Month: February 2012

business, dreams, love

Leap: How to Love Your Business Well

Christa Avampato
From Pinterest member http://pinterest.com/dianer/

“Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new.” ~ Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven

It’s true for affairs of the heart and it’s true for how you build a business, which is just another form of an affair of the heart: love matters.

Love counts as much as any amount of financial planning, marketing, and content. If we don’t love it, care about how it all goes, and hold the people we help through our business in the highest regard, everything else falls flat.

And loving the initial idea, the burst of newness, is one thing. It’s easy. Everyone is capable of it. But can we love our business, our mission, in the long run? Through the tough times? Through the dark nights, and occasionally darker days? Can we dig deep, remake, reshape, renew, and fall in love again with our business every single day?

The answer has to be yes to every one of these questions if our ideas are to be sustainable and valuable, for us and the world. Otherwise, we’re just wasting our time, and time is not a resource we can afford to waste. All we get is today. Love it and make it count!

This post is also available as a podcast here.

art, inspiration, passion, theatre

Leap: Kevin Spacey Inspires Passion as Richard III at BAM

Christa Avampato
Kevin Spacey as Richard III at BAM

My friend, Trevin, future editor of the New York Times Theater section, told me if I see one show this season, Richard III should be it. I couldn’t refuse. My friend, Rob, and I went to see Kevin Spacey in the title role at BAM last week. Neither of us had ever been to BAM and we’re huge fans of the play and of Mr. Spacey.

Over the past few weeks I’ve been thinking a lot about passion, and what it means to live a life filled with activities that are close to our hearts. As my years tick on, I’m reminded that time is moving and that we are not going to be here forever. The phrase “If not now, then when?” is stuck on constant replay in my mind. Seeing Richard III was exactly the show I needed to see to drive this point home.

Mr. Spacey is brilliant, haunting, maniacal, funny, and exhausting as Richard III. Rob and I kept looking at each other wondering how on Earth he gets the energy to play that role day in and day out. Between the physical and emotional demands, and the energy required to effectively drive home the true essence of the character, he must literally fall into bed every night. He is laying his heart bare on that stage at every single performance and we can’t help but take that journey with him. He draws us in and does not let us go. It’s so clearly a labor of intense love for him.

That’s the kind of spent feeling we should all aspire to. What would our lives look like if every day we were so enthralled with our work that we could literally pour ourselves, everything we have, heart and soul, into the roles we choose to play? What if we could all find that role of Richard III in our own unique way, just as Mr. Spacey has found his? Imagine how passion could transform everything we set our minds to.

Be inspired – see Richard III at BAM through March 4th.

determination, entrepreneurship

Leap: The Training of an Entrepreneur

Christa Avampato
From Pinterest member http://pinterest.com/oliviawickens/

“It does not matter how slow you go so long as you do not stop.” ~ Confucius

My friend, Poornima, recently explained to me that entrepreneurship is like regularly getting punched in the face and getting up again for more. And still I was not deterred. Neither is she.

As I think about every wonderful experience in my life, I’m reminded that all of them required their fair share of punches. Some times, the punches came in bunches and that expedited the process. Some times, those rounds of punches happened over a long stretch of time. Nothing was ever easy for me, and now I understand why. I needed to build my stamina for the journey I’m on today.

We’re a culture addicted to over night success, to the belief that everyone we admire woke up more morning with a brilliant idea and suddenly became a sensation. But it’s not that way. Beneath all successes worth having, there is a long, long list of things that didn’t work out, opportunities missed and lost, and a map that shows how we often take a step forward only to take two steps back. We should not be discouraged.We need the conditioning.

The trick is of course to keep going. To keep our eyes on the prize. To recognize that no matter how much adversity we face, it’s impossible to beat someone who never gives up. Do not stop.

change, fear

Leap: Don’t Look Down

Christa Avampato

This past week, I started to ask for more practical advice on making my leap – different financial planning tools (personal and professional), health insurance, etc. These items and the options they present take a good deal of planning and preparation and I wanted to start to collect as much data as I can from people whom I deeply respect and admire for the leaps they’ve taken in their own lives.

One of the very best pearls of wisdom I got had nothing to do with the practical nuts and bolts I am investigating, and yet it affects every decision I make in my leap. My friend, Tre, said, “Don’t look down.” It stopped me in my tracks because all of a sudden I realized that all I’ve been doing the last few weeks is looking down, and my fear is getting the best of me in the process.

When we’re about to do something scary, it’s natural that our focus directs to the fearful outcome. And then we begin to lose our confidence, doubt our convictions, shrink from opportunity. The cost seems too great to go after what we really want and what we’re afraid we can’t have.

Pick up your head and look forward. It’s the only thing that’s going to help us balance our fear with a sense of possibility. And that possibility is the only thing that makes the fear worthwhile.

sports, yoga

Leap: The New York Giants Take Up Yoga in Preparation for the Super Bowl

Christa Avampato
New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning (10) stretches during practice for the NFL Super Bowl XLVI in Indianapolis February 2, 2012. The New York Giants will play the New England Patriots on February 5. REUTERS/Jeff Haynes

That’s right – the Giants are getting in their Warriors, Down Dogs, and a few Sun Salutations as they prepare for their victory today in Indiana. Actually, they’ve been getting their yoga on all season long thanks to their yoga teacher, Gwen Lawrence. Building strength, gaining flexibility, and honing focus – all benefits of yoga, all needed by pro football players under a tremendous amount of pressure to perform.

So today as you watch Eli Manning pull that football back by his ear in search of the perfect pass to lead his team to victory, you can be sure he’s in that zone of pure concentration and his yoga practice helped him get. See what it can do for you, too, by heading to a free Compass Yoga class. We’d love to share the gift of the practice that help Eli and his teammates perform so well.

Go Giants!

adventure, career, work

Leap: Go Against the Tide of Bland

Christa Avampato
Photo by Alice Lily

“Why not go out on a limb? Isn’t that where the fruit is?” ~ Mark Twain

Brian has been counseling me now for several years about my confusion around people who phone it in, people who just take what life gives them, shrug their shoulders, and deal with it. Life happens to these people. I meet them, talk to them, and try to understand how they can get through life without ever really figuring out what this life is meant to be for them. Bland is a flavor that’s just fine for them. I think they’re missing out, and that we’re missing out on the benefit of their special gift. They think I try to hard, care too much, and set myself up for constant disappointment with my high standards.

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

When I get to the end of my days, I want to look back and enjoy all of the interests I got to explore all over again. I want to appreciate the value that I brought to the world and feel the warm glow of knowing that many lives were made better because I was able to help them. That’s a tall order, and it’s not something that happens through low expectations. It happens for people who are willing to go out on a limb, push toward the edge, and do the work that lights them up with a sense of passion and purpose.

Life hands us a lot of garbage, a lot of opportunities to do things that just don’t matter. Put those aside. That’s not your work to do. Demand excellence. With a bit of creativity and a lot of courage to follow our convictions, there is so much good work to do in this world. And we have the ability to do get it done. Don’t settle.

teaching, yoga

Leap: Reflections on My Yoga Beginning at ISHTA

Christa Avampato

“Your way begins on the other side. Become the sky. Take an axe to the prison wall. Escape. Walk out like someone suddenly born into color.” ~ Rumi

This week I began the next leg of my yoga teacher journey with ISHTA. Just entering the studio and taking a seat in the back of the room, I felt a vibration there, an energy of the highest order. It’s a place of supreme acceptance, growth, possibility, and support. It is no accident that on a day when every hour at work seemed to break me down, I would walk into this studio and find the beginnings of another way. One of my fellow teachers termed it as the idea of “a return to wholeness.” And that’s exactly how I felt in that space and in that time, whole.

What I am going through in my 9-5 is a form of tapas, a wringing out or burning away, so that I am ready to absorb the energy of a new place, a place better suited to help me operate at the peak of my authenticity. The warm glow of the lights created the perfect balance with the cool cerulean door at the back of the ISHTA studio where we were all huddled together for our first class.

Wendy Newton, our ISHTA teacher, encouraged us to recognize that our only job in this training, and even in life, is to do our practice, the one that opens us up to yoga so that we can be receptive to our teaching. And this teaching is meant for us, and only us, and it is different for everyone. We are each here on this planet, at this time, to learn something quite specific, and our yoga can lead us to that place. It is a particular teaching, taught in a particular way, that suits our particular soul through this leg of the adventure. We must go in search of it, while also slowing down enough to let it find us.

Rumi, I have found my way to the other side.

business, career, creativity, job, journey, work

Leap: Stop Digging Trenches

Christa Avampato

“The only explicit lesson I got from my father was when I was not doing very well in school, and he had a little chat with me and said, “You know, there are people who work for me who dig trenches, and there are people who are professionals, and if you keep going the way you’re going, you’re going to be digging trenches for the rest of your life.” So that shook me up.” ~ Harry West, C.E.O. of Continuum, an innovation design consulting firm

Harry West was featured in the New York Times on Sunday in their corner office section, a weekly features that attempts to get inside the mind of a top executive. Harry’s statement above hit me like a punch in the gut. My education is what saved me, what lifted me up out of the situation I grew up in, and made my studies, travel, and the life experiences I treasure possible. Though I the hard lessons from very lean times are always with me, on occasion I need to remind myself that I am now on much more solid ground. At one point, I had to dig trenches because I had to start somewhere and there were few options for me. That’s not the case anymore. I’ve done my fair share of trench digging and it’s time to put down the shovel.

I don’t mean this to say that I’m done working hard. I hope I’m never done working hard, and if it ever looks as if I’m letting up on my relentless pursuit to go further, I hope you’ll force me to snap out of it. At some point, we need to pick our heads up, take a look outside, and find the thing that lights us up. Life is so incredibly short. We’re here for just a handful of years and we can’t spend it all in the trench.

The point of digging trenches it not to perfect that craft – it’s to lay the ground work for something that homage to the light within you. Learn what it feels like to dig one, and dig one well, and then figure out why on Earth that trench was so important in the first place. There must be something you want to build that makes good use of it, that wraps up your experiences and makes meaning of them. No one else can do that work – only you. Get after it.

creativity, design

Leap: How to solve a problem with the style of designer Marc Newson

Christa Avampato
Marc Newson

This weekend, the New York Times Magazine featured Marc Newson, the most well-known and prolific living industrial designer. Though I’ve been a fan of his work for years, I never knew much about his back story or design methodology. If anything, we seemed to me to be someone who operated on his own plane, operating from his own inner compass rather than through anything he learned in school or through his childhood. While this perception is largely correct, he opened up to journalist Chip Brown about the mechanics of his mind and creativity.”The way I work is to try to get the idea out of my head,” said Newson.

Beginning Friday night, I started to wrestle with an idea for a yoga and meditation workshop I’ll be giving in March for 160 hospice volunteers at MJHS. I consulted books, my teacher training materials, and personal experience. Nothing seemed to strike me as inspired or valuable enough for this incredibly opportunity. So I took Newson’s advice and I forgot about it.

Sure enough on Sunday morning I woke up brimming with ideas. All of a sudden the world of possibility cracked open, and I came up with ideas for this workshop as well as how to craft a set of workshops that could be offered in medical school, healthcare conferences, hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, schools of social work, and yoga studios. I’m all for focused effort, but sometimes it helps to just take a break and have faith that the answer will rise in its own time.