I’m deep into the work of my University of Cambridge dissertation. The more I learn, the more questions I have. I’m sitting at my laptop, looking at the research and also monitoring the news. Where do I begin with all of the problems, pain, and promise in the world? How can I make a difference?
I close my laptop and go to the forest, where I always go when I don’t know what to do. My forest is Prospect Park in Brooklyn. The ginko trees are putting on a show—my favorite kind of gold. Walking there among the crunchy colorful leaves on the forest floor, the autumn sun on my face, breathing in the cool dry air, I think of Rilke and his beautiful quote about living the questions in the book Letters to a Young Poet.
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.” ~Rainer Maria Rilke
Maybe the point of my dissertation is not to find an answer, but instead to find a way to ask powerful questions that help readers live into answers of their own making and choosing. Maybe I’ve been trying to make my dissertation a solution when what’s really needed is a mirror, using stories to reflect individual truths back to people who haven’t yet seen them on their own, to help them stand in the power they don’t know they have to shape the world in a way where everyone brings their gifts and resources to the table and uses them to collaboratively to win together.
This is how a forest operates, the flora and fauna sharing with and caring for one another, each taking what they need and giving what they have. Diversity is celebrated, and necessary for health. Abundance is created through deep cooperation. Imagine a human society like that. Maybe I’ve found an answer after all.
The short of it:
Writer. Health, education, and art advocate. Theater and film producer. Visual artist. Product geek. Proud alumnae of the University of Pennsylvania (BA) and the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia (MBA). Inspired by ancient wisdom & modern tech. Proliferator of goodness. Opener of doors. Friend to animals. Fan of creative work in all its wondrous forms. I use my business skills to create passion projects that build a better world. I’ve been called the happiest New Yorker, and I try hard to live up to that title every day.
The long of it:
My career has stretched across Capitol Hill, Broadway theatre, education, nonprofit fundraising, health and wellness, and Fortune 500 companies in retail, media, entertainment, technology, and financial services. I’ve been a product developer and product manager, theater manager, strategic consultant, marketer, voice over artist, , teacher, and fundraiser. I use my business and storytelling to support and sustain passion projects that build a better world. In every experience, I’ve used my sense of and respect for elegant design to develop meaningful products, services, programs, and events.
While building a business career, I also built a strong portfolio as a journalist, novelist, freelance writer, interviewer, presenter, and public speaker. My writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, PBS.org, Boston.com, Royal Media Partners publications, and The Motley Fool on a wide range of topics including business, technology, science, health, education, culture, and lifestyle. I have also been an invited speaker at SXSW, Teach for America, Avon headquarters, Games for Change, NYU, Columbia University, Hunter College, and the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America. The first book in my young adult book series, Emerson Page and Where the Light Enters, was acquired by a publisher and launched in November 2017. I’m currently working on the second book in the series.
A recovering multi-tasker, I’m equally at home in front of my Mac, on my yoga mat, walking my rescue dog, Phineas, traveling with a purpose, or practicing the high-art of people watching. I also cut up small bits of paper and put them back together as a collage artist.
My company:
I’m bringing together all of my business and creative career paths as the Founder of Double or Nothing Media:
• I craft products, programs, and projects that make a difference;
• I build the business plans that make what I craft financially sustainable;
• I tell the stories that matter about the people, places, and products that inspire me.
Follow my adventures on Twitter at https://twitter.com/christanyc and Instagram at https://instagram.com/christarosenyc.
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Christa Avampato 