Category: books

books, clarity, commitment, discovery, dreams, encouragement

Step 293: Call Off the Search for Certainty

Christa Avampato

“We search for certainty but it certainly doesn’t exist.” ~ Kristen Moeller, author of Waiting for Jack: Confessions of a Self-Help Junkie

This recession has caused a lot of us to delay their dreams, or change them altogether. We believe we have to stay at a job that’s safe, where we believe that we can stay for as long as we need to stay until things get better. Kristen’s simple, powerful quote reminded me that we don’t need to delay the life we want, that safety and certainty are things we have made up. It’s understandable to want certainty. I want it all the time, for every decision I make. The lesson of yoga that’s been the most useful to me is that certainty is not coming, but there are so many things that we just can’t know for sure. Nothing is permanent; the only certainty is change, in one form or another.

This can be a frightening revelation. We like the idea of certainty being out there somewhere because it helps us to get from day to day. It keeps us searching and hoping and wishing. But if we can grapple with it for just a moment, recognize that certainty isn’t coming, and embrace that idea, we can find a power within ourselves that is unshakable. There is no need to say some day – the life we want can start today.

Follow Kristen on Twitter and visit her site.

books, politics, speaking

Step 279: Speaking Off-the-Cuff with Elegance

Christa Avampato

“The best speakers know enough to be scared…the only difference between the pros and novices is that the pros have trained the butterflies to fly in formation.” ~ Edward R. Murrow

It’s a tough balance: how to give a public speech with a casual, conversational tone while carrying a sense of authority, leadership, and deep knowledge on the subject matter. There’s nothing worse than an over-rehearsed, robotic speech, except a sloppy, ignorant one. Being authentic requires just enough rehearsal to be semi-comfortable, and no more. A few butterflies are beneficial – they keep things interesting.

Last night I heard Harold Ford Jr. speak as part of the Hudson Union Society series. I wish he had run for the New York Senate seat. He certainly had a story that he wanted to get across – his new book More Davids than Goliaths: A Political Education has just hit bookstore shelves – though his answers to the moderator were always genuine. Not once did I hear an “um”, “ah”, or “like”. He injected some dry humor, and then in the next breath spoke about serious issues like education, financial reform, and race. His elegance commanded respect while also showing the utmost respect for his audience. I wish every public speaking engagement I attended went that well.

On the flip side, I listened to the President of a large corporation this afternoon and his speech had every element that an unfortunate speaking engagement contains. He wasn’t robotic – he was entirely unprepared. It was clear after the first few sentences that he had no rehearsed, maybe not even prepared, a single remark. He wanted to appear off the cuff – and told us so. (This is a no-no. The last thing an audience wants to know is that a speaker didn’t care enough to prepare at all.) And the tough part about doing absolutely no prep at all is that a speaker is likely to make bad jokes that don’t get a laugh and then fill the silence with comments that should never be made. It’s a vicious cycle.

When I got home today from the horrendous speech, I grabbed a book I reviewed a while back – Confessions of a Public Speaker by Scott Berkun. Berkun’s book should be required reading for anyone whoever plans to speak in public. Its rich advice is right on the mark. I think I should send a copy to the company President I heard today – he needs all of the speaking advice he can get, particularly from a pro like Berkun. I’d send a copy to Harold Ford Jr. as well, except that he already has public speaking down to a beautiful balance of science and art.

books, design

Step 251: We Do Judge Books By Their Covers

Christa Avampato

I love design, but I’m not a traditionally trained designer. I have a good eye for visual art and a great appreciation for it, but I’m not a trained visual artist. (I’m looking to change those two facts in the coming year but for the moment these statements are indisputable truths. More on my future art plans in a forthcoming post…) My brother-in-law, Kyle, is a truly gifted, trained artist. He has an eye and a heart for creating art and design that the world has got to see or it will be our collective loss. I’m doing my part of get his work out of his head and into the world.

At Dan’s suggestion, I talked to Kyle this weekend about designing a different book cover for my e-book Hope in Progress. I love Dan because he gives me criticism in the kindest, most constructive way possible with sparing a shred of honesty. “I love your book, Christa,” he said to me on the train to Philly. “It’s such great content and you deserve a cover that does the content justice. Get a real designer. They’re worth it.” Noted. Thank you, Dan. (If you don’t have a friend like Dan, please get one. Your life and work will be better for having him as a trusted ally.)

Before pushing out Hope in Progress in a variety of formats in a variety of channels, Kyle is going to whip up that cover art for me to replace my current cover. I told him why I chose the photograph that’s currently on the cover of Hope in Progress and in about 5 seconds flat, Kyle took my verbal description and designed a cover in his head that ran circles around my poor several-hour attempt to choose a font and photo to paste into a Word document. (To her credit, my sister, Weez, had the same color scheme idea as Kyle had thought of before he even said it. Apparently being married to an artist can enhance our artistic point-of-view. Check.) This isn’t surprising – I sent him a couple-line email a few months back about designing a logo for Compass Yoga and 30 minutes later he sent me back a logo that I love. Check it out here.

After talking with him about art over the weekend, I also told Kyle I have another project on tap for him – the book I’m working on that uses the principles of yoga to inform personal finance decisions. I have some fun ideas in mind for visuals, which I will sketch out in stick figures and words, then leave it up to Kyle to work his magic. Dan was right – the value of a visual artist as a collaborator cannot be overestimated. Like Dan’s advice, Kyle’s vision is golden, leaving a halo effect on every creative project he touches. I highly recommend him for your next creative venture. A dab of high design goes a long way.

books, change, community, government, politics

Step 250: An Answered Prayer for the City of Philadelphia

Christa Avampato

On vacation I started reading A Prayer for the City by Buzz Bissinger. The book recounts the history of Philadelphia from 1992-1997 while then-Mayor Ed Rendell (now Governor Rendell of Pennsylvania) held office. The book was published in 1997, one year before my graduation from Penn. Though I was largely unaware of Philadelphia politics aside from the fact that Mayor Rendell presided over a city run largely by corruption, I certainly experienced Philadelphia’s rough exterior as described by Bissinger while I was a student.

I distinctly remember the metal bars on my freshman dorm room windows that made it look more like a prison than the start of a bright college career. And of course I will never forget the homeless man just beyond those bars screaming vulgar obscenities as I rolled my suitcases through the doorway. My mother was horrified. The next day a graduate math student was shot and killed right in the middle of campus, just outside The Castle, which ironically served as Penn’s Community Service House where I was part of a pre-matriculation service program. Freshman women took a self-defense class as part of on-campus programming in the dorms. Locust Walk, the main campus thoroughfare, was lit up by an abundance of blue light phones and Penn Escort Service was heavily encouraged and fully utilized when students needed to walk around the perimeters of campus after midnight. Welcome to Philadelphia circa 1994.

My sophomore year I was mugged in the subway station at Walnut and 37th at knife point by a guy who wanted the cash in my wallet and politely handed it back to me completely intact otherwise. Looking back I think he was more frightened than I was. I remember scrambling up the stairs and running smack into a naval officer who helped me to get to a blue light phone to call for help. The Philadelphia police arrived in moments, storming down into the station, and I never rode the subway again until the very end of my senior year, and only then because my boyfriend at the time was with me. I was sadly not a unique case – I knew countless students who had incidents far worse than mine.

Once I moved into the high-rises at the north end of campus, it was routine to hear gunfire and watch the violence unfold out my window at Billy Bob’s Cheesesteaks as I studied in my apartment very late into the night. A solo walk past 40th Street was unheard of and a trip to the only grocery store, a Safeway dubbed “Scaryway”, had to be a group outing to increase our chances of actually making it back to campus with our groceries. Even that grocery store looked like a fortress – they had built a gate around it so the shopping carts could not be taken from the immediate perimeter of the store, forcing us to grab our groceries from the cart and then squeeze between the bars to get out.

So it was especially heartening to get back to Philly last weekend and see the change that has swept the city. Its rebound is nothing short of miraculous. The Saint Albans area, where Dan and I stayed a few weeks ago, would never have been a destination for me as a Penn student. Nearly every house on that block used to be boarded up, full of loitering by people I’d hope to never run into in any alley, whether at night or in broad daylight. Dan’s friend, Jeremy, drove us through neighborhoods that didn’t even exist 10 years ago. I was overwhelmed by the change, and Dan could scarcely believe the stories I told of vacant lots, littered with broken glass and drug dealers, now made over into Barnes & Noble, Sephora, and restaurants of every variety. It’s as if someone took a bulldozer to Philadelphia and started over.

After I left Penn, I moved to D.C. for 6 months and then headed for New York City, which became the center of my world, leaving Philadelphia as a distant memory. I don’t know much about what happened between 1992 and 1997 that laid the groundwork for all of the change that I could see taking shape when I graduated from Penn in 1998 that has now come to fruition over a decade later. I’m looking forward to finding out what Philadelphia did to turn itself around and I’m grateful to Mr. Bissinger for setting it down in print with such elegant description. What I know for certain is that Rendell fulfilled the promise he made during his 1992 inaugural speech, “Change must surely come…this city cannot only survive; it can come alive again…I cannot and will not falter. We cannot and will not fail.” From my vantage point, the people of Philadelphia have passed with flying colors.

books, children, education, learning, nostalgia, school

Step 245: Back to School and Life Lessons

Christa Avampato

“The difference between school and life? In school, you’re taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you’re given a test that teaches you a lesson.” ~ Tom Bodett, American author and humorist

I love school. Weez is always kidding me that if I could find a way to be a student for the rest of my life and get paid for it, I’d do it. In truth, I kind of do that now. I’m an information junkie. Lots of data served up with a heaping side of industry reports please. All industries welcome. My education has followed me into the workplace and then follows me home, to the gym, out to dinner. Every experience become an opportunity to learn – and become writing material.

I went to my local CVS yesterday and nostalgically walked through the school supply aisle. Advertisements abound all over the city, in every retail window, saying “stock up for school here.” School is part of why I love the Fall – back to school might just be my favorite holiday. Everything is shiny, new, and full of promise. Sometimes people ask me how I did so well in school and managed so many extracurriculars. Some people even warned me that I was taking on too much, that I couldn’t possibly get it all done. People are funny and they project.

To be sure, I studied a lot. Kid geniuses really fascinate me because I wasn’t someone who just knew everything the moment I read it. I am a really good student, work very hard, and have a dangerously high level of curiosity. Truly, I can ask “why?” until the cows come home and never be satisfied. (Ask my mom.) I had to study and practice all the way through business school. I study and practice now, and love it. I learn the lesson, really learn it, get the test, pass. Simple. Linear. Logical. It’s true of school, and mostly true of work, too, so long as I’m working for someone else.

This whole paradigm changes, as Tom Bodett explains so brilliantly, when we leave behind school and work and just have to live in the world. Or when we start our own business or some kind of personal endeavor. Relationships of every kind fall into this class, too. You can’t study or think your way through them. You really do have to give it a whirl, maybe screw up, maybe succeed, and take note of the outcome so the next time around you can improve. It’s not fair, I know, but that’s life. You take the test, hand it in, and then figure out how it shoulda, coulda, woulda been done if you had known better. But you didn’t, and you can’t, so you just show up and do your best. Welcome to a life of improv.

A lot of my life now is about being tested and then receiving the lesson. Yoga, Innovation Station, my writing. I can study and read about these subjects all I want (and I do!), but eventually I know I’ve got to take off the training wheels, go careening down the road, learn from my mistakes, get up, and try again. I didn’t know anything about social media 3 years ago, so I started this blog. I didn’t know how to write a book, so I wrote Hope in Progress. I didn’t know how to swim so I jumped in the pool (with a lifeguard nearby) and paddled around. That’s life, too – try your luck and see how it goes.

I’ll be thinking about this idea over the next few weeks as I see the school buses become part of our traffic patterns and kids skipping home with backpacks and lunch boxes in tow. We’re all learning – students of school just have the benefit of a better sequence of events than students of life.

books, diet, dreams, entertainment, film, food, forgiveness, love, movie, relationships, religion, simplicity

Step 225: The Best Way to Eat Pray Love

Christa Avampato

“In a world of disorder and disaster and fraud, sometimes only beauty can be trusted. Pleasure cannot be bargained down.” ~ Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat Pray Love

The long-anticipated movie of a woman traveling through the world looking for delicious food, peace of mind, and love opens in theaters nationwide today. Last week I walked by a swanky home store advertising “get your Eat Pray Love scented candles here” in its windows. Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat Pray Love, runs an importing business with her new husband. That may explain the commercialization of the film. Still, the merchandising seems like an odd play destined for a less-than-stellar market performance, no matter how high the box office ratings are.

The sad truth is that Eat Pray Love is a well-written book, with lyrical language, rich imagery, and some important insights that, if put to good use, could actually increase people’s happiness. The problem is that it’s been so hyped that most consumers are sick to death of it. And the onslaught of book-related merchandise doesn’t help matters any.

Here’s my suggestion: don’t go to the movie at all. I’m not even sure I’d suggest you read the book at this point. You know how the story goes so it sort of takes the fun out of it. Here’s how you can really live the message of finding your own path, the issue at the heart of the story:

1.) Eat well and enjoy it. Stop mindlessly munching on whatever is within arms reach, enjoy your food with good company, and rather than beating the heck out of yourself for the calories, just exercise more

2.) Pray in your own way. I’m a spiritual person, meaning that the light that is within me honors the light that is within you. Be good to your family, your friends, and your neighbors. Stop asking what the world needs you to do, and just concentrate on doing what brings you joy. That’s where the real goodness is. Recognize that there’s something beyond the here and now, and that we are all intricately and beautifully connected. Honor that connection through service, which is at its essence a divine act.

3.) Love. Forget your past failures in love. Forget the heartache and the tears and the anger and the screwed up behaviors of people who hurt you. Get it all out in the open, let it go, and move on. There’s nothing worse that ruining our next relationship by imbuing it with the problems of the last one. I know it’s hard. I’ve had my heart broken in a million pieces more times than I can count. I’ve got a good family and good friends who help me pick up the pieces and put them back together, and I’m a better person for it, even though it was hell to go through in the first place. Keep loving. The alternative is what causes this world to be such a rough place to live – we shouldn’t make it any worse by carting around our disappointments from one relationship to the next.

And if you really want to know what Elizabeth Gilbert and her journey are all about, watch her TED talk on creativity. In 18 minutes it will inspire you to do something extraordinary, and the world could use a little more of that these days.

The image above depicts Julia Roberts as Elizabeth Gilbert in the movie Eat Pray Love, opening today nationwide. I like the sunflowers.

books, game, innovation, play

Step 214: A Review of Gamestorming: A Playbook for Innovators, Rulebreakers, and Changemakers

Christa Avampato

For several weeks, I’ve been combing my bookshelves for activities to incorporate into my LIM College class on social media marketing. I wanted games to drive home the information in unconventional, interactive ways. I went to my theatre books, my business books, and my books filled with writing exercises. Nothing seemed quite right. And then O’Reilly Media sent me Gamestorming. It felt like a gift out of the sky. My anxiety about the class diminished a bit more with every page.

Gamestorming details games that engage groups, both large and small, in learning and discovery. They work in corporations and in schools, and I’d like to add that they are a valuable tool for navigating just about any decision and complication in life. I found myself noting in nearly every margin how to use each game. The clear, concise description, depictions, and plan for each took a great deal of thought and care from the authors.

The metaphor of life as a game is well worked over. The trouble with the game of life is that there are no rules. You don’t make them and neither does anyone else. They change from moment to moment, and the rule that seemed to work today may never be useful again. We are forced in every situation to think on our feet. Gamestorming gives us more confidence and empowers us to take our futures in our own hands. Get it here.

books, marketing, social media

Step 207: How Greg Verdino’s Ebook Inspires Me

Christa Avampato

I love Greg Verdino’s blog. I find him interesting, controversial, and wicked smart. He’s also humble, curious, and consist and constantly learning and sharing. He started up his blog almost 4 years ago; I’ve been reading his blog for about a year. Mostly, Greg writes about social media and marketing though conversations (in any form) and relationships always seem to be his underlying topics to me. I’ve been looking back over a number of his posts as I prep the curriculum for the marketing class I will be teaching at LIM College in the Fall.

On my plane ride back from vacation, I finally read Greg’s ebook 4 & 20 Blog Posts, a selection of his writings from his first two years of blogging. As someone considering a career shift, I found his book and back-story very inspiring. Greg was “the social media guy” at Digitas when he started blogging and a brilliant marketer. Then he went to crayon, and now is part of Powered, a full-service social media agency. Conversations are now the mainstay of his profession. I think that’s a great answer to the “what do you do for a living?” question: “I talk to people.”

You don’t need to be a marketer or involved with social media to enjoy Greg’s ebook, the same way you don’t need to be a chef to enjoy Anthony Bourdain’s show No Reservations. Yes, if you love talking with and listening to customers in a variety of ways, Greg’s writing will be not only enjoyable but incredibly useful to you.

Greg is a guy who enjoys his life, has undergone a number of personal and professional changes since beginning his blogging life, and shares that every day with his readers. He gives us big ideas to chew on, visions that inspire us, and calls to action that makes us want to roll up our sleeves and get to work on the work that most interests us, whatever that work may be.

Give his ebook a read (it’s available for free download on his website) and let me know what you think. Greg’s book microMarketing will be published by McGraw-Hill in August.

books, leadership

Step 194: Dragons, Fires, and Hornets, Oh My!

Christa Avampato

I live in a cool building. Residents leave books, magazines, and nicknacks of all kinds down in the lobby on two community tables. Recently, I picked up several books down there that I’ve been wanting to read, one being The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Stieg Larsson. I’ve been seeing Larsson’s trilogy all over the place – The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire are the other two. I haven’t a clue what the books are about; I just love that a man is writing about women actually doing something in the world that’s perceived as risky. And I like the book cover art.

I did read Larsson’s biography on the inside cover. He was the editor of Expo Magazine and a leading expert on anti-democratic activity. He delivered the manuscripts for all three books at once shortly before his death in 2004, having never written a novel before. 6 years later, they are all the rage. I’m sure there’s a story in there somewhere.

Inspired by Larsson’s titles, I did a little hornet nest kicking of my own. Yesterday I went to hear an executive from a Fortune 500 company speak. This executive, while known outwardly as an innovator, has recently been quoted as calling product development in the digital space “chasing shiny new objects.” That phrase makes me giggle. The world isn’t going digital, it’s gone digital. I fear for the people working at this company. In 10 years, despite its current dominance, I’m predicting that it will cease to be a relevant player because of its leader’s short-sightedness on how important digital is to its customer-base.

The Q&A session arrived, and I wanted to ask about the mobile technology projects that were recently and publicly cancelled by the company. When I was younger, I never hesitated to ask questions. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve tempered that impulse a bit, packaging my many questions of my youth in one pointed, more mature question. I asked very calmly about the leader’s thoughts on digital and received the response, “Well we definitely have to win there. I will just DIE if our competition beats us to that space,”she said through a very toothy grin.

If that Q&A session was an episode of The Office, the next frame would show me staring at the camera with a deadpan, bored look on my face. Newsflash Your Executive Excellency: the competition has already beaten you to the space, placed major PR bucks against their new digital products, and you don’t even know it. Your team has my sympathy.

My question had a bit of an agenda, and my agenda, as my pal Kelly would say, was morbid curiosity. It is amazing to me how many people in leadership positions think they’re too busy to be forward thinking. Having a vision, which means knowing where they are, where their competition is, and where the subtle and not-so-subtle shifts in the market are taking place is THE job of leadership.

Though the executive’s answer was hardly fulfilling, I’m still glad I asked. Calling in the Dragons, fanning fires, and disturbing the hornets involves some risk, but I think it’s better to call a spade and spade and understand it for what it really is rather than pretending that bad decisions are justifiable when better decisions are available. I wonder if that’s what Larsson is getting at in his trilogy, too.

books, entrepreneurship

Step 176: My First Book Is Complete

Christa Avampato

It’s with much excitement that I have self-published my first book – Hope in Progress: 27 Entrepreneurs Who Inspired Me During the Great Recession. It’s a collection of interviews with entrepreneurs that I conducted while writing for Examiner.com. There are two ways to get the book:

Download a free PDF from this blog
Download the book to your Kindle or via the Kindle app to your iPad or iPhone
Download from Slideshare

I’d love to know what you think! The Kindle store and Slideshare accept written reviews and ratings if you’re so inclined.

Thanks to so many who supported my writing over the years as I got these stories down. It’s been a long time coming. These interviews mean a great deal to me and I hope they inspire you to get going on your own dreams. Cheers!