Category: career

career, decision-making, discovery, education, encouragement, work

Step 350: It’s Not Knowing that Really Counts

Christa Avampato

“Education would be so much more effective if its purpose were to ensure that by the time they leave school every boy and girl should know how much they don’t know, and be imbued with a lifelong desire to know it.” ~ Sir William Haley, British newspaper editor and broadcasting administrator

If Sir Haley were standing in front of me right now, I’d give him a hug. I love him for stating exactly what an education should be about – unending discovery. Rather than people striving to be the smartest person around, what would our world be like if for every answer we found we had two more questions? What if every time we became an expert in one area, we marveled at how many areas we know nothing about?

This quote reminded me of a post I wrote for my friend, Amanda’s, blog about being a beginner. It’s going to be the spring-board for this blog in 2011 – more details to come on this in a not-too-distant post. Life’s more fun as a beginner. We don’t know what we don’t know and therefore we ask lots of questions, we try out ideas, we explore unencumbered by any notion of what’s been done before. Beginners are the best innovators because the word “should” is not part of their thinking. They have no idea what they should do. Sometimes the resource or experience you don’t have is the real blessing.

We may not know what our life’s purpose is. We may not know what’s next for us as we turn our attention toward 2011. We’re just beginning – this is where the fun starts.

The image above can be found here.

career, happiness, work

Step 349: 4 Ways to Turn Your Work Into the Fountain of Youth

Christa Avampato

“To find joy in work is to discover the fountain of youth.” ~ Pearl S. Buck

Imagine if 40 hours a week you worked at a place that felt joyful? As long as there are people there will be politics and disagreements, but what if on the other side of those aspects there was a firm common belief among the entire team that everyone’s goal is to build as strong and vital a company as possible. What if egos could be put aside for the sake of the common good. That’s the kind of place I’d love to spend my time, and I’d be more than happy to offer up as many as hours as needed.

Somewhere along the way toil and work became synonyms in our society. Americans started to do whatever they needed to do to earn the title, the paycheck, and all of the prestige that goes along with both of those things. My friend, Amanda, and I were talking about how difficult it can be to walk away from a job that looks so good on paper and to the outside world. Stay in that type of job long enough and we’ll lose a little part of ourselves. Don’t be seduced by the check and the title – what we make matters, and if what you’re making doesn’t matter to you then we’re all missing out.

4 Ways to Love Your Work and Find the Fountain of Youth:
1.) Follow the energy
2.) Make 3 lists: what you would do for work, what you might do for work, and what you will never do for work. Then spend 2 weeks roughly keeping track of how much of your current work falls into those 3 buckets. If you’re spending too much time in the might and the never buckets, it might be time to find something new.
3.) Use your performance review time wisely. This is a great time of year to clearly (and calmly) let your employer know where you want your career to go. Can’t have that type of conversation with your boss? Then it’s definitely time to think about what else you’d like to do.
4.) What did you want to do when you were 8? Or 9 or 10 or the first time you remember being really excited about having a career? Can you get back there?

What’s worked for you?

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

books, career, change

Step 327: Your Career in Decades

Christa Avampato

I recently met someone who thinks about his career in decades. He got a PhD and spent 10 years as a particle physicist, is now about 5 years into his decade in finance, and believes his next decade of work will involve green energy. I was really struck by this framework for a career. He wasn’t the least bit phased about moving from field to field, taking an entirely different direction each time. Nor was he concerned with how to explain his jumps. He sees his career as a vehicle for learning, not as a way to build a resume. He loves being a beginner, charging up a vertical learning curve. I admire him for that.

About a year ago I wrote a post about Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers. In the book he discusses a benchmark for making a specific impact in a chosen professional field – 10,000 hours of work. Let’s assume someone works 40 hours per week for 50 weeks per year. That makes 2,000 hours per year, making it necessary to work for about 5 years in a given field. If an average career spans roughly 40 years, we have the opportunity to make a significant impact in 8 different fields throughout our careers.

My new friend and his decade rule seem to be on to something here. Why not leap? Why not strike out and try something entirely new? As long as we feel comfortable starting over, there’s so much good we can do, so many new experiences we can have. There’s no reason to feel stuck.

career, celebration, choices, decision-making, opportunity

Step 323: Let Go and Swim

Christa Avampato

This past weekend I was flipping through my yoga teacher training manual from Sonic Yoga. Though we got through a good deal of it, there’s still so much to learn. With 6,000 years of yoga history prior to my first hearing of it, I feel like I’ll always be a beginner in my yoga practice. There will always be much more to learn when it come to the infinite knowledge of the subtle body.

In the back of my teacher’s manual there are a collection of poems and quotes that are especially significant to my teachers at Sonic. One of them is from the Hopi Nation and it addresses the idea of letting go in order to survive. I’ve been thinking a lot about this idea. It’s so tempting to believe that if we can just dig our nails into the shore and hold on for dear life, then we will be safe. In the poem, a Hopi Elder explains his philosophy on why it’s so much safer, and ultimately more beneficial to our personal development to let go.

When I was in Greece this past summer, I got over my fear of the open water. I let go of the shore and felt lighter for it. I didn’t learn to swim until I was 30 so the while I love the water, I certainly have never seen it as my friend. Now rather than seeing the water as an enemy and something to be feared, I see it as an amazing, immense teacher, just like my yoga practice.

Out on the open waters of Greece, I found that it wasn’t the open water itself that scared me; it was the actual act of letting go that was compounded with so much fear. What would happen to me if I couldn’t latch on to the shore? It was a lack of confidence on my part. And then as the sea crashed against the shore a bit harder, I found that yes, it was easier once I let go. I could roll with the open water instead of being thrashed by it.

Sometimes, we get too attached to dreams and plans and ideas. When life doesn’t seem to be supporting our direction, the instinct may kick up to fight, fight, fight until we get what we want. And sometimes that instinct is dead-on, and other times, it’s the universe’s way of telling us that there is another way we need to go.

So how do we know the difference? How do we know when to let go and when to hang on? This little test works for me: am I using so much energy to just hang on that I have no more energy to accomplish anything else? Is hanging on becoming the battle of my life, and if so, is that battle worth sacrificing every other dream I have? Again, as always, it comes down to priorities.

“To my fellow swimmers:
There is a river flowing now very fast.
It is so great and swift,
that there are those who will be afraid.
They will try to hold on to the shore,
they are being torn apart and will suffer greatly.
Know that the river has its destination.
The elders say we must let go of the shore,
push off into the middle of the river,
keep our heads above water.
And I say see who is there with you and celebrate.
At this time in history,
we are to take nothing personally,
least of all ourselves,
for the moment that we do,
our spiritual growth and journey come to a halt.
The time of the lone wolf is over.
Gather yourselves.
Banish the word struggle from your attitude and vocabulary.
All that we do now must be done
in a sacred manner and in celebration.
WE ARE THE ONES WE HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR.”

books, career, job

Step 321: Some Serious Job Search Advice

Christa Avampato

As the end of the year draws closer, people think about new beginnings. And sometimes those new beginnings involve looking for a new job. I’ve done plenty of job searching and interviewing in my day – both internally with a company and externally when I want to switch companies. I like movement and progress; I like a challenge and am most comfortable on a vertical learning curve.

Because of where I work now and the nature of my work as a product developer, I get a lot of emails and phone calls asking for job search advice. I try to be as helpful as I possibly can and thought I could bundle up my advice into a post that explains a bit about my job search process. The information below is very biased – it’s just what’s worked for me and I hope parts of it are really useful to you or someone you know who’s currently on the look out for a new role.

Buy The Right Job, Right Now
This is the first piece of advice I give anyone whenever they’re looking for a job. My friend, Susan, wrote this amazing job search book. I use it every single time that I even think of looking for any new opportunity. She’s brilliant and wise and articulate. She’s also a barrel of laughs so you’ll read this book, and actually have a good time while developing a solid job search plan. I keep the kaleidoscope I created as a result of the book tacked up at my desk at work. It’s that good.

Networking in the right way is critical
You know you should it but the thought of it makes your stomach turn. You’re not alone. I used to be like that, too. And then I began to realize that networking is just a conversation to learn more about someone you’re just getting to know. Think about it more from the angle of what you can give rather than what you can get. Ask questions about their experience; don’t ask for access to their network right off the bat. If their network is worth having, they aren’t going to hand it over to a complete stranger any more than they’re going to hand you a $100 bill. Remember that their network is their most important asset, and just asking to be welcomed into it and not be asked to use it is like inviting yourself to dinner at their house. By giving access to their network, you’re asking to be let into their life and introduced to their inner circle. Tread lightly. Prove yourself, and the door to those networks you covet will open in due time. Be patient and respectfully persistent.

You’re always looking for a job
Look before you actually need a job. Always be looking. At every party and every time you walk down the street. Opportunity is EVERYWHERE. And you don’t need to be obnoxious in your networking; just remain aware and make a mental note about interesting ideas that you hear and see. You’d be surprised by how many people in this world are terrible listeners. Make yourself an expert listener, follow-up with someone on an interesting idea you learned, and you’ll reap the rewards.

Set a time line
When I wanted to leave my first job out of business school, I told a friend of mine that I was giving myself a two month time line. She laughed at me out loud and said, “Well, Christa, that’s too soon and there’s no way in this economy (summer 2008) that you can make that happen. If you do, I’ll need to find out your secret.” I was a little hurt, honestly, but now I was really fired up. I had an offer for a new job (in financial services, no less) 5 weeks later. I got a 10% pay increase and a far shorter commute that allowed me to sell my car and take the subway instead, plus it was still in my field of innovation. It took my doubting friend a year and a half to find a new job – she never set a time line for herself. Give yourself a time line – it helps.

If someone asks you for your ideal job, have an answer
When I was in business school, I did an off-grounds job search, meaning I didn’t want a job with any firms recruiting at the school. I got a contact name for a recruiter at a company that was interesting to me. They didn’t have an job posting that were interesting to me so I cold-called him, and he picked up. His first and only question was, “what’s your ideal job?” I made up an answer on the fly, and laid out exactly what I wanted. My pie-in-the-sky job. And as if by some miracle of divine intervention it was available with an amazing boss at a good salary. Yes, there was a serious dose of luck there. But I was also ready to be lucky – all my job searching and interviewing for almost a year had prepared me for that one moment when someone said, “tell me what you want.”

Show that you can deliver
I hear from soon-to-be MBAs all the time, and when I ask them about their job search focus, 9 times out of 10 I hear “Well, I’d really like to do strategy work.” And I clunk my head on my desk. Of course they to do strategy work – everyone does. But what’s just as important, if not more so, is to be able to deliver on the strategy. Strategy doesn’t get a budget line, products and services that make money do. Make sure you get your name attached to the money. I was ridiculously lucky in all of my jobs to have a strategy component, and believe it or not I had to fight for the execution side. And here’s why I did fight for it – you can construct the most thoughtful, elegant strategy on the planet, but if you can’t bring it to life so people can use it, your work doesn’t matter. Mediocre strategy, well-executed, can move mountains – I’ve seen it and lived it. Lovely powerpoints are just that – pieces of paper with colorful shapes and graphs that will eventually end up in the recycle bin. It’s what comes from the strategy and makes it out into the world that makes a difference. And it gets you paid.

Be a thought leader
My blog has gotten me the three roles I have since b-school more than any of my experience and education. I’m not kidding. It’s the first thing that every interviewer who sees my resume asks about. And they read it and follow it. I’ve had people recruit me because they came across my blog. Because I write regularly, it also shows determination and commitment – two traits that are attractive to companies. And they get to know me as a person as well as a professional. If you’re passionate about your work, write about it consistently. You’ll be amazed by how many people care about what you think.

Have follow-through
When I was a very young theatre manager I worked for a woman named Charlotte Wilcox. She’s still a very strong voice in the Broadway theatre community, and has had a very impressive career. She’s also tough as nails and hands-down the most demanding boss I ever had. And as many tears as I cried working for her, she was one of my very wisest teachers. I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything. She taught me to survive, in great environments and in crummy ones, too. She gave me two very concrete pieces of advice. I need to have them drafted up and framed to hang in my workspace:

1.) “Don’t ever ask anyone who works for you to do anything you’re not willing to do yourself.” (a.k.a., don’t give people crappy work that you think is beneath you)

2.) “Always follow through”

Now, she delivered those messages to me under very harsh conditions that literally left me feeling like a rag doll, but the power of those words is well-worth the energy it took out of me to learn those lessons. I left Charlotte’s office 9 years ago, and those lessons still stick with me.

Bad design haunts you forever, and that includes how you design your job search
That quote is part of Bob G.’s lexicon. I worked for Bob in my first job after b-school and it was like getting another master’s degree in innovation and product development. As much as Charlotte taught me how to survive, Bob taught me how to thrive, and I needed both lessons. Some days, you’re just trying to get through and some days you’re surging up the mountain at lightning speed. That’s the nature of the job search and the nature of work. You think you’re spinning your wheels, but that muscle you’re building in the process is really valuable. Stick to your job search design and embellish it with the lessons you learn as you go along. A bad plan leads to a bad search. See Susan’s book for more details on how to build that plan!

That’s my 2+ cents on the job search process. What’s worked for you? How’s your search going? How can I help?

adventure, career, change, choices, decision-making, risk

Step 315: Risks Are Less Scary Than They First Appear

Christa Avampato

I’m a fan of the daily newsletter from Psychology Today. Every day they send over 4 stories that are loosely connected, and try to make their readers better people. A few weeks ago they sent over a set of article about fear and how the mind interprets different fears. My big take-away: we have a warped view of risk, real and perceived.

I think about risk a lot for several specific reasons:

1.) At the moment I work in financial services – an industry built around the ability to manage risk
2.) I’m working on starting a small business – a challenging proposition even when the economy is at its best
3.) I live in New York City, a city built and run by people who take their dreams, and all the risk that those dreams carry, very seriously

One of Psychology Today’s articles talks about the 10 ways we screw up our perception of a risk. The good news: we’re actually much more capable than we give ourselves credit for. I understand that the economy’s in the hole because we got way too confident, that for years we were living way out of the ballpark of our means. I’m not suggesting we get back to that place of too-risky living.

What I am suggesting is that we’ve gone too far in the other direction. We tell ourselves that we can’t take any risk now. Better to stay in the job, relationship, city where we are. New is scary. New is uncertain. New is overrated. I hate that we’ve painted ourselves into a corner. It’s true that we need to make smart choices, but it’s also true that we need to live, really live. We’re creatures of dreams and aspirations and joy. We won’t thrive if we don’t strive.

I’m not telling you to run out into the world, full tilt, throwing any and every caution to the wind. (Well, actually, I think it’s good to do that once in a while.) What I am asking you to do is keep in mind that we only get one crack at this go-around in the world and that this world needs you to live the best life you can imagine. We need you at your very best. It’s my firm belief that we’re at our best when we’re happiest, and we’re happiest when we’re out there in the world living the way we want.

So take a little tip-toe outside of that box you put yourself in. Try something new and different that does nothing but lift your spirits. If we all take some small steps, together we can leap.

career, work, writing

Step 296: 3 Things to Keep in Mind for Your Year-end Performance Review

Christa Avampato

“Let your manners speak, your deeds prove, and your delivery impress.” ~ Yogi Tea

Cue the music! “It’s about that time of, time of the year again…” Nope, not the holidays just yet. Performance reviews, one of my work requirements that I dread the most. I always fantasize about not following the company format but instead writing some pithy essay about why I don’t think performance reviews work. I was completing my self-evaluation on Friday, and in a moment of frustration at how long it was taking, I went to make a cup of tea.

The quote above was on the tag of my teabag. Yoga has taught me that the world often hands us the teaching we need exactly when we need it. I needed to hear this message today. I went back to my computer with a little bit of renewed energy. Maybe I don’t need to see these reviews as arduous and pointless. It is an opportunity to reflect on the year nearly behind us and to look ahead at how I’d like 2011 to take shape.

Given my recent introspective mood, it’s fitting to have this task on my to-do list now. Clearly, if the world is handing it to me, along with a bit of encouragement and advice via my tea, I must need what it has to teach me.

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.

career, dreams, education, work

Step 234: Public Education Needs Us to Set Sail

Christa Avampato

“A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.” ~ John A. Shedd

This week I read Paul Tough’s op-ed in the New York Times about innovation in public education. As I begin the journey to transition my career in corporate product development to innovation in public education, I’ve been doing a lot of research on new ideas in the education field. Tough, who wrote the excellent biography Whatever It Takes about Jeffrey Canada and the Harlem Childrens Zone, raises the flag on Congress continually commissioning fact-finding studies rather than putting new ideas into action in schools. This is equivalent to companies testing new product ideas in powerpoint rather than in market.

It’s safe to test in powerpoint, to commission research studies. The trouble is those acts don’t move us forward on our journey. Testing new ideas in the public eye takes guts and conviction. Innovation in any field is not for the faint of heart or the perfectionists. Innovation is for the ones who are willing to let go of today’s safety for the possibility that a brighter, happier tomorrow lies just beyond the shore. It is for the person who is willing to give up the perfectly acceptable for the hopeful promise of the truly extraordinary. Innovation, particularly in an area as critical to our future as public education, is for people who demand the ship pull up its anchor and head straight on toward the horizon. And if that ship refuses to move the innovator will pitch herself overboard and go it alone with the tides. It takes a certain amount of fearlessness mixed with equal amounts of curiosity and humility.

Paul Tough, Geoffrey Canada, and a myriad of others who care deeply about public education today are those innovators who would rather risk it all because the truly risky bet is to just do what we’ve always done; and what we’ve always done in public education is no longer working. We’re seeing the frightening effects in free-falling test scores, soaring drop-out rates, and ever-increasing desperation in the very poorest school districts. Public education needs you, me, and as many others as we can gather. Our government bands together to save the big banks, but not public education. Most government officials don’t understand that simply throwing money at the public education problems doesn’t make them go away. It takes just as much heart as it does money to have an impact in the lives of our children.

Some people ask me why I’d hop off the corporate product development track to pursue a career in public education. I have a plum position with a well-known company working on new technology development, a role that many MBAs would take in a heartbeat. I make good money. Most of the time the hours are perfectly manageable. By all accounts, I have found a safe harbor in the economic storm. I am beyond grateful for the opportunity. I could stay there and do well and move up the ladder. That life would be fine, but for the fact that it is not the least bit reflective of my spirit.

Here’s the rub: I don’t bring my heart to work. I show up to collect a paycheck. Nothing I do is building a better world, directly or indirectly. It’s just making more money for people who already have plenty of money, more money than they could ever possibly need. And I don’t want to wake up at the end of my career and look back at a broken public education system only to say, “I really should have spent my career trying to innovate in schools. That would have really made a difference.” I could sit back and years from now look around at a big pile of money in a bank account, and it would feel completely worthless. I would have wasted my time, and that’s just too tragic for me to bear.

So I’ve started to make my way out to sea, a tiny little row-boat paddling as fast as I can toward the sun. Call me an idealist; I’d welcome that. I’d rather live by my own ideals than by someone else’s. The mother ship is fading into the background and I’m looking for a way to do the work I was built for. Sometimes you’ve just got to set sail, no matter how rough the waters may seem.

career, work

Step 229: 7 Job Search Methods That Worked for Me

Christa Avampato

A lot of my friends are peeking out from under the gloom of the recession to see what opportunities lie in wait. Now two to three years out of business school, we’re starting to think seriously about a move that aligns our hearts and our minds, and we care deeply about impacting the world in a significant way. The heart-led job search can be tricky terrain. It’s not as easy as hopping on Monster.com and blanketing the field with our resumes. This one requires more finesse, creativity, and patience.

In today’s post, I thought it might be helpful to list a few methods I’ve used over the last three years that have led me to interesting new ground. If you’re in the market, I hope these ideas get you going, too.

1.) Be authentic about your interests. Someone somewhere in the world needs the gifts you have to offer. I stopped trying to get organizations to like me and just focused on talking about the ideas that I’m passionate about. I want to take my experience into the public education field, a field I love to research. I’m constantly reading about it, and trying to connect to others with the same interest. I focus on learning and sharing as much as I can. Talking about that passion is helping me to find my pack. And in the heart-led job search, your pack is king.

2.) Don’t network when you need a job – network all the time. In many ways, having a job where we’re comfortable can make us a little lazy. We stop going to events. We stop looking for new connections and neglect the ones we have. Then all of a sudden we need something, and we wonder why people won’t put themselves out there for us. Keep the mindset of constant connection, to new contacts and treasured ones, and you’ll find opportunities present themselves to you as often as you look around for them.

3.) Free can lead to fee. Especially in the recession, organizations are looking for more help. Because I’m interested in the social venture / nonprofit fields, this is a bit of an easier sell for me. I’ve done pro-bono marketing and communications work with Junior Achievement, American Red Cross, and Save the Children. I’ve not been paid for this work yet, but down the line I know these relationships will be very valuable, and I’ve gotten incredible experience with organizations who mean a lot to me. Win-win. Check to see if your company has any of these projects you could join (or lead!) and if not, reach out directly to organizations that interest you and offer a few hours of free consulting.

4.) Volunteer. Again, easier for me to make this case because of the work I’m interested in, but I have a lot of friends who’ve made valuable contacts while doing something good for their communities. Alumni clubs are a great starting resource. Also, check out programs like iMentor that place an emphasis on bringing their volunteers together in social settings to meet and get to know one another.

5.) Social media is more than a means to keep up with your friends. I write on this blog every day because I love it, and believe me it is a lot of work. I’m not suggesting that everyone have a blog, and there are ways for everyone to be involved in some aspect of social media no matter how much time they have (or don’t have.) I also tweet, use FB for my work, tap into some location-based services like Foursquare, actively use LinkedIn. My inbox collects about 30 e-newsletters per day that I scan for interesting stories and companies. Every cool opportunity I’ve found since business school somehow has a social media link. It’s that important – so get out there in some virtual way and connect to people who interest you.

6.) Write letters and emails to people whose work you admire. When you read about an organization that interests you, write to them and express your interest. I do this all the time and I’m always pleasantly surprised how much people like to talk about themselves and their work to someone who shares their interests. Learn from them.

7.) Make your current work as meaningful as possible. I work on new technology projects, particularly related to mobile technology, in my day job. I know technology is critical to public education moving forward, so while I currently work outside of public education, I know the experience I’m getting will be very valuable. Looking forward to the future is important, but don’t let current opportunities go to waste. You them wisely.

I’d love to hear what’s worked for you in your job searches!