Category: career

career

Step 21: A Multi-career Life

Christa Avampato

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” One of the most common questions that adults ask children. I always had trouble with this one. “Can I be an astronaut and a playwright?” “Can I be a paleontologist and broker world peace?” Adults always seemed to want a single answer from me and I couldn’t deliver that so I was labeled as someone who was very talented and just hadn’t made up my mind yet. Actually I did make up my mind – I wanted to do a lot of incredible things with my life.

Now I’m a product developer who writes, teaches yoga, spends a lot of time with social media, and has a passion for improving public education systems. I’m not giving anyone a single answer on what I’m going to be when I grow up. I’m multi-dimensional. I’m not apologizing for it and I’m not accepting a label as someone who hasn’t made up her mind. I made up my mind a long time ago to be me and explore everything that interests me.

Historically, the multi-career lifestyle has loads of successful examples: Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Mary Pickford, Frederick Olmstead. In modern times, we have legions of entrepreneurs, artists, scientists, and designers who have simultaneous careers, leading to multiple income streams. Many own their own businesses, teach, write, consult, and run nonprofit organizations. So why shouldn’t you think of yourself this way, too? Why must your day job be the sole definition of your professional life?

The good old days of a 9-5, Monday to Friday work life as a separate entities from our personal lives are rapidly fading from view. That doesn’t mean that the good new days won’t be just as fulfilling. In actuality, I think they’ll be more fulfilling. Institute for the Future, an organization that tracks long-term societal trends, predicts that by the end of the next decade most people will have multiple careers. You don’t have to choose one interest or passion over another. You can be a political activist-jewelry designer-accountant. The only thing you have to do is find your passion and go for it!

blogging, career, technology, writing

Step 17: A New Place to Call (My On-line) Home

Christa Avampato

I thought that this step would be coming much later in the year. I had planned to study and take my GRE, get my after-school program with Citizen Schools underway, and then work on converting my blog from Blogger to WordPress. I got it completely backwards. Yesterday I spent most of the day setting up this site for prime time, the after-school program starts at the end of January, and then I take my GRE on February 6th. The best laid plans…

I just couldn’t help myself with this new site. Professionally I needed to showcase the big projects I’m working on in a way that Blogger couldn’t do for me without significant time and financial investments. While I’m finding WordPress a bit more complicated than Blogger, my expert media friends tell me it’s worth it so I sat down and got it done yesterday. I expect it to be a work in progress for many months to come.

So let me show you around:

– My main page is my blog since my writing is the project that’s most important to me and where I spend the most time.

– I added a “Help Haiti” tab. On it, you will find a link to the U.S. State Department which is coordinating the U.S. relief effort. I’ve also included some other excellent sources of information on the situation in Haiti. I’ll keep adding to it as I find new info. If there’s a link you think I should include, let me know.

– “About Me” gives my short bio and the first of one of a few photos of me. The photos on the site were taken by my good pal, Dan Fortune, who spins a mean mix of classic hits like you’ve never heard them before and is a whiz with a camera.

– “Other Writing” gives a short description of other publications where I’ve been published and featured. When my e-book is finished it will get its own tab. More to come on that in the next month.

– “Innovation Station” is the after-school project I am piloting with Citizens Schools this spring. My goal is to use product development and entrepreneurship to engage children in their studies. Now that this conversion to WordPress is complete, I’ll turn my attention to Innovation Station. This page will look radically different in the next few months.

Just to the right, you’ll find a sidebar that allows readers to subscribe via email (you can subscribe via RSS at the top of the page), join me on Twitter, see my 5 most recent posts, search via category cloud that shows my most common writing topics, a blogroll of some of my favorite sites, and an archive.

I tried to keep the design simple and clean, eliminating the unnecessary so the necessary may speak. Let me know what you think in the comment section, via Twitter, or via email. I look forward to the continued changes and conversation!

career, courage, friendship

Step 7: Nothing Left to Lose

Christa Avampato

A friend of mine is making his final pitch tomorrow. In a job that he’s grown tired of, and quite frankly is far too talented for, he’s going to the powers-that-be (and I use the word powers very lightly) to see if he can get funding for a project that interests him. The chance to work on this project is the only reason he would stay at the job. Otherwise, he’s leaving to get his own business going. His bravery inspires me.

My friend has been looking to make this move for a while, though like so many he wanted to do the reasonable, responsible thing in a difficult economy. At a time when so many are out of work, he was nervous about voluntarily leaving his job. As much as some economists will tout that the recession is over, there are many dissenting voices who say it will be a long, slow climb out of this hole. So what changed for my friend? How did he make a change within his own mind when little around him has changed? Where did his boldness come from?

“Well, Christa, I have nothing left to lose now,” he told me today. “This is the only project on the table that interests me and if I can’t work on it, then I’ve got to make myself useful somewhere else. I just can’t stay where I am anymore.”

On the phone today, I was bursting with pride for my friend. He flipped that switch, recognized and embraced his own talents, and recognized how they could be used in his current situation. More importantly, he realized that if his gifts couldn’t be utilized where he is then he has to make use of them somewhere else. Leaving them unused is no longer an option in his own heart.

To be sure, in the last few weeks leading up to this decision he has at times felt completely terrified. I’d argue that this means he’s really on to something here. It’s amazing what we can accomplish when we realize that the direction of our lives really is up to us.

career, creativity, Fast Company, IDEO, work

Step 2: Working with Friends

Christa Avampato

Today I had lunch with Trevin and Blair, two of my friends whom I worked with a number of years ago. During our lunch, I was reminded of how good it feels to work with friends, to be such an integral part of their lives. I’ve heard some people say that it’s best to keep our personal and professional lives separate. I disagree. I’d always prefer to work with friends – it makes work feel like play.

Last year I wrote a blog post that referenced an article in Fast Company about David Kelley, the Founder of IDEO. He left a mediocre management job at an engineering firm to get his MBA at Stanford. Though he had job offers after graduation, he declined them to start his own company with his friends. That company became IDEO. In the article he describes that his one strong inclination for employment was to work with friends. Had he not taken the leap and followed his instinct, he probably would be toiling away in a grey cubicle doing less-than-inspiring work. Instead, he founded a company that is arguably the finest product design firm in the world. And he has fun everyday. Bet well-played, David.

What if we could all follow our gut with David Kelley’s creative confidence? What if we could turn down opportunities, as great as they seem, because they just don’t jive with how we’d like to live our lives? Perhaps there’s an IDEO for each of us, or at the very least a bit more happiness to be had in our careers. In 2010, I’d like to get back to a career of working with friends.

The photo above is not my own. It appears courtesy of IDEO.

art, career, dreams, writing, yoga

My Year of Hopefulness – The Center

Christa Avampato

“The artists’ role is to do what’s honest for them. So if you’re in New York and everyone is looking at the floor, you can look up. It’s not your role to follow the others. It’s your role to go to your center and then reflect that, not just to be a mirror to what’s happening.” ~ James Hubbell

Here is a tricky balance to keep: how can we be mindful of what’s happening around us and also learn to follow our own hearts? It’s easy to get swept up in the moment, in the emotions and circumstances of others. In its best form, we know this as empathy. In its worst form, we know this as distraction. How can we see the whole picture, and also our own role in it? How can we see both the forest and the trees? The role of the artist, in any medium, demands this balance, and that balance is our Center.

Our Center is an elusive thing. We clearly know when we have moved away from our Center: it’s apparent in our lack of energy, enthusiasm, and joy. Finding and holding the Center, particularly in our daily adventures in chaos, is a tough thing because it sometimes requires that we disappoint others to be true to ourselves. It requires that we believe in ourselves and in our own abilities more than we believe in anything else. It asks us to take our future into our own hands.

There are three ways to know if we’ve found our Center:
1.) It makes time pass by so quickly and effortlessly that we barely notice how long we’ve been there.

2.) The activities we perform at our Center give us energy and we never grow tired of them.

3.) Our Center is the summation of the very best gifts we have to offer to the world.

For me, my Center is found in writing and yoga. I’ve been writing daily for three and a half years, and intermittently as far back into my childhood as I can remember. I’ve had a steady yoga practice for 10 years. Time has flown! These activities give me boundless energy and let me show my most joyful face to the world.

And so, I am taking James Hubbell’s: in 2010, I will go to my Center and reflect what is there. By the time 2010 is singing its swan song, I’ll find a way to make writing and yoga the Center of my life. I’ll find a way to earn my living through them. The ‘fierce urgency of now’ is calling me far too clearly to spend my life any other way.

art, career, choices, education, literature, time, writing

My Year of Hopefulness – Your One Wild and Precious Life

Christa Avampato

Long a mainstay of college admissions processes and orientations, I recently heard about the poem The Summer Day by Mary Oliver. (I’ve pasted it at the bottom of this post.) My sister, Weez, tells me that it is my great hope in life to be employed as a professional student. She’s right.


I am a sucker for places that make us dream big, that push us beyond our limits, that stretch our imaginations and minds in ways that we never thought possible. I am a forever student, very much at home in the classroom wherever that classroom happens to be, whether I am up front teaching or happily seated in the front row soaking up all that glorious information like a sponge. So of course the big questions are my very favorites, and Mary Oliver hits on what may be my favorite question yet: “What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” Isn’t that gorgeous? Makes me want to print it out 1,000 times and plaster it all over my neighborhood.

This week I have had new options unfolding for me every day. Just when I think I am set upon a course of action, some other wonderful possibility falls into my path to consider. I think I’m being tested (which is fine by me since students love tests.) I think I’m being shown a way to focus on exactly what field in life gets me most excited, education, and then also being offered a myriad of distractions that are testing my passion for it. Mary Oliver’s question is like a beacon in the haze. What if we looked at every option that’s thrown our way, what if we considered every road before us with this lens. What if we made choices by asking “is this what you want to do with your one wild and precious life (knowing that our lives are so short)?”

The very thought of this takes my breathe away. Our lives are so short. We have such little time here, making every day a wild and precious thing. So here is my answer to Mary Oliver, no matter how many days I have left:

To write courageously and passionately so that it stirs the hearts and imaginations of others
To give children every where the chances that I had to improve my own lot in life through education, dedication, and very hard work
To lift others up as I rise
To generate more kindness, compassion, and generosity in the world
To take these two wild and precious hands and build things that have value and meaning, for me and for many others
To travel far and wide, to experience other cultures, to see new scenery, to meet as many citizens of the world as possible
And, yes, every day I want to be both a teacher and a student

The Summer Day
by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

The image above is not my own. It can be found here.
career, change, work

My Year of Hopefulness – Take Up the Torch

Christa Avampato

“Life is no brief candle, it’s a torch. I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on.” ~ George Bernard Shaw

I saw this quote by George Bernard Shaw on Twitter over the weekend. Someone sent it to me after reading my blog posts about my trip to Costa Rica and my plans for the future. Thinking of life as a torch, something we can and should wield as a powerful instrument to light up the world around us, reinforced my belief that if we are just subsisting and not doing our life’s work every day, then a change is necessary, sooner rather than later. As my mom often says, “we will not pass this way again. So make this pass count as much as you can.”

Yesterday a friend of mine was telling me about a conversation he recently had with his dad. His father told him that his job was my friend’s life’s work. My friend objected and then his dad asked him a few questions:

“Son, where do you spend the most hours of your day?”

“At work.”

“What do you think about for the most number of hours per day?”

“Work.”

“Then your job is your life’s work. How do you feel about that? Is it fulfilling?”

“No. I don’t get any fulfillment from it. It’s just a job,” my friend answered.

“Sounds like you better change it. You don’t want your life’s work to be just a job.”

These are harsh words that could have been said with a kinder voice, though the point is crystal clear. Where and with whom we spend most of our time is our life’s work. I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about where my energy and time is spent, and what that’s accomplishing. I spend a lot of my time volunteering, and a lot of that volunteering is done in the field of education. I come alive in a classroom of any kind whether I’m the student or the teacher, and classrooms can be found throughout our communities. It’s that learning environment that is so invigorating, that gives me the most hope for our future.

And so, in the words of my friend’s father, I am about to set to work on making a change to make that time in education my life’s work. When I think about how much good can be done there, how much I have to offer in that setting, I realize that my torch is growing brighter.

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

career, education, love, writing

My Year of Hopefulness – Personal Statements

Christa Avampato

Today I began writing my personal statement for my PhD application to Columbia. I have been thinking about it for a week. Usually writing comes very easy to me. It’s something I love and a skill I work on every day. The words usually come faster than I can type them. Several times I have sat down to write this personal statement and starred at a blank page for a long time, closing my laptop with nothing to show for my time.

What is it that’s getting to me? Why is it that putting fingers to keys to write this personal statement is so tough? I can talk about why I want to get my PhD; I know my dissertation topic and I know what I want to do post-PhD. So why is this personal statement giving me writer’s block?
In one to two pages I have to explain who I am and what I’m most passionate about to people who barely know me. Every word counts. Because of the critical importance of this piece I was editing before I even started writing. I let my quest for perfection get in the way of telling the truth, plain and simple.
While I need perfection before I click the ‘submit’ button, I was forgetting that the first draft, along with the second, third, and thirtieth can be far less than perfect. A final piece that shines from beginning to end is composed of bits and pieces of glimmer from the many drafts that come before it.
Life’s the same way. Love’s the same way. Careers are the same way. We usually don’t get things perfectly correct the first time around. It takes a lot of trial, and error, and trial again. It takes the courage to fail, to follow a dream as far as it will take us. And many times our dreams dead end and we have to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and start all over again. Life, love, and careers take many drafts, and in each new experience we gain a little piece of magic, a little piece of awareness that will get us a bit closer to our own version of perfect. The trick is to never call it quits until we get exactly what we want.
career, change, dreams, friendship, risk

My Year of Hopefulness – Safety in Change

Christa Avampato

“It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power.” ~ Alan Cohen

My friend, Rob, and I were talking about safety a few weeks ago. Rob talked to me about how we’ve conned ourselves into believing that a company, a job, can give us some feeling of security and stability when really it’s a house of cards. I’ve seen it happen to so many of my friends – they are cranking along in their jobs, exhibiting exceptional performance and results, and then the pink slip. Rob’s advice on my news of moving on: “You’ve done the hard part: making the choice to step outside the box that hems one in, and keeps one from dreaming bigger dreams…know you are supported from many quadrants. More as it goes…”

I emailed some friends about my impending jump off the cliff. I told them that it feels great to have made this decision, though my friend, Eric, in his characteristic empathy sensed that I’m scared. And then in his continuing characteristic empathy, he responded : “Don’t worry, Christa – I already hit rock bottom underneath that cliff – so I’ll be there to catch you!” Not at all surprising since Eric honestly saved my life as I muddled through my MBA. My friend Laura simply responded “I am 150000% behind you.” My friend, Allan, said “You are very brave and thoughtful.” These are the very messages I needed today to lift me up.

When I think about finding security and stability, I’m reminded that it’s in our friends and family and in the chance we take on our own abilities that we can find a haven. The safest route for me is not to stand on that cliff hoping that it doesn’t crumble beneath me; it’s to jump, knowing that friends like Rob, Eric. Laura, and so many others are there to catch me if I need catching. They are the ones I can place my faith and trust in.

My friend, Jamie, finished up his last day at his job today. We went for a celebratory dinner, yummy cheap Thai food around the corner from my apartment at Sura. We toasted to our new adventures, to our choice to be free and to build the lives we want to live. And while there is still that underlying ripple of fear of the unknown, fear of what’s next, there is also a tremendous sense of excitement, of realizing that we are on the edge of becoming more ourselves.

I was reminded all day today, through so many different channels, that in September I came very close to never getting a tomorrow. I stood on West 96th Street, watching smoke billow out of my building, realizing I was living a life of great comfort and little meaning. That great “what if” hangs over my head every day, and rather than being plagued by it, I am so grateful for it. What if I hadn’t made it out of that building? What if that was the end? Could I have looked back on September 4th and said, “yes, I’m so glad that I was living that life?” No – not at all. In that moment, change became not an option, but an inevitability, and it’s been driving me forward, upward, and onward toward a life lived with greater meaning, greater purpose, every day since.

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

career, change, dreams, hope, theatre

My Year of Hopefulness – Climb Up A Ways

Christa Avampato

One of the first Broadway shows I worked on was Cabaret at Studio 54. I would sit in the back of the theatre night after night and watch that story unfold, every show more beautiful than the show before. One of my favorite lines is from Herr Schultz (played by Ron Rifkin) to Fräulein Schneider (played by Blair Brown). Herr Schultz is trying to convince Fräulein Schneider to enter into a relationship with him, despite the fact that he is Jewish and the world is looking a little bleak for people of his heritage. He tells her that the apples at the base of tree are easy to pick up, though the fruit at the top of tree, if she is willing to climb up a ways, is so much sweeter. I worked on that show almost 11 years ago, and still I think of that line and how applicable it is to our lives every day.

I feel comfortable admitting in this blog post that very soon I will be moving on to a new position in my career. I’ve had an honest conversation with my boss and explained my intentions. I hope she understands. At the end of the day, the future of her team that she’s laid out is just not what gets me going. I completely understand that she’s in charge of the team and has every right to change the direction of the bus. My obligation is to decide whether or not to whole-heartedly get on the bus. I’ve decided to actively look for a new bus, and there are some stupendous options on the horizon.

Some people think I’m a little crazy for making this move. I’ve done a lot of good work in my position; I’ve built solid relationships that would serve me so well and get me promoted quickly. If only I could put my head down, keep my mouth shut, and phone it in just the way that I’ve been scripted, I’d be just fine. I could coast right through to the end of this recession no matter how long it lasts.

Those who know me a bit better just smile and nod when I say I’m looking for new opportunities that get me up out of bed in the morning. They know I’m not built for coasting. Yes, coasting is much easier in that it requires no exertion on my part. The trouble is that for me coasting is just an unbearable existence. Putting the pedal to the metal and ‘trying to get up that great big hill of hope’ is more my style. Herr Schultz was right: The vistas up there are so much wider and more open and beautiful. Fräulein Schneider didn’t know what she was missing.

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