need be. I’ll put together a book that uses some lessons of yoga to teach basic personal finance.

I’ll go into 2011 one small step at a time and take each step with a lot of love and care. This will be a whole new experiment for me. I’m not good at taking my time. I’m not good at being still, or even just slowing down. Despite my physical stature, small is not a common word in my vocabulary. When people meet me for the first time, they often remark that they thought I’d be taller. To be honest, I wish I was. I make up for it with a personality and opinions that are big and bold. This coming year I’m going to try to lead with my heart first. Small intentions, big love.

The image above can be found here.

holiday, simplicity, thankful, thanksgiving

Step 329: Thankful for Less

Christa Avampato

Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday. Good food and lots of downtime with no pressure of gifts or any schedule. There’s a parade with colorful floats, followed by hours of sporting events and a nap or two, and the knowledge that the next month is about having as much fun as possible.

This morning I was lying in bed and counting my blessings, which I am so lucky to have in abundance. I like this exercise because it helps me realize all that I do have, but I like it best for an even more important reason – it makes me realize how much I don’t need. Right before that horrendous day known as Black Friday, this is a good thing to remember. When Phin and I went out for our walk this morning, we picked up the morning paper to find it bursting with retail fliers, some touting that their doors open at 3:00am. That is one thing I certainly don’t need.

In so many ways we’ve been conned (mostly by ourselves) into thinking we just don’t have enough, that we must hang on to everything in sight because it’s about to slip right through our fingers in the blink of an eye. So we stuff our lives and homes with material possessions, pack our schedules to the brim, and still long for more.

This Thanksgiving, I’m grateful for less. A schedule that’s not hectic, a home that has little more than the bare essentials, a good meal that fills me to just the right level, some sunshine, and simple times with my family. These days I’m living with less, and grateful for it because it means I have so much more to give.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The image above can be found here.

frustration, nature, strengths, stress

Step 328: Make Like a Grapevine and Focus

Christa Avampato

“A vine, well-exercised, produces an intense wine.” ~ Anthony Bourdain

Yesterday I was at my mom’s house watching an episode of Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations. I recently finished his book, Kitchen Confidential, and love his bits of life wisdom garnered through his life in food. On yesterday’s episode he was meandering through Provence and all of the incredible cuisine that area of the world has to offer. He went to visit a restored winery and met with the owner to learn about the gifts of strong heat and rocky soil that make for incredible, intense wine. Because the vines struggle a bit through the rocky soil (and it is a delicate balance asking them to struggle enough to become strong, but not so much that it ruins the vines entirely), the flavor in the grapes is pungent and focused.

Yesterday morning I was struggling with a bit of a problem. I have been doing a lot of pitching for my out-of-school education program, Innovation Station. I’ve gotten many positive reactions to it, and people who are interested in producing it once a pilot is complete and the results are in. Trouble is that I’m not having much luck reeling in a school willing to let me run a small pilot. I have known from the beginning that a pilot it crucial as part of a larger sell-in and that a pilot created and run by someone outside of education would be a tough sell. As much talk as there is about public education wanting more innovative ideas, it is an incredibly insular world. (Consider the criticism of Cathie Black, a seasoned, respected, accomplished professional as the new chancellor of NYC public schools.) Risk is not something that public education is accustomed to.

Like good wine making, a sprinkle of struggle in a project’s life cycle can create a better product. It could be that now is just not the right time for this program. Maybe I need to focus my energy in other areas at the moment like my yoga and my writing. It could be that the schools I’ve been speaking to are not the right ones for this program and I need to keep looking for a better match. Whatever the reason, Anthony Bourdain’s analogy of a grapevine helped me feel more comfortable with a bit of struggle and frustration in my own life today. I could use a healthy dose of focus in 2011, and the order that comes with it.

The image above can be found at nyhabitat.com

books, career, change

Step 327: Your Career in Decades

Christa Avampato

I recently met someone who thinks about his career in decades. He got a PhD and spent 10 years as a particle physicist, is now about 5 years into his decade in finance, and believes his next decade of work will involve green energy. I was really struck by this framework for a career. He wasn’t the least bit phased about moving from field to field, taking an entirely different direction each time. Nor was he concerned with how to explain his jumps. He sees his career as a vehicle for learning, not as a way to build a resume. He loves being a beginner, charging up a vertical learning curve. I admire him for that.

About a year ago I wrote a post about Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers. In the book he discusses a benchmark for making a specific impact in a chosen professional field – 10,000 hours of work. Let’s assume someone works 40 hours per week for 50 weeks per year. That makes 2,000 hours per year, making it necessary to work for about 5 years in a given field. If an average career spans roughly 40 years, we have the opportunity to make a significant impact in 8 different fields throughout our careers.

My new friend and his decade rule seem to be on to something here. Why not leap? Why not strike out and try something entirely new? As long as we feel comfortable starting over, there’s so much good we can do, so many new experiences we can have. There’s no reason to feel stuck.

art, blog, creativity, imagination

Step 326: Keep a Canvas Blank

Christa Avampato

When I moved into my apartment over a year ago, I had nothing but a borrowed air mattress from a friend and a handful of clothes. My apartment building fire in my former apartment building ruined most of my belongings and the few that were salvageable were sent away for a special cleaning to remove the soot and the horrid smell that’s left in everything after a fire. It’s a smell that I’ll never forget. I looked around at my very blank, very empty apartment and my heart sank. I would have to start over. Again.

In the months after my fire I tried putting my material life back together. It was slow going. I had some art that was saved but the frames were ruined. I got them re-framed and tried to hang them on my blank walls. I couldn’t do. I’d start to put a picture hook into the wall and start crying. Starting over was painful, lonely work. Eventually, I just cried my way through it because it had to be done, and once I got to the other side of that good cry, I had walls that were decorated and a heart that felt more peaceful.

This experience caused a recent blog post by Derek Sivers to really hit home for me. Derek is the musician, programmer, and entrepreneur who created CD Baby and then gave away his company to charity to support music education. He’s a brilliant guy, generous, courageous, and best of all an incredibly honest writer. A few days ago he wrote a blog post entitled “Why wreck a blank canvas“. My only criticism of the post is I wish he had written it sooner. It would have helped me through my struggles of starting over. I wouldn’t have felt so badly about my very blank, new canvas known as my apartment, and in many ways, mirrored my life at that moment, too.

In the post Derek talks about the large blank canvases he has on the walls of his home. He leaves them blank intentionally to inspire others. A blank canvas allows every person to have his or her own unique vision of what should populate that area. It’s a conversation starter for Derek and a creativity jump starter to everyone who views those blank canvases. The comments on the post are equally fantastic – read through them. I’m taking my cue from Derek. I’m getting a blank canvas and hanging it up on my wall as a reminder that I will always be strong enough to start over.

grateful, gratitude, routine, vacation

Step 325: Gratitude Grows Away from NYC

Christa Avampato

I will be the first person to tell anyone why I think New York City is the greatest place on Earth for me. There are so many other cities in the world that I love, but none that feel so like home to me as New York. It is a city that has literally every amenity, experience, and culture imaginable, and then some. But even I, a very proud New Yorker, need a break. Last week I found myself frustrated with the subway, aggravated with the crowds, and sometimes overwhelmed by the noise. I needed time away.

For Thanksgiving week I’m in Florida, where most of my family now lives. (My brother and I are the only ones still in the Empire State.) Phineas took his first plane ride, and I’m staying with my parents for the first time in their new place after their recent retirement. I’m horsing around with my nieces, joking around with my sister, Weez, and talking with my brother-in-law about art, Cesar Milan, and all things Alabama. We’ll be taking a spin around Disney World, checking out the new wizarding world of Harry Potter, and getting our fill of cartoons and old movies. It’s a very different life down here than it is for me at home. And that’s a very good thing.

My mom reminded me yesterday of all the little things that make her life easier now: new appliances, a gym across the street, numerous restaurants she can go to for lunch with my stepfather, and all of the services within walking distance of their new place. (Phineas and I discovered the Starbucks this morning on the other side of their apartment complex.) Palm trees sway, the wading birds call (a little too early in the morning, but a far less jarring sound than the sirens I’m accustomed to), and flip-flops are well-used year-round.

I lived in Florida for a year and a half a number of years ago, though I don’t think it will ever be my home again. However, coming here is a chance for me to recharge with my family and be reminded of just how important little conveniences are. I lose sight of that in New York where we want everything we want, when and where we want it, and 99.9% of the can get it. The appreciation for the little day-to-day events that make life so enjoyable is more readily apparent away from the city that never sleeps, and I’m grateful for the reminder.