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.
New York, Queens

E to India

Christa Avampato

After taking two hours to drive 27 miles from Bergen County to New York City, I finally parked my car 10 blocks from my apartment and hopped onto the subway to head to Jackson Heights, Queens to meet my friend, Brooke. We have had plans to have Indian food at the Jackson Diner four times. Come hell or high traffic, I was not going to have us cancel again. I needed the comfort of good Indian.

In 45 minutes, I emerged from the subway into Little India. I had heard that Jackson Heights was a haven for the best ethnic food in NYC. The Jackson Diner did not disappoint. I had a blast, as usual, with Brooke. We make each other laugh so much that my cheeks always hurt by the end of our conversation. The food was delicious, and then we walked to her apartment so I could see the ridiculous deal she’s getting for rent far less than mine.

Jackson Heights, if you’ve never been, is adorable. Cute little shops, restaurants, and quite accessible to Manhattan by 5 subway lines. And her apartment blew me away. My studio is less than the size of her living room. She could have 100 people in her apartment with no problem. She has a CHAISE in her living room. Polished floors. Scalloped archways. Decorative tiles. A SLEIGH BED. Unreal.

The variety that can be found in these five boroughs is truly unfathomable. And all for a price much lower than you may think. There is life beyond Manhattan…

discovery, New York

Diagon Alley on the Upper West Side

Christa Avampato

It’s amazing what we can discover in our own backyard. Recently, I came across a New York Times slide show that featured Pomander Walk, one of the most highly guarded streets in New York City. I’d never heard of it. It’s two blocks from my apartment.

I hopped out of the subway today after running my errands and took a walk down 94th Street. A leasing office, an acupuncturist, and then a gate behind which is a walk through to 95th Street lined on both sides by colorful row homes with strange remnants of a time gone by, such as outdoor dumbwaiters. It was built in the 1920’s and resembles a small street in London that was made famous by Lewis N. Parker in his play by the same name.

There is an enormous and heavy iron gate that blocks off the street on 94th and 95th Streets. It sits like a little jewel of gingerbread houses in a neighborhood dominated by Gothic architecture, gargoyles, and baby carriages. Humphrey Bogart is among its famous past residents.

This is one of the things I love so much about this city – on these streets, in these buildings, my mind is free to imagine and wonder what incredible lives and stories played out here. And now, for the most part, all of what remains are the buildings themselves, standing silently by, holding the secrets and histories of those who inhabited them, even if just for a little while.
New York, walking tour, West Village

You are where you hang

Christa Avampato

When I lived in D.C., conversation starters, or killers as the case may be, would start with questions like “What candidate do you support?” or “Are you a fan of (name a politician or pundit)?” Here in New York, the questions are more like “what neighborhood do you spend time in?” The area where you spend time defines you, says a lot about your sensibilities, maybe your career, and the kind of people you have in your life.

I don’t have an area. I like exploration, mostly because I hate being defined as anything. This explains my eclectic and wonderful collection of career decisions, places I’ve lived, and people in my life. So in an effort to really get to know my city and not just the 5 square block of my neighborhood, I have been setting out to learn about neighborhoods all over the city.

The first one I visited I am somewhat familiar with though am constantly lost in: The West Village. There are photos on my photoblog. In the West Village, New York City goes off the grid completely with roads making all sorts of weird angle and intersections. Every corner I turned on what cuter than the next. People snuggled up in coffee shops or used bookstores. Writer, photographers, dog lovers. I couldn’t help but notice the decidedly artsy feel, the desire for people here to express themselves in their clothing and in their activity.

One thing that I noticed about people here is that the fervent workaholic attitude that plagues many other areas of NYC has been completely shaken off. People value thinking about and reflecting on life. They look to engage in activities of the spirit, and work is just a way to facilitate that personal exploration and discovery. It reminds me of small neighborhoods in Paris that I spent days wandering in. The European overlay of these angled lanes is unmistakable.

Coming soon: why is it that Manhattanites have trouble venturing across the rivers that border it? A look at the Japanese epicenter of the greater New York City area and a stroll along the Promenade.
The photo above, and others from the West Village, can be found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/21231722@N03/sets/72157603297657731/
Tibet, travel

The tracks to Shangri-La

Christa Avampato

There are many places that I dream of seeing, and then there are some that I feel would fulfill some of my life’s greatest wishes. Paris was one. Vienna was another. And then there was also South Africa. One that I have wished to see for quite some time is Tibet. The trouble is that getting there is a bit of a bear. Or, at least it used to be.

For a year, a rail line has linked Tibet to the rest of China. This is phenomenal news for those who want to see Tibet and would prefer to avoid the arduous plane or bus ride to the area. And the tourism numbers support what a revelation the rail line is – 3.2 million people visited Tibet the first 9 months of 2007, a 67% increase over last year. And there are concerns that this rail line is not only bringing tourists but bring destruction to Buddhist culture. This makes me wonder if my curiosity and interest in the region will actually harm the region itself. Can tourism and popularity wipe out a way of life?
This is of course a constant struggle for environmental conservationists. While we want people to take a keen interest in other cultures, people, and area of the world, there is also a delicate balance to guard to protect the very thing driving the interest. Technology has so many benefits, and yet there are some very powerful disadvantages, one of them being a movement toward sameness across cultures.
I do dream of seeing Tibet some day, of spending time there wandering the mountains, talking to Tibetans, and sharing with them how much their perseverance and strength and belief in happiness have influenced me and the way I live my life. I wander now if by the opening of the flood gates I have missed the window to actually ever see the real Tibet.

The picture above is a Tibetan couple stands at the end of the tracks that link the rest of China to the platform of the Lhasa train station in Lhasa, Tibet. It can be found at http://www.usatoday.com/travel/destinations/2007-11-28-tibet-railway_N.htm

New York, retail

Wishing you a Bergdorf Holiday

Christa Avampato

I’ve had every career aspiration known to man. When I was in elementary school I wanted to be a paleontologist. When it was announced that Christa McAuliffe was going to be the first non-astronaut in space, I took that as a sign that I should join the space program. Doctor, engineer, attorney, film maker, naval officer, train conductor. And for a while when I first moved to New York City many years ago, I thought I was destined to be a window dresser. I fantasized about working into the wee hours of the morning, creation works of art for all of New York to see the next morning. The movie Mannequin was a tiny bit too real for me.

Have you been to the display windows at Bergdorf Goodman? If you live in New York City, I would suggest that you stop reading this post and run over there right now. 5th Avenue and 57th Street. They lush, stunning, artful displays. The best in the city, and I can’t believe they haven’t gotten highlighted more often in the “window gazing” guides published in NYC publications. During my window dresser career aspiration phase, I would sometimes go by there just to stare at the windows, make notes and drawings of the displays, and then imagine what I might do differently. I went into the store once – this was a bad idea. No one even spoke to me; clearly I didn’t belong there, and everyone knew it. I rode the escalator all the way to the top, turned around, and went back out the door to the windows. I really should have stopped there.

Don’t let the snootiness of the store staff dissuade you from seeing the windows. They are a spectacle. And if you’re outside of NYC, never fear. I’ve posted photos of this year’s displays on my photoblog at : http://www.flickr.com/photos/21231722@N03/sets/72157603297522599/. And they’re so fabulous and the company takes such pride in them that they have a dedicated website with archives – http://www.bergdorfgoodman.com/store/catalog/template/catB7.jhtml?itemId=cat243842&parentId=cat243864&masterId=cat000006&_requestid=85688.

The greatest accomplishment of the windows – they bring a sense of magic to the holidays. And couldn’t we all use a little more magic for a while?
business, Marcus Buckingham, strengths, talents, work

Building the Mississippi

Christa Avampato

I’m a big fan of management books and I consider it a personal mission to help people I know do what they’re good at. I also would not deny that I generally advocate for ignoring rules, other than ones that would land you in jail or are necessary to protect people’s happiness and freedom. Wrap all these up and your have two books by Marcus Buckingham, First, Break all the Rules and Now Discover Your Strengths, both of which I love, admire, and hold up as examples of how to conduct my career and my life.


The most powerful statement I’ve heard him make in various speeches is simple, concise, and such good advice that I wish there was a way to telecast it to anyone in the working world. “Find a small stream in which your strengths can flow and then see if you can carve it into the Mississippi.” Incredible. This statement and adherence to it turns the whole notion of job performance, corporate culture, and career planning on its head. It puts the job seeker in total charge and in one short sentence gives you a complete action plan:


1.) Find what you’re good at
2.) Find a company that has a niche, however small, that can be filled well by your strengths
3.) Work like hell to blow out that niche that makes you a rock star


I’ve been continually thinking about Barry Schwartz and The Paradox of Choice almost to a point of obsession in my efforts to simplify anywhere and everywhere I can in my life. The three steps above eliminate all of the guess work and maneuvering that goes on when people try to climb the corporate ladder. Just know what you do well, find a place that wants you to do what you’re good at, and make it your duty to use those strengths to create value. Think of the richness, gratification, and satisfaction we can find at work with this mindset. It’s how people at Google must feel everyday…and entirely accessible to each of us.
holiday, stress

Wishing for a stress-free season

Christa Avampato

While out shopping for others this holiday, the temptation is high to reward myself with a little something too. Rather than get myself something of material value for the holidays, I decided to do myself a big fat favor – I’m cutting stress out of the holidays. Seriously. I’m giving 13 holiday gifts, most of which I already have. I didn’t travel for Thanksgiving, but spent it in NYC about 10 blocks from my apartment. I’m going to my mom’s an hour and a half drive away on the 25th. And then I’m likely spending New Year’s at a house party less than a block from my apartment. In between I’ll see friends, enjoy the lights, the special Christmas exhibits, window gazing. I’m looking to put the magic back into the holiday.

It’s as easy as it sounds. I made the decision, after years of not really enjoying the holidays all that much for a variety of reasons, that I was really going to love this time. And the best way for me to have a good time is to mitigate the stress. I spend a lot of time taking on other people’s energies, good and bad alike. This is part of the downside of being a sensitive person. I counteract some of this draining with yoga, or meditation, or seeing friends, or taking long walks in the park. My gift to myself is time to do whatever I want – a gift that really does keep on giving.

dreams, work

Dreams minus logic

Christa Avampato

For years I have wondered about my weirdo dreams, which I have more often than not. They don’t make sense. They seem to be a manifestation of clumping a lot of the areas of my life together in a way reminiscent of Jackson Pollock’s painting style.

Many publications have recently picked up this curiosity about dream creation – the New York Times, Real Simple Magazine, even Business Week. It turns out that when we dream, the area of our brains that control logic and reasoning goes to sleep, too. It unplugs, allowing other areas of our minds, and the thoughts they contain, to run rampant. When the cat’s away….

So I think about this everyday when I wake up, wondering if my illogical mind has revealed anything that would have otherwise been stifled by reason. This morning, I woke up from a dream in which I was negotiating hard for a salary with a new employer. They agreed to pay me $585,000 / year. Rather than jumping for joy, I said simply, “I am not going to be in the office after 6:00pm.” Can you believe that?

This dreams tells me a few things. One, my unreasonable mind believes in the very reasonable idea that I need a balanced life. Two, I am clearly thinking about money and becoming concerned about my finances. This makes sense, too – authorities are considering raising the fare on the GW Bridge to $8 a day and my school loans have entered re-payment. The days of deferment are gone for good. The other thing that this dream reveals is that I am clearly thinking about what’s next, and trying to decide what I’d like to see on the horizon. My boss planted this seed a month or so ago, asking me to consider where I want to go with my career so that he can help me get there. This is quite possibly the greatest show of support any boss has ever shown me. It’s truly a remarkable proposition, and I appreciate that this personal support in a work environment is rare.

Despite logic’s need for a rest, my dreaming mind seems to be holding up its end of reason, and teaching logic a thing or two in the process.

holiday, New York, retail, work

Black to Green

Christa Avampato

Our economy may be in for tough times. The growing number of labor strikes, unexpected bank write-offs, mortgage defaults, and mounting debt are enough to make us think the sky may actually be falling. No where is this worry more alive than in retail during the holiday season. The sheer dollar amount of holiday spending is an indicator of consumer confidence, highly scrutinized by every analyst with airtime.

I was thinking about this at 4am on Friday as I took the subway down to Times Square to help our store staff on the day that kicks off the holiday shopping season. Black Friday, or Green Friday as we call it, is a day a lot of people look forward to. It’s a tradition for families and friends to stand on-line outside the stores they think will have the best deals.

I am not one those people – I have never been inside a retail store on the Friday after Thanksgiving. I completely avoid them until about the second week of December. Better yet, I get onto my computer and never have to contend with retail check-out lines and disgruntled shoppers who grapple with out-of-stocks and too-long wish lists from their families and friends.

This year, though I would be on the front lines in arguably the craziest retail center in the world. I arrived at 4:15, half an hour early so I could familiarize myself with which product categories were on which floors. This was a handy list to have. I felt glad to be able to help guests get those special items they had been looking forward to purchasing and gifting. There was a rush of people for a few hours and then the traffic calmed down to a reasonable level. Stocking shelves, showing guests to items they couldn’t find on their own, checking prices, clearing aisles, restocking shelves. All in a day’s work. By far the greatest contribution I could make was to say hello, smile, wish shoppers a happy holiday, and ask them to visit our .com site if we were out of stock on the items they wanted. They seemed generally appreciative to pause for a moment and answer the questions, “how are you today?”

The thing about being a retailer is that you learn to be a better customer. You read circulars cover to cover, you look for department directories, you utilize price checking machines, and match item numbers from shelf tags to packages. By being a retailer, even for a short period of time, you become a retailer’s dream guest.

That said, many people at the store 5am have never been retailers. They were crazed. “Where can I find Dora?” “Where are your video games?” “What about dance mats?” “Do you carry Barnyardigans?” (Huh??? – what exactly is a Barnyardigan? I soon found out it’s a licensed property from Nickelodeon.) And the number of bags – some people dragging around 5 large bags behind them filled to the brim with boxes. There were a few grumps – when I didn’t know the price of an electronic keyboard off-hand, one women wished me “A merry f*****g Christmas.” I smiled and wanted to say, “Same to you” but I stopped short after the smile and helped her to a price checking machine just across the aisle. ‘Tis the season to be nicer than you would be other times of the year!

When I was in the middle of helping one guest, 3 others would ask me for help. This was a good sign to be this busy. Maybe the economy isn’t crumbling as quickly as we may have thought. I remembered how many times I’ve done that when I need help in the store. I should have been a more patient guest.

Once the crowd died down, I headed out to take look at other retailers. My favorite experience by far was the the Apple Store on 5th Avenue and 59th Street. Judging by the crowd, a lot of people shared my view. They have designed a way to anchor floor models so you can try out every item they sell in store. You can make a one hour appointment with a MAC personal shopper to help you pick the perfect holiday gifts. And the store is strikingly clean, airy, and open for a small space, so a bit of that holiday stress has room to dissipate.

Another brightly spot in service was Old Navy. Knowledgeable staff, great deals, and mesh bags galore. Not bad for a store that has to content with an association with the ever-more-boring The Gap and Banana Republic.

The shopping frenzy is continuing this weekend. I am watching it intently for signs of hope. Tomorrow is another big shopping day – Cyber Monday. The day when working folks decide Christmas shopping on-line is time better spent than on work. I love it. Shoppers have aligned so tightly on this that they created another holiday tradition of their own. It’s so strong that a boss can’t complain about shopping during the workday tomorrow. After all, they’re only helping the economy.

happiness, worry

Different lenses

Christa Avampato

My friend Monica sent me an email for Thanksgiving with a simple message: “Worry looks around, Sorry looks back, Faith looks up.” I had never thought of emotions as having a specific direction, though it makes sense. Sorry does have its root in the past, worry has us looking around to see how we are being judged or what may be coming at us, and faith casts our gaze upward. I wonder if the converse is true as well – can the direction we choose to look incite certain emotions?

If I want to embody faith and hope, then I may spend more time looking forward, especially during times of reflection. Looking out into my future so to speak, and imagining happiness and success, however I define those. I have a tendency to beat myself up for past mistakes, big ans small. Spending energy being sorry, especially for things that are long since past forces us to look back. This is especially damaging since once we do apologize and forgive, there is nothing more we can do about the past.

I’ve written on this blog before about my tendency toward worry. A certain amount of worry can keep us on our toes, keep us motivated. But there’s a tipping point where worry can paralyze us from ever moving ahead. It’s okay to look around, as long as it’s done in moderation of looking up.

And that balance applies to all emotions. Experiencing a full range of emotions keeps us empathic, humble, and appreciative of the good times. Some people think that the goal of Buddhists is constant happiness. From the texts I have read, Buddhists are more interested in moving through an emotional array, experiencing all that life has to offer. Physically an emotionally, it seems that we would all do well to have a full range of motion.