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.
career, nonprofit, work

Leap: You’ll Find Opportunity Everywhere. Now, Plan.

Christa Avampato

Since formally announcing my New Year’s Resolution to go my own way in my career this year, I’ve been spotting new opportunities everywhere. It’s as if I’m manufacturing rocks to turn over just to have some place to stash all of the possibilities. The board members of Compass Yoga tease me sometimes about my unending enthusiasm and my belief that yes, I can heal the world, and so can everyone else. Our future really is T.B.D. and it really is up to us.

Last week, I met with a few of the board members and we determined that with the legal set-up work behind us, we now need to get cracking on a solid strategic plan. I fight structure a bit, but I know how necessary it is to make the best use of creative energy. Being the President of a board is a brand new role for me, as is making the shift to work for myself. In the process, I’m seeking out lots of advice and doing a lot of research, which I love.

Here are 2 resources from my research that I thought you would find helpful if you’re doing some planning of your own:

1.) I came across a 10-step guide from the World Bank that details the strategic planning process for a nonprofit from beginning to end. (If you click the link, it will automatically download the PDF to your computer.) Even if you’re not starting a strategic planning process for a nonprofit, this document is filled with lots of wonderful advice about the act of planning in general.

2.) Also, over the holidays I read Steve Newcomb’s latest essay, The Art of War: A Warrior’s Guide to Raising Money in the Battlefield of the Silicon Valley. I’m not raising money in Silicon Valley (yet!) but this guide really helped me understand the value of a plan of attack and a few approaches that will be very valuable as the board and I undertake this planning process.

Happy planning, plotting, and acting!

business, career, dreams, fear, feelings, wishes

Leap: Outrunning Fear

Christa Avampato

“What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step. It is always the same step, but you have to take it.” ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry via Daily Good

Beginning is the hard part, and every project, idea, wish, relationship begins the same way: setting an intention. That is the hard part. Loudly and proudly saying, “World, this is what I want and come hell or high water I’m going to make it happen.” Getting up the energy and gumption to make that commitment is the very hardest part. It’s not that there won’t be challenges and obstacles to making it happen. Implementation is tough stuff, but just getting the courage to try is the very hardest part.

Why? Why is it so hard for us to give our wildest dream a try? Sadly, we don’t live in a world of unending encouragement. There will always be people, sometimes people very close to you, who for one reason or another will tell you that your dream is too big. We don’t take a first step because we worry that it’s the only step we’ll take, proving all those naysayers right. Our dream was too big. We couldn’t do what we set out to do, and so we’ll have to slunk back to where we came from to take our seat next to the naysayers who never tried to make their dreams come true either.

That’s the fear talking and the only way to get over it is to get it out. Write it all down. Every last fear you have about your biggest, wildest dream belongs on a piece of paper so it can be torn up into pieces and burned into ashes. That very first step requires only one thing – the ability to silence fear. Maybe not permanently, but at least long enough to give us the confidence to take a second step, and then another and another and another.

And pretty soon, before we know it, we’re running. One foot in front of the other, again and again. So fast and so strong, that the fear won’t even have a chance to catch us.

entrepreneurship, environment, work, worry

Leap: We All Need Soil and Rain, or How to Never Be Intimidated

Christa Avampato

“No matter how wondrous our works, we have to remember that our very existence depends upon 6 inches of soil and the fact that it rains now and then.” ~ Dan Lufkin

I found this quote on a park bench, literally. Phin and I were taking a walk in Central Park and there are four metal plaques on a string of benches that have this quote. I don’t know who Dan Lufkin is, but when I read his words, I tossed up a stream of gratitude. They were the words I needed.

Starting a business, pitching partners and investors, can be a scary endeavor. I feel stark naked all the time! In pitching them, I’m really pitching me – my talents, my experiences, and my abilities. Self-promotion is just about my least favorite task. I’d rather do the dishes and clean my bathroom than pitch myself, but neither of those tasks are going to help me live the life I imagine. (But they do help me to keep a neat and tidy home, where I do most of my planning work for Compass Yoga!)

In pitching, it’s important to remember that the person across the table is just a person, just like you and me. They have to eat food, have shelter, and breathe air, just like us. They, too, had to start somewhere. We weren’t born with our current set of circumstances. For the most part, we made them, one way or another.

With that in mind, I feel a little less naked, a little more confident, and a lot more hopeful, in life and in pitching.

creativity

Leap: Advice on How to Stay One Step Ahead from Designer Philippe Starck, French Philosopher Baise Pascal, and Ronald Reagan

Christa Avampato
Image from http://stuckonrepeat.tumblr.com/

When asked what allows him to remain so consistently ahead of the curve, cutting-edge designer Philippe Starck replied, “I never read any magazines or watch TV. Nor do I go to cocktail parties, dinners, or anything like that. I live alone mostly, in the middle of nowhere.” ~ As told by writer Pico Iyer in his New York Times article The Joy of Quiet

Philippe Starck has designed a wider reaching assortment of products than perhaps any designer living today, from the interior of French President François Mitterrand’s private apartments to a toothbrush sanitizer. (Really!) I’d assume that someone with that kind of range would be networking out the wazoo and constantly taking in new information to fuel his creative engine. He does nothing of the sort. In fact he does just the opposite and completely turns the world off to dial up his own creativity. (You know what they say about assumptions…)

This is a tough, powerful lesson for entrepreneurs. We work our tails off networking, pitching, connecting, reading, and writing about our products and services. Too often we think inspiration is out there, in the ether of the world. It may be, but the richer, more authentic genius lies within each of us. It’s struggling against all the noise of our lives to be heard and heeded. We are sometimes pulled and prodded in so many different directions we hardly know where we’re going. And we have commitments and promises to uphold. Shut off the world? That’s madness!

Pico Iyer’s article goes on to detail our over-the-top addiction to communicating and our inability to ever be still or quiet. We worry about what we’re missing, who we’re missing, and who’s missing us. It’s a high we seem incapable of coming down from. It’s a permanent rush of energy that’s sapping our sleep, devastating our productivity, and wrecking our relationships. How can we have our devices and our quiet, too?

Enter Ronald Reagan and then 17th century French philosopher Blaise Pascal, in that order, to rescue us from ourselves. When faced with a tragic economy at the start of his presidency, Ronald Reagan famously said, “There are simple solutions – just not easy ones.” I fundamentally disagree with just about every policy Ronald Reagan put in place during his presidency, but on this issue of solutions I have to agree.We know we need to protect and nurture our creativity by shutting off our damn phones once in a while, but we just can’t seem to get ourselves to even try it much less adopt it as a regular practice.

This is where Pascal picks up and offers his solution. Again, simple but not easy. “All of man’s problems come from his inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” So that’s it? For everything that ails us, we should find a way to sit alone as a means of curing it? In a French philosophical word, Oui.

You had to know I would find a way to loop yoga and meditation into this solution, right? Some of my friends and family members tease me because I tout yoga and meditation as salves that can be applied to all wounds in the healing process. Pascal thought the same thing, so now I feel supported in my bias.

The answer of how to heighten our creativity is very simple. You don’t need to buy any more books about creativity, read any other blog posts on the subject, or network with any more designers to find your own creative voice. (Those resources are good for lots of other things, but only you can determine your own artistic direction.) Rather than spinning around like a whirling dervish in the mad search for our inspiration and muse, we must sit, breathe, and be if we mean to grow as artists, no matter what our art is. This is difficult, but necessary.

How to begin:
1.) Set a timer for 3 minutes. (What gets measured gets done.)

2.) Take a comfortable seat, devoid of as much sound as possible. If necessary, use earplugs to filter out as much noise as possible.

3.) Inhale for 4 counts, exhale for 4 counts.

4.) Repeat. Every day.

5.) Your mind will wander and when it does, bring it back to counting your breath.

No tricks. Just effort. As you get comfortable with the 3 minutes, grow it by 30 seconds, then a minute and so on. Eventually, just sit without the timer and see how long you can be on your own in stillness. It will be difficult at first but it will get easier. We must learn to be alone if we are to fully be in the world and ahead of the curve. Our light, collectively and individually, depends upon it.

art, literature, work

Leap: Longfellow Shows Us How to Keep Our 2012 Resolution

Christa Avampato
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

My friend, Col, posted A Psalm of Life by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow on her Facebook page as 2011 drew to a close. It’s last stanza, “Let us, then, be up and doing, With a heart for any fate ; Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labor and to wait” is such a beautiful sentiment as we turn our attention to this new year that I decided to share it here. It’s eloquently lays out what we must do in 2012 to make it a stellar year:

We must be ready to work hard, very hard.

We must be ready for anything and everything that comes out way.  

We must pursue our passions.

And then we wait to see what fruits our labors bear, knowing we’ve done all we can to do to create our own success. 

There is a timeless resolution if ever I heard one. Poetry has a way of making us see so plainly the road that needs to be taken.

Here is the full poem in its entirety:

A PSALM OF LIFE

WHAT THE HEART OF THE YOUNG MAN
SAID TO THE PSALMIST

TELL me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream ! —
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real !   Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal ;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way ;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world’s broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle !
Be a hero in the strife !

Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant !
Let the dead Past bury its dead !
Act,— act in the living Present !
Heart within, and God o’erhead !

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time ;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate ;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

career, change, grateful, gratitude

Leap: A Graceful Exit is Always Possible

Christa Avampato

In any transition, we often focus on the end goal. In my year of leaping into full-time entrepreneurship, I’ve spent a lot of time planning how to successfully complete that transition: personal financial planning, long-term strategy for Compass Yoga, funding, and partnerships that will grow our programming. But there’s an often overlooked detail when we make any change – we need to mind our exit.

Exits can be fast or slow. They can be in phases or a jump with both feet in the air at once. They can be handled with style and grace or they can be botched with anger, disappointment, and resentment. I’m not sure of the speed or pace of my exit from corporate life just yet, but I know I want it be graceful and grateful.

I learned a lot in journey along the corporate road. I worked with some very smart people who spent a lot of time investing in me, as a person and as a professional. My leaving has very little to do with them and everything to do with me – I need to do the work of my life and that work lies in a different direction. There’s no excuse for anything less than grace when I close that door for the very last time.

I thought a lot about endings as Phin and I took our final 2011 walk through Central Park on December 31st. It was a 3-hour venture through the North Woods, and no matter how long the walk, Phineas always wishes it could be longer. It was sunny and mild, ringing in at 55 degrees. Despite all of 2011’s troubles, it found a way to leave a good last impression.

And if a year as tough as 2011 can do that, then so can we.

adventure, business, career, creativity, New Years Eve, New York, New York City, wishes, writing, yoga

Leap: My 2012 Resolution, Four and a Half Years in the Making

Christa Avampato

In 2007, I graduated from business school, where I wrote a few feature columns for my school’s newspaper thanks to my friend, Alice, who was the Editor-in-Chief. I had always wanted to be a writer but was never sure I was talented enough to make a go of it. I really enjoyed the writing and a lot of my classmates complimented the columns. At graduation, my friend, Stephen, asked me if I intended to keep writing. I smiled, looked down at the ground, and said I wasn’t sure. “You should start a blog,” he said. I laughed. “Who would read it?” I asked. “I would read it,” he said. One reader was enough for me. It was a start, a beginning, and that was really all I needed.

The week after graduation, I sat on the couch in my living room in Charlottesville surrounded by moving boxes, opened Google, and typed in “free blogging software.” Blogger came up. I had an account from when I started my first blog, Eyes and Ears Wide Open, way back in 2004. It was private because I wasn’t sure at that time that I wanted strangers reading about my life. (How funny that seems now that I live much of my life online!) I reactivated my account and started the blog Christa In New York as a way of unleashing a writer who had been kicking around in me for many, many years.

How I learned to write
After a year and a half of bumbling around learning how to write, I decided I wanted to become a really good writer and the only way I knew how to make that happen was to practice every day. And the sure-fire way to make that happen would be to publicly promise as my 2009 resolution that I would write and publish every day. I kept my resolution and in 2009, I wrote every day about hope. My greatest lesson from that writing journey was that the more often we look for hope, the more likely we are to find it.

In 2010, I bundled up all of that hope and put my daily efforts toward crafting an extraordinary life. I discovered the truth that we build an extraordinary life by finding something extraordinary in ordinary moments.

To amp up my extraordinary living, I used 2011 as a year of new beginnings so that I could get into a beginner’s mindset – exploring, experimenting, and tinkering. As 2011 drew to a close, I wondered for a long time about how I could best make use of this beginner’s mindset. Where would I go from here?

Was there an ending in all this beginning?
I wondered if this would be the end of this blog altogether. I wondered if all this beginning was leading me toward an ending of this chapter. To experiment with that idea, I gave up writing on the weekends for a couple of weeks. I missed posting every day so much that I quickly reversed that decision. Four and a half years later, writing has become an integral part of who I am and how I spent my time. It brings me a lot of joy – and that’s the #1 reason I keep at it.

Perhaps another ending was in order. I briefly considered leaving New York and relocating to the west coast. That caused me to look differently at my city. Was I really ready to move? Could I really leave behind 4+ years worth of effort building a life I love? In about a month’s time, I reversed that decision, too. New York is my home, as crazy and unpredictable as it is. It’s where I belong and that’s a joyful thing to feel.

To solve this riddle, I began to look around at the other areas of my life assessing what brings me joy and what doesn’t. I love my yoga teaching and the healthcare field fascinates me. I adore stories – written, spoken, acted, and sung. I’m passionate about doing good work for people who need help and don’t know where or to whom to turn. I’m happiest when I’m making my own choices.

An ending found
The area of my life that seems to deplete me the most is the place where I spend 40+ hours / week. Though I’m incredibly grateful for the financial stability and experience I’ve gained as part of a large company, the work doesn’t inspire me and it’s not the best use of my skills. I’ve made a number of very good friends there whom I’m sure I will know all of my life. I’ve learned so much there, about the economy, the world, and myself. As 2011 drew to a close, I became acutely aware that I have learned all that I want to learn there. It’s time to move on.

I began to look around, applying to jobs that seemed mildly interesting. I interviewed and received a few offers, though in the end they all seemed to be variations on a theme, a theme I already had in my current job. After a few months, I could see myself in those new roles, unhappy with the circumstances and no better off than I am at my current job. If I wanted the job of my dreams, I would have to build it.

A beginning that was here all along
And so I realized that Compass Yoga could provide me with everything I wanted in a job – I could teach, write, be part of the healthcare field, and help people who really needed the help. I had the job I wanted all along. The trick is now to turn how I make a life into making a living.

So there it is, my 2012 resolution: to make the leap from my job into Compass Yoga full-time. It’s going to be a long and winding road, with many different twists, turns, stops, and starts along the way. I’ll be securing my footing along the path that I know I’m supposed to walk even though I’m not yet sure of all the steps I’ll need to take. Every day in 2012, I’ll be writing about this journey and I hope you’ll join me as this path is paved. Welcome to the beginning of a transformation a long time in the making. And happy new year!

celebration, holiday, New Years Eve, writing

Beginning: The Art and Possibilities of Learning to Begin

Christa Avampato

“Look at everything that has come before as preparation for the spectacular future you have in store!” ~ TheSingleWoman

“There will come a time when you think everything is finished. That will be the beginning.” ~Louis L’Amour via TheSingleWoman

One of my greatest beginnings this year in my self-proclaimed year of beginnings was the decision to write daily about the idea of beginnings. Last Fall I was inspired by my friend, Amanda’s, request for a blog post about how I stay sane in NYC. I hold it together by constantly reminding myself that it’s always okay to be at the beginning. We always have to start somewhere. It’s an especially powerful sentiment in New York City, a city of experts on just about every subject there is. The post inspired an entire year of living and writing about beginning. In 365 days, I wanted to become an expert beginner. And it worked!

As 2011 draws to a close and 2012 fully blossoms, my beginner’s outlook is stronger, healthier, and more vibrant than ever. I’ve learned to lessen my grip on the desire for perfection and to be kinder to myself as I’m learning something new. I faced down the biggest fears of my life. Sometimes I failed and sometimes I succeeded in the new beginnings I tried. No matter the circumstances, I learned to enjoy the view because every step in a journey provides us with a brand new vista. And we will never pass exactly this way again under the exact same circumstances.

Each moment is a new beginning in and of itself. Beginning is living, and so if we can master beginning then our possibilities for living, really living, are limitless.

My new writing adventure begins tomorrow. Tune in to get the scoop on my 2012 living and writing plans. As always, I’m just getting started!

art, career, choices, creativity

Beginning: The Art Born of Life

Christa Avampato

“If you want to work on your art, work on your life.” – Chekhov

I spent a lot of 2011 in a mode of planning and personal development. At turns, I would get frustrated with what appeared to be a lack of progress, or at least a lack of progress at the pace I wanted. And when it comes to my personal development, I always want to pick up the pace. What I didn’t realize is that in those times when we think we aren’t making any progress, the progress is really happening under cover beneath the surface. This is the most crucial kind of progress, the kind we need to really move forward.

Think of a cut or scrape. Beneath the surface of the skin, the tissue begins to repair itself immediately after the injury occurs. It starts knitting back together one tiny cell at a time, healing from the inside out. All we can see is the outward face of the injury, the very last thing to heal, but without that inner healing, healing on the surface wouldn’t matter. In fact, if we healed from the outside in, then we would be more likely to incur a repeat injury.

Think of a house. The building process begins deep within the ground where the foundation is laid. For a long time, it may look like very little progress is being made, as if all the work is for naught. But once a strong foundation is put in place, the rest of the building goes quite smoothly. And it lasts.

We need to live our art, creativity, and dreams in their own unique and beautiful form. Spending our lives any other way guarantees only that we will wish we made different choices. Living our dreams takes time time and planning. To give our all to our art, whatever that art may be, we have to spend time honing our craft and getting other areas of our lives in proper order. We may not always see the progress, but if we are diligently working toward our goal, we can rest assured that progress is happening and will reveal itself in its own good time.

Compass Yoga was like that. My writing was like that. My education was like that. My whole life, my greatest work of art, has been like that. Progress was slow and not always apparent but it was there. Piece by piece, I was knitting together the threads of my life that would form my foundation for my life, and from my life came my art.

Our art is always born out of our lives. You wish for an artistic breakthrough? Start with a life breakthrough. And then you can get to the fun part – with the foundation in place, it’s time to build that castle in the sky.

Beijing, China, good fortune, luck

Beginning: 2012 is the Year of the Dragon. It’s My Year, Literally.

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

I was born in 1976, a year of the Dragon in the Chinese zodiac. As much as I am a Pisces, I am a Dragon: persistent, creative, loyal, decisive, generous, compassionate, active, and fiercely independent. My friend, Allan, is from Beijing and describes Dragons in one word: Conquerors. And I think that also suits me, in my own way.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been feeling ridiculously excited about 2012 and so it was with just a hint of synchronicity that I welcomed the news that 2012 is the year of the Dragon. The Water Dragon, to be exact – a time of great benevolence and grace. (And in yet another turn of synchronicity, my sign of Pisces is a water symbol.)

This is especially poignant for me because of all I’m planning for 2012. I’ll reveal more about my plans when I begin my new living and writing adventure on January 1st. Suffice it to say that it will be a year of tremendous change for me, a year when I will make a very large leap of faith, perhaps the biggest leap I’ve ever made. Fear will have no choice but to stand aside. It’s going to be my year.

And it’s going to be your year, too. The good luck that characterizes the Dragon extends to all people in the year of the Dragon. So make some plans. Be bold. Go after exactly what you want with everything you’ve got. Double down on all your efforts and watch the rewards flow in. If you’ve got dreams, 2012 is the year to act on them!

The Chinese new year happens on January 23, 2012.