Category: career

career, choices, decision-making, education, teaching, yoga

Step 198: Decisions, Iriquois-style

Christa Avampato

I heard Jeffrey Hollender, CEO of Seventh Generation, speak at the World Innovation Forum and he explained his company’s decision-making philosophy with respect to the environment: they consider how their decisions will impact the world in seven generations (roughly 70 years.) Seventh Generation took a page from the law of the Iroquois. After Hollender’s inspiring talk, I created a similar decision-making rule for myself: when making important decisions, I think about how I’ll feel about my choice 7 years from now.

This has brought up some interesting effects that may seem small on the surface, though are huge underneath:

1.) I had a hard time figuring out how to fit my yoga teacher training into my schedule. I had to make trade-offs with some other projects like Innovation Station and finishing my first e-book. Ultimately, I decided that the yoga training could lead to a service that I could offer independently, giving me more flexibility to pursue so many of my interests. 7 years from now, I will be very happy I gave entrepreneurship a shot with Compass Yoga.

2.) I went to Greece a few weeks ago and soon after I made those travel plans my sister asked if I would visit for a week only two weeks after I returned from Greece to help her out with her kids while my brother-in-law was out-of-town. I usually wouldn’t ask to take my vacation days from work so close together. I’m in Florida now having a blast with my little nieces. 7 years from now, I will be so grateful for this time – I am already grateful for it now. Work will manage without me just fine.

3.) When the opportunity to teach at LIM College presented itself, working the class into my schedule was difficult. I could have just passed on the chance to make things easier at work. However, I’ve been wanting to teach a college level for the past few years, and that opportunity can be tough for a young professional to come by. So even though it was difficult to re-work my schedule, I knew that if I didn’t accept the teaching assignment 7 years from now I would regret it.

4.) Now 34, I’m considering how I spend my work life. For some time, I have wanted to turn more of my career toward the field of education in some way. It would be easy to just continue down the professional path I’m on, even though I know it’s not my passion. I make a good living at a popular company. 7 years from now, I know that I will wish I had made the move to education much earlier on. So even though making a career change can be challenging, particularly in this economy, I have to go for it.

This decision-making philosophy is helpful, but not easy to implement. It requires trusting my gut much more often than my head. The heart can take the long-view; the head can’t. In recent years, my head has won more often than my heart. The practical side of me has taken a bit too much control. I need a better heart-mind balance in my decisions. Thinking 7 years ahead helps me do that. I’m grateful to the Iroquois and Seventh Generation for the lesson.

The image above can be found here.

career, passion, work

Step 189: A Good Enough Day Job

Christa Avampato

I went out last night with a friend of mine and we got on the subject of day jobs, a job someone has that financially supports their pursuit of interests that may have nothing to do with how they earn their paycheck. I’m passionate about writing, yoga, and teaching, and I’m slowly working my way toward making more of my income from those sources. In the mean time, my student loan collectors require payment so it’s off to work (at a day job) I go.

Lately, I’ve been feeling a little badly about my day job situation, wanting to make more of my income from activities that I’m truly passionate about. My friend whom I spoke with last night is a tremendously gifted writer and comedian. She’s a freelancer who makes her living as a content strategist and project manager. She’s found her freelancing work gratifying enough to make her living, and not too taxing so that she has plenty of energy and creativity to pour into her writing and comedy. She has such clarity about the role of her day job in her life, and her attitude made me feel much better about my own situation. Making a living from a passion takes time, and that’s okay.

I thought about my friend in light of the many statistics that I read about the job satisfaction of Americans. These stats only look at day jobs. They don’t account for the real passions of American workers, which may be far different from the jobs where they earn their paychecks.

Everyone owes it to themselves to have a passion. If you can turn that passion into a career, then make sure to applaud your ingenuity and efforts. And if for a while you need a day job to keep those passions alive, know that you’re not alone. There are plenty of us in that same boat. Some people find that they prefer this arrangement, that they want their passion to stay their passion rather than tying a paycheck to it that may diminish their enjoyment of it. It’s all about finding the balance between work and passion that works for you, and that’s something that we all control individually.

career, economy, innovation

Step 154: Getting Serious About Innovating Your Career

Christa Avampato

“If you’re serious about innovation, you have to get serious … and systematic … about forgetting. PERIOD.”
~ Tom Peters

Tom Peters projects the exact message I need to hear, exactly when I need to hear it. I subscribe to his daily emails and each one gives me a little jolt. Sometimes he times them particularly well, allowing me to share his wisdom with another soul in need of a good talking to.

Today a friend of mine called me to talk about her job. Bright, enthusiastic, and innovative, she toils away on stop-start projects in a very gray cubicle. Today, her CEO gave a rousing speech about innovation and the forward path of the company. “He just gave the speech to the wrong company,” she said to me. “We cut innovative, game-changing projects right and left here, and then complain about being beat out by our competition. I felt like I was living the book The Emperor’s New Clothes. I think he was trying to convince himself of his plan more than he was trying to convince us.”

Despite a very tough economy, she started looking for a new job today. For a few minutes after the CEO’s speech, she said she felt disappointed, let down. Just a few months ago, she felt so excited and inspired by her company. Last week, collective fear about innovation set in around the office, some champions of innovation were let go, the remaining leadership pulled funding for new product development, and she found herself twiddling her thumbs.

I know senior leaders at companies have a lot of pressure on them to produce bottom-line results. In their angst some forget that when they pull the plug on innovation, their most innovative team members, the ones they really need in this tough economy, don’t stick around for things to improve. They look for other opportunities, find them, and take off. Like it or not, CEOs, you can’t keep innovative people down for long. They need appreciation for their efforts, and if you show your appreciation by cutting funding for innovation, you lose their loyalty.

As my friend told me about her story, I listened patiently, and then read this Tom Peters quote to her. She worked hard in her role at this company, and they didn’t recognize the value of her contributions. Now she needs to forget them and start looking for greener pastures. If I put on my yogi hat, I remember that this latest turn of events must mean another place needs her right now. So, she’s setting off on the road toward greener pastures.

career, change, choices, faith

Step 134: The Life Waiting For Us

Christa Avampato

“We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.” ~ Joseph Campbell

I walked to the subway last night with a friend of mine from yoga class. She asked me how I got so interested in so many things, which lead to us talking about the idea of life paths. I went to school with a lot of people who were on a straight and narrow road. It must be nice to have that consistency. Surprise is the constant in my life.

When I started college, I was going to be a civil engineer. And then I became a history / economics majors. After a brief stint on Capitol Hill as a legislative aide, I made a career in Broadway theatre, which eventually took me into fundraising, followed by business school. From business school, I started working in the innovation field at a toy company and now I’m a product developer in financial services, on the verge of starting my own social enterprise around my impending yoga teacher certification. I’ve moved to a new home almost once a year since I was 18 – which was a long time ago. Such a linear path, right?!

At a job interview, a VP once looked at my resume and said, “Wow. sounds like you’ve done a lot of exploring.” He didn’t mean this as a compliment. Smiling, I replied, “Yes. Yes, I have.” I did get the job, despite his disapproval of my life path. He was also a very unhappy, lazy man who was let go shortly after he interviewed me. I guess being an explorer pays off in the long-run.

Truth be told, I was always out there in the world looking for opportunity and very often I found it. While some people worry about taking too many turns, I hang on and enjoy the ride. I’ve met so many fascinating people, traveled, and done everything I always wanted to do. It is a charmed life, but one I did not plan. I was just always prepared to be lucky and happy.

Sometimes I had to let go of the life I had for the promise of adventure. I had to trust that the opportunities before me were meant for me, that my life was out of my hands to a certain degree. And while it sounds scary to say that, it doesn’t feel at all scary to live it. Control is an illusion.

Whenever I was ready to leap, somehow I grew wings. Whenever I was ready to climb, there was some gentle hand that helped me rise. The life I was meant for was always waiting for me to just show up and be there and live it. So that’s what I do: I just show up, try to be present, and smile, and laugh, and learn, and trust that where I am at every moment is where I am supposed to be.

career, Inc. Magaine, technology, work

Step 127: A Job You Like

Christa Avampato

“Find a job you like and you add five days to every week.” ~ H. Jackson Brown Jr., American author

I thought about this quote as I read the profile of Tim O’Reilly in Inc Magazine this month. Tim is known as the Oracle of Silicon Valley and for good reason. He has a way of seeing what’s coming next about 5 years before other really smart people begin to put the pieces together. His road has been unconventional. He’s not a trained businessman, nor is he a trained engineer or tech expert. Trend identification is his specialty. And so is happiness. He’s a keen people watcher and listener. And he’s got an important message for us: work should support what’s important to us in life, not be the axis around which we build every other moment of our days.

“Sure, sure,” we might say. “Get a job we like. Of course everyone wants to do that. But what if I can’t pay my bills by doing what I love? What then?” I’m not sure what Tim would say to that. Maybe he’d just smile. My response would be: “find something else you can really love. Don’t do something you don’t like just to make money. There’s too much fun stuff out there to learn to waste your time doing something you hate.”

I’m not telling you to go out and quit your job tomorrow. Maybe you should do that – actually, you should definitely do that if you absolutely loathe every waking moment at your current job. But if it’s bearable, find a way to make it useful. A project you can start or help out with, a contact who you can cultivate, a skill you can learn. Or switch roles within your company to something that’s of more interest. Or use that energy to actively seek out a new job, quickly.

Truly, I hated the last role I had at work. Starting around October of 2009, I woke up every morning and groaned; that’s when I knew I just couldn’t physically stay where I was. So it was either on to a new adventure in another role, or out into the world to a new company. And once I shared that sentiment with enough people, I found my way to a new role very quickly. Finding the new job wasn’t hard; deciding that it was time for me to get on with it was the tough part.

Once we admit to ourselves that we just can’t keep going down the road we’re on, there’s no turning back. And that can be scary. But if we’re willing to really seek out happiness and satisfaction in our careers, if we’re willing to say “I can do better than this”, then the world has a funny habit of opening the way forward.

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

career, change, work

Step 124: Biding Time Wisely

Christa Avampato

I’ve recently had some conversations with friends who are considering making career jumps. Some to a new industry, some to a new company, and some into their own ventures. A few are actively out there looking and some are wondering if they should hang around where they are until they see some more improvement in the economy.

One of my friends has taken a new position within her company that is going to help her transition out to another company when the time is right. She’s interested in tech venture capital. Her former role was tech heavy, and her new role is in business development. While getting this second piece of the puzzle in place, she’s also started a tech venture capital club as part of her business school’s alumni network. She’s biding her time while gaining incredibly valuable experience in segments and making contacts that will serve her well in her career.

This is what it’s all about – gathering the bits and pieces we can find to help us build a brighter future. Even if we’re in jobs that aren’t perfect, there are activities, role, and projects we can take on inside and outside of the office that will keep us moving forward, even while we look before we leap. I’m all for taking the plunge, but while I’m up here on the cliff, I’m also a fan of making sure I’ve squeezed every last drop of value from my current view.

I’d love to hear about how you’re biding your time in support of your long-term goals!

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

anthropology, career, education

Step 71: Columbia Regrets to Inform You…

Christa Avampato

Several month ago I applied to a PhD program at Columbia’s Teachers College. I had found what I thought was a perfect program, Anthropology and Education, at just the right time. I carefully crafted my application, got my recommendation letters together, and took my GRE. Despite the rejection notice today, I know I put forward the strongest application I possibly could. And it’s okay that I didn’t get accepted – I guess that program is just not meant to be a part of my path right now.

I am very proud of the admissions essay I wrote and so I decided to share it below. The fact that Columbia will not immediately be a part of the journey that this essay lays out is not a terrible thing. I’ll find another way now to keep making progress toward bringing this dream to life — not only because I want to see it become a reality but more importantly because so many people in this country, in this world, need this solution:

“How did you learn to make stuff?” whispered Superior, one of my 7th grade Junior Achievement students at M.S. 223 in the South Bronx, when I described my career as a product developer.

“I made something once and it didn’t work so well so I just kept changing it until it did work well. A lot of trial and error and trial again,” I replied. “This process is called prototyping.”

He looked at me with a very serious expression. “I want to learn to make stuff, too.”

“And what kind of company do you want to work for?” I asked.

“My own. I don’t want to work for anyone else, ever,” he said.

Inspired by this conversation with Superior last year, I began to seriously consider a professional career in education. I was stunned by his interest in entrepreneurship at such a young age. I asked each student in the class what career they would like to have. 8 out of 10 wanted to have their own businesses where they made their own original products. These students were budding entrepreneurs, and I want to help them open their own businesses by providing them with a curriculum that teaches them the skills that will make them successful in their pursuits.

Our most successful lesson to date at M.S. 223 involved improvised skits to demonstrate the importance of insurance during emergency situations. The children came alive when asked to perform. I understood this feeling well because I made my career in professional theatre for 6 years. Additionally, the students quickly learned the complicated vocabulary and intrinsic value of insurance through their performances. The students were gifted storytellers. They showed me how all of my professional experiences could be brought to bear in a classroom setting. I found my home in the field of education at M.S. 223 thanks to those students.

As I headed for the subway that day last year, I felt a mix of emotions. I was tired from a long day and appreciative of what it takes to be a teacher in New York City public schools. I was happy to lend my time to a group of children who were eager to learn and in need of adult role models. I was frustrated with the holes in their curriculum and sad because I knew the dire living situations of these children.

Mostly, I felt responsible. I grew up below the poverty line so I understand the personal circumstances these children face every day. The odds of success are stacked against them just as they were stacked against me. Even though I grew up in a difficult socioeconomic situation, public education helped me to change my circumstances. I have a fervent desire to help other students the way that my family, teachers, and guidance counselors helped me to break the cycle of poverty by encouraging my natural creativity and love for learning. These children at M.S. 223, and the many other children around the world just like them, can better their own lives through hard work and commitment – I know that first hand. They can choose their better history so long as we build public education systems that provide opportunities for broad-based learning and success.

Design thinking, the discipline of using the creative problem-solving skills of a designer, is an ideal tool to re-imagine public education systems. While I have used design thinking as a product developer for almost a decade in a number of different industries, only recently have I begun to consider its application in social enterprise.

The development of education systems that tap into design is critical to our future. In corporations I meet many employees who feel downtrodden and powerless, unable to tap their personal creativity that can develop break-through innovation. They literally have to have their creativity and confidence rebuilt from the ground up because their education system and the companies where they work told them that people like accountants, computer programmers, and sales people are not the creative ones in an organization. Corporations cannot afford this kind of mindset in our new economy; to survive they need the creative engines of every employee.

Superior has more confidence in his creative abilities than most professional business people I know. We need education systems that reinforce creative confidence, not tear it down. It would be more effective to build a public education system that fosters creativity all the way through rather than trying to teach adult professionals how to be as creative as children. It is to this end that I plan to dedicate my career going forward.

Building public education systems based on design thinking will be my contribution to humanity. A doctoral degree from Columbia’s Teachers College in Anthropology and Education will be an asset for me as I pursue this dream. This program is the only doctoral program I am applying to because of its unique emphasis on a deep, disciplined understanding of culture as a critical component to building effective education systems. I am particularly enthusiastic about this program because it recognizes that educational environments can be found throughout a community and because of its history as a pioneer, a history that perfectly suits my plans to innovate in the field of education.

By conducting on-the-ground research and development in design thinking applied to public education, I can help many children across the globe to live happier, more productive lives. The concerns that our world faces are serious and many, and they demand that we muster every bit of our collective creativity to find solutions that bring about real, long-lasting change. When I consider how I can best lever up my abilities to do the most good in the world, my thoughts always return to the field of education because it is the lynchpin that makes transformative change possible. Education is our greatest hope for a better world and a brighter future.”

career, decision-making, design, relationships

Step 67: Making Patterns Instead of Plans

Christa Avampato

I am coming to the end of Mountains Beyond Mountains, a book about the journey of Paul Farmer, the founder of Partners in Health (PIH). PIH has been one of the biggest players in the relief efforts in Haiti because Farmer has been doing critical medical work there for decades under grueling conditions. He has given his life for the people of Haiti, and more broadly for the belief that health care is a global right of all people. He takes the stance that withholding health care from people is a violation of social justice. It’s clear from the book that Paul Farmer’s entire life, professional, personal, and spiritual, follow from this single belief. He makes things happens, and in turn for his tireless efforts, the world has also opened the way for him.

This morning I read a passage on the subway that stopped me in my tracks because it rang so true for me in my own life. “It seemed to me,” wrote author Tracy Kidder, “that he didn’t have a plan for his life so much as he had a pattern.” Many times in my life people have counseled me to get a plan, and so respecting their advice I would dutifully go off and make a plan, only to have it be sent out the window as the world repositioned me in another direction. When people ask me about my plans, personally or professionally, I’ve always felt a bit uncomfortable. I make plans; my life just doesn’t seem to follow them. This idea of creating a pattern and using it throughout our lives as we make choices and evaluate more options resonates very deeply with me. Creating and utilizing patterns seems like a much more fruitful endeavor than making plans.

So here are some of the patterns I create in my life:
1.) I like to be challenged to “think different”
2.) I thrive in environments where I have to be both creative and analytical, when I can have my head in the clouds and my feet on the ground
3.) People and relationships energize me and inspire me; I am not made to be entirely alone in solitude
4.) Having a higher purpose is important to me
5.) Vertical learning curves are fun to scale
6.) I love networking and introducing people to one another – the more I can mix it up, the better
7.) I like to find that hidden gem: a side of someone’s personality that they don’t express all the time, a new place that’s still largely unknown, or a new idea that turns widely held conceptions on their heads
8.) I resist any force that tries to put me in a certain box with a big ol’ label on it; I defy boxes and labels to even try to contain me!

If this idea of patterns resonates with you, too, I’d love to hear how they play out in your life.

career, leadership, work

Step 54: A Parade of Orange

Christa Avampato

Today I packed up my desk at work and at this very moment, the orange moving crates have are moving to a new floor where I’ll be sitting and working starting tomorrow. As a Pisces, the end of the zodiac cycle, I like endings because they allow us to complete a goal and look forward to new opportunities. I like the feeling of wrapping up a project, looking back on accomplishments that I worked so hard to achieve.

I do get a little sentimental during a wrap-up. Today it was a little hard to say good-bye to some co-workers, to know that I won’t be on the phone with them daily the way I was before. I’m so proud of the work we were able to do together, and I’m so grateful for the time I spent with them. This new opportunity before me is a dream position, and before I springboard head-first into the new job, I spent a little time reflecting on my last role and what I learned there:

1.) There’s no such thing as over-communication

2.) Never underestimate the power of honesty and reason to leave a lasting impression on people at all levels of an organization

3.) Saying what you mean and meaning what you say are the two most important things you can do on the job and in life

4.) Take care of a team so that the team can take care of customers so that customers’ opinions of and loyalty to the brand will take care of the shareholders’ investment; leaders need to focus their time on the base of the pyramid, not the top

5.) Leadership, above all else, is service and requires a high degree of empathy; care and concern for a team, as people first and employees second, is the surest way for a leader to be successful

Deep breath in, deep breath out, and here I go. In a new direction, on a new journey, armed with another experience to draw from.

career, childhood, dreams

Step 46: Closing the Heart-Mind Gap

Christa Avampato

“The greatest distance in the world is the 14 inches from our minds to our hearts.” ~ Agnes Baker Pilgrim

On Friday, I had my annual physical and for the first time the doctor performed an EKG. I had these little electrodes placed all over my body. Even the slightest movement, even clearing my throat, caused my heart rate to change. Its beat is the center of our existence, and yet we spend very little time actually considered the needs and wants of the heart, or rather our minds spend a lot of time dismissing the heart’s needs and wants.

How do we close the gap? How do we help our lives sing out from the heart while being informed by the tremendous cognitive abilities pulsing inside our enormous brains? I just finished reading Michael Pollan’s excellent book In Defense of Food. Pollan points out that we actually already know how to eat; we don’t need any scientist to tell us. What’s happened is that we’ve allowed “nutrionism” and food science to lead us astray. He advocates for getting back to our roots to help us re-learn how to eat well. I think the same method could be used to close our heart-mind gap.

A few months back I wrote an article for Examiner.com about getting back to age 9 to discover what will make us the happiest in our careers. The trouble is that once we get too far beyond age 9, we allow too many people to tell us what is best for us. We let others tell us what to do with our lives so often that we actually begin to believe them. When we’re 9, all we can do is imagine what kind of life will make us happiest. That’s the only focus of a 9 year old. As a 33 year old, I want to have that same maniacal focus on happiness that my 9 year old self had. I deserve it. You deserve it. We all deserve it.

In a recent job interview, someone remarked that my professional experience was “weird”. (I ended up opting out of the interview process as a result.) By “weird”, he meant that I have always done what I wanted to do. In my career, I just follow my heart rather than some plan defined my someone else as a “good way to go”. My friend, Susan Strayer, brilliantly advocates for following your heart in her incredible book The Right Job Right Now. Susan asks her readers to look up and then look in to find out what they really want to do with their careers. It’s the only career book in my personal library and I consult it regularly to keep me leading my career with my heart.

I’m not saying it’s easy to get back to being 9. There are some things I do to put me in that frame of mind. This isn’t a comprehensive list, but it helps me and I hope it helps you, too.

6 Ways I get back to 9:
1.) Play on the swings in the park near my house
2.) Spend time with kids – getting back to 9 by osmosis
3.) I paint with watercolors, sing, and dance with wild abandon on a regular basis – even if it’s just in my apartment by myself
4.) I watch cartoons – who says there’s nothing good on TV? Sesame Street is my favorite show.
5.) I spend time in nature. As a kid I grew up on an apple orchard in a rural area of upstate New York. Getting out into nature reminds me of running around the woods with my sister, Weez.
6.) I read children’s books and fairy tales. Those words and feelings of the young characters still resonate with me, and remind me to celebrate all that I felt when I was that age.

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