Category: career

career, change, entrepreneurship, food, women

Examiner.com: Interview with Lorin Rokoff and Laura Paterson, Founders of Hot Blondies Bakery

Christa Avampato

I learned about Hot Blondies Bakery through Crain’s. They were the headline business in a feature article about online bakeries. A friend of mine from business school is considering a similar avenue so I opened up the Crain’s article to have a peek at what these ladies were up to. Laura’s and Lorin’s story of making the leap from stable jobs to entrepreneurship was inspiring so I hopped over to their site. Their market positioning and branding is unique and fun – I like the edge they take with their baking and they clearly have the business savvy to match their sumptuous baked goods!

Find the interview here.

career, change, patience

My Year of Hopefulness – Kant, Darwin, and Child

Christa Avampato

I never thought I’d be able to draw a common connection between Immanuel Kant, Charles Darwin, and Julia Child. In the context of gearing up for my second act, I’ve been coming across a remarkable number the stories about people who came to their calling and made their significant contributions to the world later on in life. Perhaps it’s true that we find what we’re looking for, and I’ve been looking for inspirations for my act 2. In this quest, the stories of Kant, Darwin, and Child bear repeating.

Immanuel Kant is recognized as one of the greatest philosophical minds, creating such constructs as the categorical imperative and transcendental idealism. I learned about Kant’s works through Michael Sandel’s on-line class, Justice. Kant received his first paying job at age 31. He was a university lecturer paid on commission based upon how many students attended his class. He published his first work at age 51 after a decade of near silence and introversion. Odd, yes. Worth the wait, absolutely. His first published work, Critique of Pure Reason, was the beginning of an entirely new branch of philosophy now known as Kantianism. Of course his brilliance did not sprout overnight – it took 50 years of training to condition his mind to be able to think clearly enough to write such a complex piece of work.

Like Kant, Charles Darwin wrote his seminal work, The Origin of Species, in his early 50’s. This work revolutionized life sciences by putting forward the ideas of evolution, natural selection, and survival of the fittest. He spent many years as a student, as did Kant, and he followed his own interests rather than cow-towing to the desires of others to plan his life. His father wanted him to be a medical doctor, even though Darwin always had an inclination to be a naturalist. Eventually his will won out and he got to build the life he wanted, albeit a little later than he probably would have liked.

I get a lot of inspiration from food, and it’s impossible to over-emphasize the contribution of Julia Child to the culinary field. Following the pattern of Kant and Darwin, Child published her best known book Mastering the Art of French Cooking, in her early 50’s. She didn’t even entertain making a career in cooking until she was awarded admission into Le Cordon Bleu, the famed French cooking school, at age 36. She freely admitted that she had been looking for a career all her life; she had several other careers as a copywriter and as a government worker before falling in love with cooking. Once she discovered that love, she never looked back and by her own hands, literally, changed the world of food forever.

These stories give me a lot of hope for the futures of people who follow different paths early on in life, who pursue their every interest with wild abandon and passion. I know some people who have known exactly what they wanted to do since age 5. I used to date a man who at age 5 decided he wanted to be an attorney. Today, he does exactly what he always wanted do. He probably always will. I’ll admit that I hate him a little bit for knowing what he wanted so early in life. Or at least I did hate him until I heard the stories of Kant, Darwin, and Child.

For some of us, our calling just doesn’t find us that way. We have to follow lots of different paths to find our way home. We’re in good company with Kant, Darwin, and Child. The only important thing is to not give up until we can finally find our true selves, until we fully realize our own great contribution to humanity. In the long-run, tenacity pays off.

career, education, mentor

My Year of Hopefulness – Climbing

Christa Avampato

“The single largest pool of untapped resource in this world is human good intentions that never translate into action.” ~ Cindy Gallop

This morning I had breakfast with one of my business school professors. From the beginning of my time at Darden, he was a champion of mine and was someone that I spent many hours learning from. He has been and I hope will continue to be a great mentor of mine. I wanted to meet with him to talk about my plans for my own continuing education. He helped me to realize that in my plans, I am thinking too small. I am selling myself short.

He asked me what programs I was considering. “Christa, where you are is a function of where you’ve been. You must go to the best program that will accept you. Start with the number one program in the country first, go talk to them, see if it’s a match for you and if it is, fight for your admission into that program. This is the time to push yourself further than you ever dreamed possible.”

I was a little shell-shocked. I hadn’t considered the number one program at all, for a variety of reasons. On my way home, I kept closing my eyes and shaking my head a bit, considering the enormity of the task before me. My professor asked me to start from a place of the biggest, brightest, most beautiful dream where I can do the most good, and let that guide my application process. “A little change is not enough, Christa,” he said. “You are capable of more.”

When I got home and opened up my email, I found the quote from Cindy Gallop. I have good intentions, and by entering some of the programs I have been considering, I could bring some of them to life. My professor is asking me to reach up a bit higher on the tree of programs, where the sun shines brightest, where the fruit of hard labor is realized in its fullest form. If I intend to bring my intentions to life in the best way possible with the greatest amount of abundance, I don’t do myself any favors by dreaming small dreams.

On the subway down to meet my professor this morning, I was thinking about the idea of life being lived in 3 acts. Let’s assume I can live to the ripe old age of 100. At 33, I am just about to close my first act of life. In doing so, my professor’s advice is the perfect transition into act 2.

Here I am, a small town girl who worked hard to achieve some pretty decent accomplishments, endured some difficult hardships, and in the process found the line of work I was meant to do. In beginning to plan out that work, I had some ideas of how it could be achieved, and then a great mentor stepped in right at the end of act 1 with a surprise twist that would spur me to achieve much more in act 2 than my own script had originally set out to do. And so the plot shifts, the stakes heighten, and the excitement begins to build.

career, change, love

My Year of Hopefulness – What We Love

Christa Avampato

“Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.” ~ Rumi

So often we spend our time wondering what we should do with our lives that will make us successful, useful, and financially stable. What will bring us the greatest amount of happiness is always secondary to these other considerations when we think of our careers. We think “what can I do as a career so that it will give me the freedom to pursue what I really love down the road or after hours.” Today I thought a lot about how much more good we could actually do in the world if we approach our careers from a place of love first and everything else – success, money, utility – second.

This is especially on my mind today because another group of people I know lost their jobs. The news completely blind-sided all of us. It’s with a heavy heart that I went about my business today, wondering how I’d feel if I were in their shoes. How would I react? What would I say? Would I view the news as a great opportunity or an unfortunate circumstance? And then the question that caused me the greatest discomfort – who’s to say it won’t be me tomorrow? “Down the road” could very well be right now.

This idea of impermanence keeps running through my mind. In my new apartment building, there was a fire on the 10th floor on the other side of the building. When I heard the news, I panicked for a moment. Last night I kept waking up because I could not get images of black smoke out of my mind. That awful scent seems stuck in my nose. I remember too clearly rounding the corners of those stairs in my old building, clinging to the railing, crouching and scrambling and praying, as I was passing by apartments that were burning just on the other side of those walls. I remember how lucky I was that I left that building when I did. A few more minutes and it would have all unfolded very differently.

This little fire on the 10th floor of my new building was successfully extinguished before causing too much trouble, though it’s as if the Universe is flashing a great big reminder at me just as I’m getting comfortable in my new surroundings. “Remember the important things in life aren’t things. You cannot afford complacence.” I wanted to reply, “Yes, thank you Universe, I hear you. I’m working on a new plan for my life right now and I’m getting all the details ironed out. Now could you please stop playing with fire in my presence? And by the way, it’s rude and cruel to be so threatening.”

All joking aside, I’m trying hard to live every moment of my life from a place of love, love for my self, and my community, and the people I care about. I want to take Rumi’s idea one step further and let the beauty of what I love be not just what I do, but also who I am. It’s easy to put on disguises; it’s easy to tell ourselves this is who I am at work or school or with this person or that person or when I’m alone. What I’m striving for is to be one kind of person all the time, to make “down the road” today, to make my after-hours activities my every hour’s activities. In short, I’m striving for authenticity. And it seems to me that the surest way to authenticity begins with always with knowing what and who we love.

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

career, entrepreneurship, social media

My latest post on Examiner: Interview with Phyllis Neill, Founder of WeMentor Social Media Marketing

Christa Avampato

Meet Phyllis Neill. Phyllis and I met almost a year ago via Twitter and we’ve been social media pals ever since. After running her own business and working a full-time day job for nearly a year, she has taken the entrepreneurial plunge. Her business is WeMentor Social Media Marketing – http://www.wementorsmm.com/. She develops social media strategies for businesses.

Previously, I featured Phyllis in this column with her business SheMentor, a service that focused on executive coaching for women. Phyllis spoke with me recently about her new business, balancing a day job and a start-up, and her company’s change in focus. My thanks to her for sharing her insights and advice.

To read the full interview with Phyllis, click here.
career, design, dreams, education, innovation

My Year of Hopefulness – Use Design to Change Fist Stick Knife Gun

Christa Avampato

Over the past few weeks I have had a series of fortunate coincidences. I know the universe is always talking to us, that we are always in receipt of messages that connect us and bind us together, that point toward the way we are supposed to take. In my heart I know this, though given my surprisingly thick skull, those messages some times have difficulty reaching my brain. That surprisingly thick skull of mine often has to be clobbered over the head several times in order to “get it”.

The series of some of the fortunate events has unfolded as follows:
1.) A few weeks ago I had my very rough draft of Innovation Station, an after-school program, accepted by Citizen Schools, an outstanding organization that exists to help average folks like me put together a curriculum we’re passionate about to teach in public middle schools.

2.) Just about the same time that Citizen Schools accepted my proposal, my former boss, Bob, sent me an invitation to attend an event on design thinking hosted by the Rotman School of Management. Tim Brown, CEO of Ideo and one of the featured speakers at the event, just released his first book called Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation. It is a powerful “blueprint for creative leaders” in a variety of sectors. Hmmm….sounds like a brilliant jumping off point for an after-school program about innovation, doesn’t it? (I’m attending the Rotman School event and writing about it for Examiner and for TJCC; I hope to meet Tim and get his take on Innovation Station.)

3.) This week I have come across dozens of articles about the renewed focus on after-school programs, both from a funding and legislative perspective. Here are some examples: Home Alone, Peering at the Future, The Uneducated American, Paterson Proposes Cuts to Close Deficit.

4.) Last week, my friend, Wayne, took me to the annual meeting for Children’s Health Fund, an organization that got its start at a grassroots level in one tiny area of Harlem and has grown to an international organization with the mission to advocate and assure healthcare for every child, everywhere. I want to do the same thing for education and their model and messaging is such an inspiration. They work with Harlem Children’s Zone, an organization started by Geoffrey Canada that is a holistic system of education, social-service and community-building programs aimed at helping the children and families in a 97-block area of Central Harlem.

5.) About a month ago, my friend, Dan, told me about a podcast that featured Geoffrey Canada. I just picked up his book Fist Stick Knife Gun: A Personal History of Violence in America. I can’t put it down and I think I just found my calling. I googled Harlem Children’s Zone tonight and discovered that the two schools where I will be teaching for Citizen Schools are in the same area as the Harlem Children’s Zone.

6.) My friend, Amanda Steinberg, and her company, Soapbxx, designed the Harlem Children’s Zone website.

7.) The PhD program I’ve been looking at within The New School was recently highlighted by Bruce Nussbaum, a journalist whom I greatly admire. He writes about design and innovation. He is a professor at Parsons, one of the other schools within The New School. He has been writing a lot about design thinking, social entrepreneurship, and Tim Brown’s book. He believes that Design Thinking can transform systems like healthcare and education. So do I. So do a growing number of people. This is about to get very exciting.

As I was getting off the subway tonight and heading home I had the distinct feeling that there is no turning back for me now. I finally get what the universe is trying to tell me. I will not be able to sit still knowing that what I have to offer in the way of business, product development, an appreciation for design, and a passion for education as a tool to build a solid future, so clearly matches an unmet need in the world. This is the mash-up of work I was meant to do.

This journey was a long one. My life’s work has been in front of me all along, since I was a kid facing a lot of the struggles that too many kids face. I just didn’t know that it should or could be the work of my life. It took me the better part of 33 years to figure out what I was meant to do with my time here. And now that I know, the fear has dissipated completely. The anxiety about my future evaporated and has been replaced by only excitement and a feeling of purpose. Goethe would tell us that there is magic in commitment. He was right. I know that now.

I had lots of wrong turns, lots of dead-ends, and lots of disappointments. Nothing ever felt right, though I had a ton of fun in the exploration process. I wouldn’t change any of it. I’m just grateful and glad that I won’t have to die with the music still in me, as John Lennon lamented about so many people. Finally, finally, finally I know I’m on the cusp of my life’s work. It’s stretched out before me like a beautiful winding road, and it’s time for me to hop aboard and get going. In those poignant, truthful words of Theodore Geisel, my mountain is waiting.

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

career, change, choices, relationships

My Year of Hopefulness – Standing on the Hinge

Christa Avampato

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” ~ Victor Frankl

I just finished the book Here If You Need Me, a brilliant memoir by Kate Braestrup. Kate is a writer who became a minster shortly after her husband’s death. Being a minister wasn’t her dream; it was her late husband’s dream and because he didn’t get the chance to achieve that, she offered up her own vocation for him. She is the chaplain to the game wardens of Maine, the group of brave public servants who conduct searches for people who are lost in the deep Maine woods, the person who falls through the ice, the hiker who ventures too far for too long. Their work can be dangerous and frequently ends with a tragic discovery. They need a good chaplain and they have a superb one in Kate.

The book is a fast, inspiring read. Of all the anecdotes that stand out in my mind, the most vivid in my mind is her description of her job as standing on the hinge of life. Kate is the one who waits with the families as the game wardens search for their loved ones that are lost or missing. She counsels the wardens after tragic circumstances are discovered. She stands with them in these uncomfortable, difficult moments that will come to define their lives. These are the moments that define their befores and afters.

All through the book I kept thinking about this metaphor, this hinge of life. I kept thinking about how many hinges I’ve been on lately. These moments that define my own befores and afters. Each one presents an opportunity for choice – we get to choose our attitude, our way forward, our outlook, and the learnings we take away from each experience.

September 2009 could have left a very deep scar on my heart. Instead, I had to make it a time of great learning and exploration. I had to make those days count by allowing them to teach me what’s truly important to me. They became a time of great commitment for me. Instead of being wracked by fear, I realized that I had nothing to fear because I knew I would be fine no matter what happened from here on out. I survived the perfect storm.

September was one big hinge for me and gave me the chance to recognize quite literally that the important things in life aren’t things. It taught me that I want very deep, meaningful relationships to be the core of my life. I set myself on a course to eventually write full-time. New York most certainly became my long-time home. On October 1st, I knew with certainty what I wanted from my life with a clarity I’ve never had before. And it feels great.

Hinges are difficult. They are filled with great expectations and great hesitancy. They are points of no turning back. Unless we’re people like Kate, we only get a few opportunities to stand at the hinge of our own lives. Life doesn’t offer up learnings and choices of that type of poignancy every day. And thank goodness because they can be incredibly stressful times. Though when we get the chance to stand at the edge of our lives and decide in a very profound way who we are and who we mean to be, it’s an opportunity we should approach with a grateful and open heart. After all, we will not be able to pass this way again.

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.

business, career, entrepreneurship, Examiner, health, social media, women

NY Business Strategies Examiner – Interview with Lissa Rankin, Founder of Owning Pink

Christa Avampato

Meet Lissa Rankin, an artist, writer, gynecologist, mother, and all around bundle of positive energy. I met Lissa on Twitter, and once I read her brief bio I knew that I had to feature her in this column.

Lissa has made it her mission in life to help others get their mojo back, and particularly to empower women to do whatever and be whoever they want to be. To foster this mission, she created the company Owning Pink, a place where women can connect and support one another in their pursuits. Owning Pink offers classes, workshops, and mentoring to further these connections.

A courageous, empathic, inspirational role model, Lissa is exactly the kind of person this world needs more of.

For the full interview with Lissa, click here.

art, career, choices, dreams, friendship, goals

My Year of Hopefulness – Finishing what you’ve started

Christa Avampato

“Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.” ~ William James

I have a hard time letting things go. I have to watch movies straight through to the end, no matter how bad they are. I have to finish every book I start. Nothing causes me to lose sleep more than tasks hanging around for me to finish tomorrow; hence my tremendous lack of sleep in a partially packed apartment. Why is it so troublesome to let things lie around undone?

It could be that I’ve read too many stories about people who didn’t quite get to see their dreams realized. It could be that I’ve read that quote from John Lennon “Most people die with the music still in them” once too often. I don’t want to look back and be so far away from something I started that it’s too difficult to pick it up again.

We get to these points in our lives where we must go left or right and it’s very hard to double back once we’ve made a choice. Not impossible, but certainly difficult. I’m there now. A lot of my friends are there now. Maybe this is the dilemma we find in our 30’s. We are making choices now that impact every other choice down the line. We’re deciding who we’re going to become, how we’re going to make use of our talents, how the world around us is going to be different because we passed this way instead of that way.

And while I have a natural instinct of which way to go at this fork in the road, the choice in my heart is a tough one. It’s got some risks baked into it. It’s not the safe route. Some times I think the choice in my heart isn’t even the sane route to take. Then again, when has making the sane, safe choice ever lead me to complete fulfillment?

Today I went to a baby shower for my friend, Alex. One of her college friends made a critical choice to leave behind the business world and pursue her PhD in art history, thanks to Alex’s encouragement. She loved art history early on in college and had given up her dream to work in that field to take the safe business route. Before it was too late, she went back to what she loved.

Every one of her professors told her this choice was ridiculous, that she was truly wasting her life in art history, that she’d never get a job. One of them actually told her that a degree in art history and a quarter wouldn’t even get her a cup of coffee. Now she works in New York and helps corporations and nonprofits build their private art collections. Turns out that a degree in art history has earned her much more than a cup of coffee. It helped her earn a happy life. The rewards of finishing what she started and following her heart.