Category: care

care, career, choices, commitment, creativity, decision-making, determination, work

Step 266: Don’t Lower Your Expectations

Christa Avampato

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the conditions that surround him. The unreasonable man adapts surrounding conditions to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” ~ George Bernard Shaw

When I was in business school, one of my favorite professors revealed his secret for a happy life: low expectations. He was kidding, a little laughter to break the mind numbing tension caused by information overload. He lives a life of the highest expectations I’ve ever known. And it is happy one, too.

Today, I had a conversation with someone who told me she was concerned about my expectations. I was explaining that certain areas of product development like mobile and social technologies require agile development – fail fast and don’t make the same mistake twice. Involve end-users in the process. Beat it, bureaucracy. And no, taking a year to develop a new product or service that isn’t even keeping pace with competition is not acceptable.

She tried to counter by saying that without a knowledge management system in place, there isn’t a way to lower run times between product iterations. I said that building a knowledge management system also needs to be done quickly, and it’s incumbent upon every one to create it and contribute to it. I was being unreasonable and displaying my very high expectations, and I would not back down. Her response, “Well your expectations worry me.” My response, “We have to do better.”

Uncomfortable conversation? Yes. Would I take it back and change my behavior? No. Progress requires unreasonable, unrelenting expectations, and the ability to back them up with creativity and a strong work ethic. And I mean to be a person of progress, not a person of simple adaptation to someone else’s standards. I’d rather aim high and be disappointed every day of my life, than strive for and achieve mediocrity.

care, community, happiness, harmony, work

Step 230: Bring Your Heart With You

Christa Avampato

On the heels of yesterday’s post, I’ve been thinking a lot about heart and passion and why we show up when, where, and for whom. For a while, we can get away with putting in just enough effort and time, the minimum requirement. Things will crank along at an ok speed. The work will get done. Most people will think the result is just fine.

The problem is that working listlessly eventually takes a tremendous toll on our psyche and our spirit. It dulls our senses and our intellect. It makes us less of who we are, and that’s the last thing that the world needs, especially right now. What the world needs is all of us at our very best, bringing all of our gifts and talents and attention to bear. There’s no glory in spending our days in a holding pattern.

We need to show up every day, at home, at work, at play, with an open heart and an open mind. We don’t have time to phone it in. Really, life is precious and fleeting and we don’t get to choose how much of it we have. We only control the amount of joy we pack into it. And the world can’t wait for us. If need be, it will drag us kicking and screaming toward our better future.

I would rather just take the world by the hand, and go along smiling toward the bright, happy days ahead where I’m using my heart and my mind in equal measure. The only work we have to do is the world we’re meant to do. Everything else is just a distraction.

care, growth, nature

Step 132: Ditch What’s Dead

Christa Avampato

Plants left in my care meet a premature end. I sing to them, water them, give them plenty of light and love, and they never stick around for very long. My mother has the greenest thumb on the planet. She sticks a dead twig in the ground and the Garden of Eden emerges overnight. I didn’t get that gene.

But I love plants, and so I keep trying. I took myself over to the Plant Shed last weekend and picked up a few Impatiens. I came home tonight and found one of them limp and wilted. I just watered it yesterday! How could this be? I filled her up with water and pruned away the dead leaves in despair. And then something amazing happened. Within an hour, the plant perked right back up. The limp leaves suddenly found their life again. Maybe I’m not a bad gardener, just a bad pruner. Maybe I let the dead leaves stick around for too long, dragging the rest of the plant down with it.

I think this may be true in life, too. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve let dead-end everything hang around my door. Brian and I have been working on clearing it all out. My yoga teacher, Johanna, talks about this act as “letting go of what doesn’t serve.” Intellectually this makes sense. It takes times and guts to put into practice. It wasn’t until I saw this wilted little plant, flopped over like Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree, that I finally understood this idea in my heart.

If we let the dead leaves hang on, they will suck the life out of the rest of the plant. When we prune away the dead leaves, the plant’s going to look a little odd, a little lopsided. But in time, it’s going to come around again, with a little water and sunshine and room to breathe. If you’ve found this to be true in your life, or your garden, I’d love to hear how it worked for you.

care, children, community

Step 103: Ella’s Community Lemonade

Christa Avampato

On Sunday, my yoga teacher training class had a long lunch break to give us time to get down to the Lower East Side to practice with yoga teacher, Shiva Rea. I was walking with a few of my friends from the class toward the subway. We passed a little girl with a lemonade stand right on West 54th Street and 7th Avenue. We all started to take out our wallets when she said, “No money. It’s free. Community lemonade.” She handed each of us a cup and on each cup she has printed her name, Ella. She was about 4 years old. “She’s branding herself,” her dad said with a laugh. “I don’t know how she came up with this, but she really wanted to do it.”

A few months ago, I read an article in the New York Times about kids being hard-wired to give. Ella is living proof of that hypothesis. It was a nice day out, she made some lemonade, and decided to give it away. I learned a lot from Ella. We all have something to give, and the smallest kindnesses make a big difference. Ella’s lemonade was some of the sweetest I’ve ever had, not because of the sugar in it, but because of the sweetness behind it.

The image above is not my own. It can be found here.

care, change, health, healthcare

My Year of Hopefulness – Good Grief

Christa Avampato

One of the things this year that has brought me so much hope is my new ability to ask and receive help. By nature, I am not good at asking for help, though I am fantastic at providing it. A few weeks ago I told my friend, Rob, about my strong desire to make all of the change I’ve been through this year into a positive experience. I want to look back on 2009 and see that it was a decisive, magical turning point in my life. Enter, Brian.

Early on in my life, I spent a number of years in therapy to acquire tools to help me handle certain aspects of my childhood in a healthy way. They’ve served me well for 33 years and now I need some new tools to help me manage a whole new set of challenges. Brian is a social worker by training who has an incredible gift for helping people to get the most out of the lives they have to help them achieve the lives that they want. He sets about his work with the desire to help people turn their experiences and dreams into action. He is exactly the kind of person I need right now.

I began my weekly sessions with him today and because I am so open about my life’s circumstances, we were able to get to the root of our work together very quickly. It helps that I found Brian based on Rob’s strong recommendation. Because I trust Rob, I immediately trusted Brian. Because I trust myself and know how I want my life to take shape, it was easy to ask someone as knowledgeable as Brian for help. And so, it begins…

Being a forever student, I asked for homework at the end of our session. “I want you to be still and allow the feelings of loss you’ve had this year to surface. You’re so busy getting away from grief that you never really look it in the eye and see how it can actually help you.” True, and scary, and difficult, and necessary. I was so concerned about getting through my losses this year that I didn’t stop to look around and see what they really had to offer me. I just wanted to be done, and in my desire to be done, I forgot to let myself grieve. I took a “well that happened so now get on with it” approach without letting myself say “that was frightening and sad, and I’m going to miss those things and people in my life.”

Grief is difficult; suppressed grief eventually becomes unbearable and makes itself a nuisance and makes us tired. With Brian’s help, I’m going to figure out how to make grief serve me well.

care, career, celebration, hope, opportunity, work

My Year of Hopefulness – Marking time

Christa Avampato

Today is my one year anniversary at my job. Where did the time go? Oh right – into about 25 projects that I’ve worked on since I started! When I consider everything I’ve learned – about the company, the job, the industry, myself, it seems impossible that all of that could have been compressed into one year.

One year ago today, I attended a new hire orientation. A series of company leaders came into the room to speak with us and one of them said something that really stuck with me. He asked us to go up the elevator to our desks every morning with one simple question always at the top of our minds: what am I going to do to help someone live an extraordinary life today? I took that to heart, and I can say with complete honesty that I’ve started every day that way. It’s been a tumultuous year for this country – that elevator question helped me hang on during the most challenging times to help me not only survive, but thrive. And it helped me help others do the same.

So now I begin year two, every bit as hopeful and curious as I was at the start of year one. The unintended, and happy, consequence of helping others to live an extraordinary life is that it makes our own lives extraordinary in the process. I hadn’t consciously realized that until today when I looked around my office to see all the positive change that’s taking place right before our eyes. And I played a part. A small one, but certainly a part. And for that I am extremely grateful. We really do get what we give.

The photo above can be found here.

care, nature, nurture

My Year of Hopefulness – Peace Lily

Christa Avampato

I’ve killed every plant I’ve ever tried to care for. Even a cactus. I overwater and pay too much attention to them. They actually make me nervous. I obsessively nurture them to the point of killing them. It’s odd really – plants make their own food. They really don’t need me and as I force myself on them, I see them wilt before my eyes. Caring for plants brings out all my insecurities.  


I thought my peace lily, one of the three plants on Earth that my local florist tells me I cannot possibly kill, had kicked the bucket. It was looking sad and pathetic. Limp, yellowing, and with one foot in the chlorophyll grave. I was about to throw it out and decided to give it just a bit more water to see if I could revive it. And I sang to it. Seriously, I belted out a few songs because I heard a long time ago that plants respond to music. Why not give it a shot?

By some miracle, I was able to revive the peace lily and now it is thriving. I only water the plant when the soil is dry. No fertilizer. No special treatment, aside from the singing. I do sing to it every day. And it’s working. This plant taught me that it might not be the amount of care that you pay to something, but the kind of care. Give everything only what it needs. 
care, career, friendship, holiday, hope

My Year of Hopefulness – Make Something That Matters

Christa Avampato

My friend, Monika, hosted three of us for dinner at her place last night. I can say with certainty that it was the nicest New Year’s Eve I’ve ever spent. Low-key, relaxed, with good friends, good food, and good wine. Though we just turned the page one more day, just like we have ever other day of the year, it did feel different this year. I did feel myself shrug off some sadness, some disappointment, even some anger. As I walked to the subway last night with my friend, Brandi, I was glad to hear I was not alone is feeling of heavy disappointment about the world. 


And then I read Seth Godin’s blog post this morning. Apparently, he hates New Year’s though he seems to have changed his tune this year, too. He sees a tremendous opportunity this year and I wonder how many of us will rise to the challenge he’s laid before us: “The opportunity this year is bigger than ever: to lead change, to create a movement in a direction you want to go. While the rest of your world huddles and holds back, here’s a golden chance to use cheap media, available attention, and great talent to make something that matters.”    

To that end, I wanted to share a resource given to me by my friend, Linda. Linda is on the board of the Black Culinary Association (BCA), a nonprofit that supports racial minorities entering the culinary world. Linda found BCA after registering her profile on boardnetusa.org, an on-line community that matches up boards seeking members with individuals interested in serving on nonprofit boards. If you’d like to take up Seth Godin’s challenge, this resource is a wonderful place to begin your journey. 
 
I’m home today cleaning my apartment to start the New Year off right. I was dusting my bookshelves a few hours ago and came across my copy of Oh, the Places You’ll Go. While a little bit cliched at this point, there are a few lines where I always get choked up. It’s possible I take our dear friend, Dr. Seuss, too literally. It’s also possible that I am a giant sap. “Your mountain is waiting so….get on your way!” always has some special meaning for me. I’ve been searching for my mountain for a long time now, and while I’ve climbed a few peaks, looked out over a few vistas, and none of them have been my peaks. I simply borrowed them from someone else for a while, did some good while I was there, and then had to move on. 

In 2009, I’d like to find my mountain, make something that matters. If you’ve found yours, know that I am insanely jealous and excited for you all at once. It must be a remarkable feeling. If you’re like me, still searching, then I hope that 2009 will be your year of great discovery, too. 
care, career, holiday, hope, job, New Years Eve

My Year of Hopefulness – Day 1

Christa Avampato

On December 23, 2008, I began a daily log of acts of kindness after writing a blog post about small moments that made my day. I realized in the 15 minutes that it took me to write that post that I had a very simple New Year’s Resolution: I wanted to feel more hopeful in 2009 and I wanted to do my part to generate more hope for others. From that blog post and simple wish, I am starting an extraordinary year of giving and receiving.


I don’t typically write series of articles on this blog. To help me keep my New Year’s Resolution, I will be writing a daily blog post, in addition to my other regular posts, about what I am doing to be more hopeful and generate more help for others. It will be a good reminder to me, and I hope that it may do readers some good as well. 


The economy is weighing heavily on people’s minds at the start of this year. People are facing layoffs and possibly the bankruptcy of the companies they work for, particularly in certain industries such as retail. As a result, it can be pretty tough to get up for work in the morning. Even if you are lucky enough to keep your job in this downturn, and you are indeed lucky if you’re in that boat, there will be added stress as you may be doing the work of two or three people, and being asked to do that work with no additional compensation or resources. 

So what can we do to make that trip out the front door a bit better? This evening I made up a small sign that I taped to the inside of my front door, right by the door knob, that details what I am achieving and working toward at this current job and the good things about my position that I should be grateful for. It will be a good reminder every morning before I head out for work. If you are facing some discomfort in your current job, maybe this tactic will help you as well. 

Happy New Year!
business, care, career, economy, relationships, social work

Ask not what your company can do for you…

Christa Avampato

I was talking with a friend of mine from school today about, what else, the economy. We have big dreams – things to do, people to see, places to go. We were movin’ on up….until our economy tanked. Now we’re happy to just be employed. We talked about the morale in our respective offices. The morale of my team is going okay – his is not quite so good. I asked him how he felt about his future at the company and he gave me a wholly unexpected response. 


“In times like this, it’s better to think of what I can do for the company rather than think about what the company can do for me,” he said. “Who would you want to have around?: someone who’s always looking out for #1 or someone who’s looking out for everyone around him.” Good point.

In times like this when there is a lot of panic and anxiety, it’s only natural to think of ourselves and our own survival. As it turns out, the best way to survive is to look out for others, to connect with others, to support others in their pursuits. Think about it from another viewpoint – in tough times it would be easy for companies to just focus on their own survival. The truly innovative companies are finding their salvation in premium customer service – if they take care of customers now, when times are tough, those customers will remember them when the good times start to roll again. And they will roll again, no matter how bad it is now. Taking the long-view is critical to success years down the road. You’ve got to be willing to hang in there for the long haul. It’s no accident that the first for letters of “career” spell “care.” And that’s what businesses need right – people who honestly, deeply care about the present and the future. 

It’s like friendship, it’s like love. Tom Stoppard said, “It’s easy to love someone at their best. Love is loving someone at their worst.” When we’re down and out, we find out who really cares about us because those are the ones that stick around and help us pick up the pieces. It’s true in relationships and it’s true for businesses, too. Both need tending and nurturing, now more than ever.