Month: January 2013

career, creativity, work

Beautiful: Thinking With Our Fingers

Christa Avampato

writing“Writing to me is simply thinking through my fingers.” ~ Isaac Asimov

There is something magical about the act of working with our hands. Whether we’re painting, writing, creating music, cooking, or some other tactile-based project, there is a certain pride that creeps in when we look upon something we physically created. It magically makes us feel whole, capable, and empowered.

I think this idea holds a lot of promise for how we think about our careers. I recently read a post on LinkedIn about 16 words you should stop using to describe yourself. Overwhelmingly, the words that the author suggests omitting are ones that describes traits, not activities. When someone says they’re an architect, I immediately get a picture in my mind of what they actually do. They make things, structural things like buildings to be exact. I can get my head around that. It’s real to me. I understand how they spend their time.

In the next few days, I’ll revamp my LinkedIn profile and business website to better define what I do, why, and how. It will accurately describe how I spend my time and for what greater purpose. I’ll cut the jargon and popular buzz words of the day and get to the simple statements of how I use my heart, mind, and yes, my fingers, to create things I care about.

business, dreams, entrepreneurship

Meet Ritc Founder, Dave Goldberg

Christa Avampato

Dave and I went to business school together. Ever since we have talked about what it takes to leave behind a steady job for the sake of building something of our own. I made that jump in June and Dave is on his way as well with the founding of Ritc. Congrats, Dave. Welcome to the movement!

I felt it even today. The encroachment of failure. The feeling like I was losing ground, giving up, just letting opportunities pass. It’s not a good feeling, but unfortunately it’s one that I’ve been quite familiar with throughout my life. When I think about it, the feeling has been part of a larger pattern that I feel has stymied my progress many times.

Step 1 – It starts with an idea or an opportunity. I’m a fairly creative person and I find that I see opportunities and new ideas in almost everything. Mostly this is a good thing.

Step 2 – Sometimes I get very excited by whatever crazy scheme I’m thinking of, so I start pursuing it in one form or another. Usually I conduct some kind of research to test the viability. And that leads to Step 3.

Step 3 – Obstacles. The first major potential failure point.

Step 4 – Fear, Doubt and Uncertainty (FUD).

Step 5 – Give up on idea.

Step 6 – Disappointment in myself. If I didn’t become wildly successful at my idea (due to not actually trying or committing to it), I feel like a loser and I mark it as another personal failure. A failure of my own character. This is very hard to digest. You see for me, my expectations of myself have never been different from my wildest aspirations, and so I set up a system for myself where I always feel that I am an underachiever because I don’t immediately succeed.

Step 7 – Get over it.

Step 8 – Repeat the process all over again. Weirdly, I’m a very optimistic person when the time horizon is long!

Did you catch the step where it all breaks down? It’s definitely not Step 3. Everyone deals with multiple obstacles on the way to achieving anything in life.

Step 4? I used to think so, but I’ve come around on that. I mean, if that’s the problem then I’m in big trouble – I just felt it TODAY for crying out loud! I do believe that over time, I can decrease the FUD factor, but I don’t believe it will go away and I don’t believe that is what REALLY gets in my way.

Step 6? Well, this is something I definitely want to change, but I don’t think it’s the key. I don’t think the key to my success is so…self-aware.

No, it’s not the steps where I feel resistance, whether real or perceived. As I’m sure you figured out already (faster than I did I’m quite sure), it’s Step 5 – giving up in the face of FUD. Giving up is the surest path to not achieving your goals.

But over the last year or so, as I’ve been building my new product and preparing to launch a new venture, I have started to take a slightly different approach. It’s called – DO IT ANYWAY (AKA Don’t Give Up At The First Sign of FUD). I’m going to be afraid. I’m going to be uncertain. I’m going to have doubts. But I believe in what I’m doing, and I’m not going to let those things stop me anymore.

This approach has been working. It’s hard, and sometimes I take 3 steps back before I recover a few steps forward, but I’m making progress. I have a long way to go, and many more opportunities to succumb to Step 5, but I know that I will succeed on some level if I just keep going.

I know that success in my venture is far from guaranteed, regardless of whether I give up or not. In the end I’m not sure that really matters. What matters is that when my daughter asks me if I tried to achieve my dreams, I will be able to tell her yes…I gave it my best shot. That’s my goal.

565295_10100772252127356_1856955235_nDave Goldberg lives in the Washington D.C. suburbs with his wife and daughter. He loves building products, the semantic web, and daydreaming. He is currently building Ritc, a platform to connect, automate, and build applications on the web. You can check it out at http://ritc.io.

beauty, friendship, nature, New York, New York City

Beautiful: In New York, We Are Stars to Each Other

Christa Avampato
From Pinterest
From Pinterest

I had dinner with my friend, Amanda, on Wednesday night. Though we are people who love and crave time in the natural world, we both made the decision to live in New York City for its cultural diversity and creative opportunities. Still, in these bleak months of winter with its heavy gray skies and meager hours of sunlight, my thoughts often turn to a different kind of life in a different kind of place that involves more trees and less concrete. You can take the girl off the farm, but that doesn’t mean you can make her forget its wonders.

Amanda and I talked about how much we miss the stars. While in New York City, you’ll gaze up at the sky to catch a glimpse of a handful of sparkly specks. Get out of the reach of the city lights and we are reminded that there is a galaxy with an infinite number of stars nestled into the darkness. I miss those stars; I miss the awe that they inspire and the perspective they provide. How can I have all the richness of the New York experience and still gaze at the stars? Is it possible to have both?

I thought a lot about this conversation as I wound my way from New York’s Little India to Times Square to catch the subway home. In a city like New York that has so few stars in the sky by which to navigate, we have to look for the stars among the people around us like my friend, Amanda.

While I miss those twinkling lights that I’ll never reach way up high, there’s something really precious and beautiful about being able to know and love the stars who light our way at ground level. We have to be one another’s True North.

adventure, creativity, determination, passion

Beautiful: Irrational Passion

Christa Avampato
From Pinterest
From Pinterest

“‘Irrational Personal Passion’ is the heart of effective entrepreneurship.” ~ Tom Peters

You have an idea. A wonderful, beautiful, sparkly idea. After much crafting and nurturing, you slowly begin to release it out into the world. You tell one person, and then another, and then another. You hope for praise and encouragement and much rejoicing. And there is that one person (or in my case, there are many people) who tell you your idea just won’t work because of reasons A – Z. And what do you do? You smile.

You’re on to something. You’ve hit a nerve. You’ve found a new way of seeing the world. Now you’re getting somewhere.

Some people give up in the face of criticism and negativity. You? You keep rising. You take all that energy that people put into tearing down your idea and use it make yourself, and your idea, stronger. Plow ahead. Reach higher. Go further. Irrational passion is the only thing that has ever caused true, lasting, meaningful change. Without it, we’ll never be anything more than we already are. Irrational passion is the fuel of progress.

books, children, education, learning, technology

Beautiful: I’ve Joined the Advisory Board of Jumping Pages

Christa Avampato

3294658_300To continue my 2013 new years resolution to make beautiful things, I am thrilled to announce that I have joined the Advisory Board of Jumping Pages. Created by Rania Ajami, Jumping Pages brings classic and modern-day children’s stories to life through tablet apps. The artistry, music, and storytelling are stunning, and a portion of the proceeds of every sale is donated to charities that help kids in need. As someone who loves children, books, and technology and is dedicated to supporting good causes, I couldn’t be happier to take up this new opportunity that combines all of these passions!

Working with Jumping Pages also fuels another resolution I made last year. Inspired by David Kelley‘s decision to forgo a corporate job because he “wanted to work with [his] friends”, I have been looking for opportunities to do the same. John Casey, Director of Marketing for Jumping Pages, has been my dear friend since our days together at Toys R Us. When he started his own PR agency a few years ago, he inspired my own leap to work for myself through Chasing Down the Muse, my creative consulting practice. Being on the Advisory Board for Jumping Pages gives me an opportunity to work closely with John again – another career dream realized.

Jumping Pages has a number of exciting projects in the works and I’ll announce all new launches on this blog once they’re available for purchase. In the meantime, I hope you’ll visit the website and learn more about this amazing brand that brings reading to life.

determination, passion, success, work, writing, yoga

Beautiful: How to Be Successful

Christa Avampato

20700_446525692062402_1595450150_n“Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life – think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, and every part of your body be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success.” ~ Swami Vivekananda

Above anything, success requires dedication. You must give you heart, body, and soul over to it. It’s the drumbeat that never stops ringing in your ears. The masterpiece that is never quite finished by your hand. You have to care so much that you are willing to tinker with it over and over and over again.  And for its own sake, you let others play a part in it to share its goodness. It’s bigger than you.

My passion projects – writing, Compass Yoga, fundraising for good causes – are never far from my mind. And they never feel burdensome. They never feel like work. They’re more an elixir, a balm that makes all the rough patches of life a little easier to bear. They do more than sustain me; they raise me up.

This feeling is all the success I’ll ever need.

business, work

Beautiful: What Jon Bon Jovi Teaches Corporate CEOs About Business and Leadership

Christa Avampato
Jon Bon Jovi
Jon Bon Jovi

I recently read that a company is re-engineering (again) and laying off close to 10% of their workforce. The announcement is rather convoluted and it boils down to this: they don’t think the skills of the people that they have on staff meet today’s needs so they’re going to let them go and hire new people with different skills.

To this idea, I have one piece of advice: corporate CEOs, take a cue from Jon Bon Jovi. He respects every member of his band and when the chips are down for any single member, Jon gets them the help they need. He cares about them as people first, and as musicians and colleagues second.

To be perfectly honest, good business is not rocket science. Sure, there are some who are better at it than others, for whom business comes more naturally. However, all of it can be taught to anyone. And yes, that includes hot topics like product development, social media marketing, and coding. All that’s required is a qualified teacher and a willing student. To learn something new requires heart, passion, solid work ethics, and the desire to be helpful and useful. These are not the possessions of a chosen few; everyone can have those and with those traits, anything can be learned, rocket science included.

This retraining of existing staff is also good business. It costs companies millions of dollars to lay off staff and hire new people. Why not do as much as you can with the people you have? Give them a chance to adapt to a changing world by learning new skills. Companies need to invest their resources in training, not in re-engineering. This makes good sense for everyone – employees, companies, and shareholders.

I’m so sick of businesses treating people like line items on a spreadsheet rather than human beings who’ve given so much of their time to make these companies successful. And I’m especially sick of hearing CEOs use lines like “it’s not personal; it’s business.” Anything that involves people by its very nature is personal. It’s about time we start acting like people in business rather than drones. That’s what Jon would do and look how successful he is.

beauty, creativity, make, maker, nature

Beautiful: Nature Teaches Us to Be Resourceful

Christa Avampato
From Pinterest
From Pinterest

“When you let go of trying to get more of what you don’t really need, it frees up oceans of energy to make a difference with what you have. When you make a difference with what you have it expands.” ~ Lynn Twist

When I feel myself getting a case of the “I need more…” syndrome, I play this little meditation game. I imagine that I’ve miraculously found $100,000 with no strings attached that I can spend any way I like. Would I travel the world, donate it all to charity, put a down payment on a house, pay off all my student loans? A few minutes into the game, I always find myself saying “$100,000 just isn’t enough. What I really need is…” And then I start laughing. $100,000 of discovered money isn’t enough? That’s absurd.

And this is how it goes for so many of us. We focus so much on what we don’t have that we lose sight of all of the resources at our disposal. Our culture feeds us a healthy diet of lack. Nothing is ever, ever enough.

When this happens, it’s up to us to turn off all of our devices, get outside, and go for a walk. Look around. Nature doesn’t think about lack. It adapts without any drama to the resources available at the present time. Nature has a much bigger job than any of us. It has to keep this whole planet and all of life moving forward. We think we’re over-scheduled and tired? Mother Nature takes a look at her to-do list and shakes her head at all of us.

Stop letting a sense of lack deprive you of the wonders that lay at your feet. Pick them up and put them to good use. Everyone can make something beautiful right where they are with exactly what they have.

action, beauty, choices, yoga

Beautiful: The Heart as Leader

Christa Avampato
From Pinterest
From Pinterest

“Well done is better than well said.” ~ Benjamin Franklin, American inventor and statesman

Since the start of the new year, I’ve been speaking to a lot of yoga teachers who want to join Compass Yoga. They are passionate about their craft and have a strong desire to help others so I’m searching for opportunities for all of them. One of them recently said to me that so many people put together community efforts and half-ass them. She loves Compass because of the commitment that I and so many others have to it.

When I decide to do something, I just do it. Everywhere I go, I go with my whole heart. And if my heart goes somewhere, I know the rest of me is soon to follow. That string can’t be broken; it’s the true mind-body connection. Once my heart wishes for something, I have to act. And that is its own kind of gift.

action, adventure, creativity, time

Beautiful: Your Actions Belong to You

Christa Avampato
From Pinterest
From Pinterest

“My actions are my only true belongings.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

I know this to be true. Over 3 years ago, I lost almost all of my possessions and nearly my life in an apartment building fire. In an instant I learned the deep truth of that old adage “it’s just stuff.” If it had gone another way, if I hadn’t gotten out in time, all that would have remained of me would have been the results of my actions and the people who remembered them.

So there is no time like the present. It’s the only time we have. Do something with it. Make something beautiful that matters.