I tell wonder-filled stories about hope and healing
Author: Christa Avampato
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.
“When you are inspired by some great purpose … dormant forces, faculties, and talents become alive, and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be.” ~ Patanjali
I’m not sure how or why the world conspires to grow great ideas.
I have seen in my own life that when I’m inspired by a mission, a mission that seems greater than I can contain on my own, the resources to bring it to life show up in the most unusual places. I wished to move back to New York City after I graduated from Darden to work in product development. Once I committed to moving, the pieces finally aligned after months of effort. When I deeply wanted to find my teaching purpose, Compass Yoga fought its way from just a tiny seed in my mind to a growing organization of people passionate about improving the health of New York’s under-served communities.
The support for my personal missions has come from sources that I never even imagined were possible, much less probable. I work hard to find them, to prepare myself for a lucky break, though I’m still always surprised when that lucky break arrives. Relationships that I thought were long-since withered away find another bloom. Talents I never thought I could cultivate become so prevalent that it’s as if someone else is performing them. I’m often surprised that my own story resonates so soundly with others, and so I keep telling it, hoping that it opens the door for someone else to dream and do.
So why should this latest jump I’m planning be any different? I have no proof to the contrary. The odds of the way opening are up to me. I just need to believe, and then act accordingly. I’m willing to bet that the same is true for you, too.
On Monday night, we began the strategic planning process for Compass Yoga. We’re laying out a solid mission statement and using that to direct our programming and fundraising efforts. With all of the possibilities for our services, we have to be very deliberate about where we place our focus and energy. As we were sorting through possibilities, Michael made a simple and profound statement that stopped all of us in our tracks – “Begin as you wish to go.”
He then quickly made the joke that he read this line in an infant sleep book, but it stuck all the same. No matter what we begin – getting an infant to sleep through the night, starting a company, beginning a relationship, or learning something new – it is critical to keep the compromising to a minimum. Preferably to zero. The start is the foundation, the precedent, by which all other actions will be measured. A bad start is hard to save.
And so we trekked on through our planning with these hallowed words in mind. The thrill of a new beginning, a blank slate, is the opportunity to create something just as we wish it to be. If we can stay true to our vision at the start, the way to go will open.
Chris Hondros with his cameras at work in the field
On Friday night, I went to a photo exhibit with my friend, Amy. Conflict Zone showcases the work of wartime photojournalists, pulled together to honor Chris Hondros, a photojournalist who was killed by a mortar round in Libya in April 2011. Chris was killed in the same incident that took the life of Tim Hetherington, another brilliant photojournalist.
The exhibit is open until February 17th at the New York City Fire Museum and the images are as beautiful as they are haunting. It’s the work of Chris Hondros and so many others like him, who have tirelessly recorded the images of our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan by placing themselves in harm’s way, that have made the war real for us. Unlike during the World Wars and Vietnam, it would have been easy for us to ignore the wars in favor of our own daily concerns. After all, these wars raged on thousands of miles away on lands that few of us will ever see. Unless we were directly linked to the war effort through a loved one serving in the military, we didn’t feel the direct impact of the war all that much.
Except of course when a face was put to the effort, and that face was shown to us through the work of photojournalists. They wouldn’t let us ignore exactly what was happening. We were forced to confront that the vast majority of Iraqis and Afghans are incredibly similar to us and they wanted peace to. We were forced to recognize that “the troops” were composed of someone’s sons, daughters, spouses, friends, brothers, and sisters. Chris saw to it; he kept us honest and aware.
We owe Chris and the community of journalism an enormous debt for their service, and the only way to repay it is to pursue our own passions with the same fervor that they pursue theirs. Now that Chris is gone, his work is his legacy, just as our work will be our legacy when we’re gone. Make it matter.
I had a blast as a presenter at SXSW Interactive 2011. Because of the financial and time costs of my big trip to India this year, I decided not to attend SXSW 2012. However, the Universe had other plans to get me my cake and a giant fork to eat it, too.
It took a fantastically generous group of people to get the job done, but it happened. Next month, I’m heading back to Austin to teach yoga, to extol its incredible benefits to the tech community I love being a part of, and of course to keep it weird.
The incredible Ari Stiles, founder of the SXSW yoga movement, didn’t give a hoot about my plans to not attend SXSW Interactive this year. She invited me to teach with her and secured my badge for the event. I told her I just didn’t know if I’d be able to attend but I’d think about it and get back to her as the event’s date drew closer. She sent me an email with a smiley face. I think that was her very Austin way of saying, “See you in March.”
A few weeks alter, during a pep talk with my friend, Poornima, I was offered the next sign on my SXSW 2012 journey. “Christa, don’t count out SXSW yet. It’s a great place for you to network for Compass. What better place is there to find partners and supporters?” She had a point. The light started to break through the clouds.
A few days later, I had dinner with another supportive friend about my long-shot possibility of going to SXSW 2012. Like Ari, she gave me a wide smile and offered to help in a big way. She saw to it that I would have a great place to stay that was conveniently located near the Convention Center where SXSW takes place. No car, shuttle, or bike required.
And then there’s Rob, one of my extraordinarily gifted partners in crime at Compass Yoga, who, when I explained Ari and Col’s generosity along with Poornima’s advice, said in a very matter-of-fact manner, “Let’s see if we can get you there for free. I’ll take care of your plane ticket as my contribution to Compass.” I about fell on the floor.
The Universe won – I had run out of excuses. There must be something waiting in Austin for me, just around the bend. A message I need to hear, a person I need to meet, an idea I need to take up in pursuit of my own dream to transform healthcare as we know it into a humane, socially conscious, and efficient system that believes that the surest way to better health is through personal empowerment. Austin, I’ll be seeing you next month thanks to the efforts of these 4 wonderful people whom I’m so blessed to know, and beyond blessed to call my friends.
I’ll find a way to pay forward all this generosity. In the meantime, if you’re at SXSW, stop by and get your yoga on:
Brand Bitt and Jonah Hill as Billy Beane and Peter Brand in Moneyball
In business schools, Moneyball is revered as a classic case in making use of old data in new ways that drive innovative management techniques. I finally saw the movie last week and was blown away by the performances as well as the underlying message: marginalize people, relegate them to being followers rather than leaders in your organization, and you’re missing out on their true value. Plus, it makes you a jackass.
Billy Beane, General Manager of the Oakland A’s, needs a better way of doing business. He needs to recruit a wining team with a fraction of the budget that other baseball franchises have. Embedded in the low-level management rungs of a rival team, Beane meets Peter Brand, a Harvard-educated economist, who is a master with numerical data and passionate about the game. Beane plucks him from that unappreciative crowd and brings him to Oakland to stage a turnaround for the A’s.
I won’t spoil the outcome for anyone who has yet to see it – it’s so good that it needs to be at the top of your queue if for no other reason than to see Jonah Hill’s incredible performance as Peter Brand. Beane recognized that Brand was special, that he had a gift and a vision that wasn’t being recognized and rewarded. Beane’s not a saint. I’m not even sure that he’s a nice guy. But he has a nose for talent and he will not watch it go to waste. He’s observant, decisive, hard-working, and unrelenting in his vision. And he pays a lot more homage to skill in any form than he does to politics and tradition.
Corporations need their own Bill Beane. There are plenty of Peter Brands inside their walls; most executives are just too dumb, jealous, and / or egotistical to recognize them. Boxes on org charts are not chess pieces to be moved around a corporate game board. They’re people who deserve respect, who have a right to their dignity. They day is coming when all the Peter Brands will no longer sit idly by, keep their heads down, and their mouths shut. They will find the Billy Beanes of the world, roll up their sleeves, and get to work to beat their former employers at their own game.
I for one am ready to see Moneyball’s lessons expanded beyond the field. Let’s play ball!
“There is nothing still. Life is never still. No plant, no animal, no river. Can we think of Nature as a metaphor and keep ourselves constantly evolving?” ~ Anil Gupta
Over the past few stressful weeks, I’ve found myself seeking stillness, seeking an end to all whirring in my mind. It’s been hard to make it work, and I began to doubt whether or not I have really embodied all these lessons from my yoga and meditation practices, and from the intense personal development work I’ve undergone in the past two years with Brian. “Maybe I haven’t learned a damn thing,” I wondered.
And then I came across this quote on Daily Good, which is just about the best inspirational site anyone could possibly build. It serves up just the right message at just the right time. My pursuit of stillness feels frustrating because stillness is just not possible. I shouldn’t have been seeking stillness; I should have been seeking quiet. Those are two very different things.
Looking for the quiet spaces in our lives allows us to tune in to the flow and buzz of life. And not the lives we invent, but the underlying lifeblood that serves as the root of every living thing. That’s where the greater intelligence lies. That’s where our gut instincts and intuition mix and mingle, waiting for us to notice them, to stop by, and to listen. That flow is moving, moving all the time, taking in new information, new insights, and building never-before-seen connections.
Change never lets up, and we must move with it, not against it. Even when we’re scared. Especially when we’re scared. That’s the time to get quiet, to tap in, and to recognize that we are part of the great dance. There will come a time for stillness, but I hope it’s a long way off for you and me. We still have so much to do.
I arrived at my community yoga class 30 minutes early. An older gentleman was waiting outside of the door. Seeing he walked with a cane, I wondered if he might be in the wrong place.
“Are you here for yoga?” I asked brightly.
“What else would I be here for? Are you the instructor? I’m Bob.” He didn’t wait for an answer. He just walked into the room. He reminded me of Mr. Fredricksen in the movie Up and I was about to be his Russell.
I went down the hall to the ladies room to change and began to panic. You may think yoga teachers are not allowed to panic because we are just supposed to let the teaching flow through us from the mystical universe. Think again. I’ve had an extraordinarily stressful couple of weeks, and my head had been throbbing since lunch. And now I had to figure out how to manage a class with a man who has a cane, and who I think may be triple my age?
“I can’t do this,” I sighed to myself in the mirror.
And then my usually tiny intuition strongly rose up out of my gut, “Stop whining and teach.”
My intuition has grown tired of my self-doubt. I listened. I picked up my bag and went down the hall to our classroom, chucking my entire plan for class right out the window.
My endlessly supportive friend, Tre, had arrived and another regular student would join us a few moments later. As Bob set up his mat I asked him if he had any health issues I should know about.
“None,” he said smiling. “I’m really healthy.”
“Are you sure, Bob?” I asked. “High blood pressure, high cholesterol?”
“Nope. I just want to do what everyone else in the class does.”
“I see you walk with a cane,” I said, letting my voice go up as if it were a question.
“Well, yeah, I had a hip replacement about 15 years ago. I’m probably due for another one soon. But at my age, 92, I can’t complain.”
92. 92? 92! Bob is certainly the oldest ambulatory student I’ve ever taught, particularly in a mixed level community class. For a time I taught on the Geriatric Psych floor at New York Methodist Hospital, but it was a chair yoga class, I had nurses and therapists to assist the patients, and most patients were quite far along their journey with dementia. Teaching with Bob, alongside healthy young women, was a new experience entirely.
I was nervous so I started asking questions to find a way in, to relate. We learned Bob was born in Brooklyn and has lived in New York City all his life except for his years in the Navy during World War II. He now lives just a few blocks away in a rent-controlled walk-up. His 94-year-old brother doesn’t do yoga – not hard enough for him – and goes to the YMCA 3 days a week to swim and bike.“He’s in even better physical shape than me,” he said with a bit of surprise in his voice.
I wish I could tell you I went on to give a brilliant class. I didn’t. I was nervous for Bob the whole time. I rarely give hands on adjustments in these community classes but Bob needed me and I had to be there for him. I struggled to figure out how to honor each of the students and their time in class, giving them the practice they each needed while taking care that Bob didn’t have something terrible happen to him while in my care.Additionally, I wanted to honor and respect Bob’s desire to be independent.
I take the health and protection of my students very seriously, and with this curve ball I found myself improvising all over the place. This place didn’t feel good. I was failing badly.
Towards the end of the class, and I mean the bitter end, I began to find my groove. Better late than never I guess. As we wrapped up and everyone got their belongings together, Bob gave us a tip of his hat as he walked out of the room, cane in hand.
“See you next time,” he called over his shoulder.
No one was more surprised than me. And maybe that’s the lesson I needed to learn from Bob – if you hang in there, especially when you feel yourself failing, and if you rise up and continually try to offer your very best, no matter how good or not good you think it may be, you’ll get through just fine. And you can bring others right along with you.
“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!
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.
“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.
