Category: creativity

creativity, design, environment, imagination, innovation, inspiration

Leap: New York Begins Its Quest for the LowLine, an Underground Park on the LES

Christa Avampato
Image courtesy of Delancey Underground

Is it technically “leap” or “jump” – as in down the rabbit hole below Delancey Street?

You’ve got 37 more days to back an incredible public works project known as the LowLine that promises to bring a year-round underground park to New York’s Lower East Side. The project envisions a re-purposing of a long-abandoned trolley terminal into a wonderland of green space, a badly needed amenity in that part of town.

When I read the article in GOOD yesterday, the concept was brand new to my ears and I jumped up out of my chair from excitement. It’s quite possibly the most innovative use of public space I’ve ever seen. The idea alone is enough to make any and every New Yorker crack open their wallets to support the vision. Go to the site to see the proposed images and the deal is sealed.  And that’s just the reaction that the founding team is hoping for!

Founder Dan Barasch and James Ramsey posted the project on Kickstarter (where it seems that all good project ideas are housed these days) they need our help to gain $100,000 in collective funding by April 6th to show local government that New Yorkers want to see this vision brought to life.

Join the effort for Delancey Underground and support it with as little as a buck. Let’s get this done!

courage, creativity, faith, fate

Leap: The Universe Supports Great Purpose

Christa Avampato
From Pinterest member http://pinterest.com/tatrog/

“When you are inspired by some great purpose … dormant forces, faculties, and talents become alive, and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be.” ~ Patanjali

I’m not sure how or why the world conspires to grow great ideas.

I have seen in my own life that when I’m inspired by a mission, a mission that seems greater than I can contain on my own, the resources to bring it to life show up in the most unusual places. I wished to move back to New York City after I graduated from Darden to work in product development. Once I committed to moving, the pieces finally aligned after months of effort. When I deeply wanted to find my teaching purpose, Compass Yoga fought its way from just a tiny seed in my mind to a growing organization of people passionate about improving the health of New York’s under-served communities.

The support for my personal missions has come from sources that I never even imagined were possible, much less probable. I work hard to find them, to prepare myself for a lucky break, though I’m still always surprised when that lucky break arrives. Relationships that I thought were long-since withered away find another bloom. Talents I never thought I could cultivate become so prevalent that it’s as if someone else is performing them. I’m often surprised that my own story resonates so soundly with others, and so I keep telling it, hoping that it opens the door for someone else to dream and do.

So why should this latest jump I’m planning be any different? I have no proof to the contrary. The odds of the way opening are up to me. I just need to believe, and then act accordingly. I’m willing to bet that the same is true for you, too.

choices, creative process, creativity

Leap: Begin As You Wish to Go

Christa Avampato
From Pinterest member http://pinterest.com/rockyrococo/

On Monday night, we began the strategic planning process for Compass Yoga. We’re laying out a solid mission statement and using that to direct our programming and fundraising efforts. With all of the possibilities for our services, we have to be very deliberate about where we place our focus and energy. As we were sorting through possibilities, Michael made a simple and profound statement that stopped all of us in our tracks – “Begin as you wish to go.”

He then quickly made the joke that he read this line in an infant sleep book, but it stuck all the same. No matter what we begin – getting an infant to sleep through the night, starting a company, beginning a relationship, or learning something new – it is critical to keep the compromising to a minimum. Preferably to zero. The start is the foundation, the precedent, by which all other actions will be measured. A bad start is hard to save.

And so we trekked on through our planning with these hallowed words in mind. The thrill of a new beginning, a blank slate, is the opportunity to create something just as we wish it to be. If we can stay true to our vision at the start, the way to go will open.

business, career, creativity, job, journey, work

Leap: Stop Digging Trenches

Christa Avampato

“The only explicit lesson I got from my father was when I was not doing very well in school, and he had a little chat with me and said, “You know, there are people who work for me who dig trenches, and there are people who are professionals, and if you keep going the way you’re going, you’re going to be digging trenches for the rest of your life.” So that shook me up.” ~ Harry West, C.E.O. of Continuum, an innovation design consulting firm

Harry West was featured in the New York Times on Sunday in their corner office section, a weekly features that attempts to get inside the mind of a top executive. Harry’s statement above hit me like a punch in the gut. My education is what saved me, what lifted me up out of the situation I grew up in, and made my studies, travel, and the life experiences I treasure possible. Though I the hard lessons from very lean times are always with me, on occasion I need to remind myself that I am now on much more solid ground. At one point, I had to dig trenches because I had to start somewhere and there were few options for me. That’s not the case anymore. I’ve done my fair share of trench digging and it’s time to put down the shovel.

I don’t mean this to say that I’m done working hard. I hope I’m never done working hard, and if it ever looks as if I’m letting up on my relentless pursuit to go further, I hope you’ll force me to snap out of it. At some point, we need to pick our heads up, take a look outside, and find the thing that lights us up. Life is so incredibly short. We’re here for just a handful of years and we can’t spend it all in the trench.

The point of digging trenches it not to perfect that craft – it’s to lay the ground work for something that homage to the light within you. Learn what it feels like to dig one, and dig one well, and then figure out why on Earth that trench was so important in the first place. There must be something you want to build that makes good use of it, that wraps up your experiences and makes meaning of them. No one else can do that work – only you. Get after it.

creativity, design

Leap: How to solve a problem with the style of designer Marc Newson

Christa Avampato
Marc Newson

This weekend, the New York Times Magazine featured Marc Newson, the most well-known and prolific living industrial designer. Though I’ve been a fan of his work for years, I never knew much about his back story or design methodology. If anything, we seemed to me to be someone who operated on his own plane, operating from his own inner compass rather than through anything he learned in school or through his childhood. While this perception is largely correct, he opened up to journalist Chip Brown about the mechanics of his mind and creativity.”The way I work is to try to get the idea out of my head,” said Newson.

Beginning Friday night, I started to wrestle with an idea for a yoga and meditation workshop I’ll be giving in March for 160 hospice volunteers at MJHS. I consulted books, my teacher training materials, and personal experience. Nothing seemed to strike me as inspired or valuable enough for this incredibly opportunity. So I took Newson’s advice and I forgot about it.

Sure enough on Sunday morning I woke up brimming with ideas. All of a sudden the world of possibility cracked open, and I came up with ideas for this workshop as well as how to craft a set of workshops that could be offered in medical school, healthcare conferences, hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, schools of social work, and yoga studios. I’m all for focused effort, but sometimes it helps to just take a break and have faith that the answer will rise in its own time.

creativity, entrepreneurship, opportunity

Leap: The opportunity habit

Christa Avampato

“For what you see and hear depends a good deal on where you are standing: it also depends on what sort of person you are.” ~ C.S. Lewis

In this economy, it’s easy to look around and see miles and miles of space lacking in opportunity. But what’s really happened is that the opportunity of today has a different face than the opportunity before this latest recession touched down. We cannot look for it with the same methods, in the same places, and with the same lens.

The opportunity before was often found in big companies, in big cities, and by following the rules outlined for us. Get a pedigree education, go into a corporate training program as a well-respected company, and climb, climb, climb. Now, the greatest opportunities are discovered within our frustrations, solved by our imaginations, and brought to life with our own two hands.

I flip through the New York Times every day – online version during the week, paper version on the weekend – and mark, snip, and save everything that has some kind of future relevance for Compass Yoga. I do the same with a ludicrous number of magazine, websites, newsletters, and any number of social media channels. Leads on sources for potential funding, programming, partnerships, and smarter ways of working are piling up. And the more I find, the more there are.

Creativity is addictive, endless, and constant, if only we begin to trot down the path to solve something that bothers us with a solution that benefits the greater good.

choices, creativity, decision-making, stress

Leap: The Monkey Mind and The Inner Sage Can Walk Together

Christa Avampato

When we’re in a funk, it can be tough to pick our heads up and re-energize. When we’re down and out, sometimes it feels easier to stay that way. And for a while, I think that’s true. Every once in a while we do have the right to wallow a bit when something doesn’t go our way. The opportune word is “bit”.

Throwing a pity party
I have a friend who gives herself exactly 24 hours of serious self-pity when true disaster finds its way to her door – she turns on the music she only listens to when she really needs to bawl her eyes out, pours herself a stiff drinks, dives into a carton of ice cream, and lets herself feel truly crummy. And 24 hours later she is required to pick herself up, dust herself off, and leave the house. No excuses.

That’s how I felt last week on a particularly low day. I didn’t follow my friend’s course of action, though I have absolutely no qualms with it. Having lived with insomnia for many years, I give myself the chance to have one night of less than fantastic sleep. I’ll let my challenges toss and tumble through my mind at any speed they wish and I don’t stand in their way. As a yoga and meditation teachers who often focuses classes on taming the monkey mind, that skipping, jumping, frantic mind whirr we can all find ourselves in from time to time, I could stop the mania and get some rest. The monkey mind gets its way for one night and one night only. And here’s why:

The monkey mind has a voice…
When we’re unsettled, rattled, and confused, there’s a reason for it. Usually we’re reacting, understandably, to some past experience and our minds are trying to equate our current situation with a past situation in order to search for solutions. There are a lot of valuable lessons in this process – the monkey mind never forgets the emotion caused by feeling unsettled and with good reason. In its own special way it is trying to protect us, spare us from past discomforts. Let it play its part.

and it’s persistent.
If you don’t let the monkey mind have its say, it will eventually force you into listening. Think about a child who doesn’t get enough exercise. He will wind himself up and up and up until he finds a way to release his energy. So let him go run around in the park and give his energy a productive outlet. Keep him cooped up inside and he’s likely to start developing all kinds of unfortunate behaviors and feelings. And he should. Stress needs to be exercised so we can get past it. Mind chatter is no different, and if you listen closely you’re likely to find some small kernel of truth that begins the process of reinvention.

What comes of chatter
In my case, my properly exercised mind chatter transforms into fearlessness. I attempt to decision-tree my way through just about every challenge I face. “I could do this or that, and this action will lead to this consequence, and that action will lead to that consequence, which means I’ll need to….” You see what I’m saying.

So I let my inner decision-tree maker have her fun in the sun. She smooths out the sandy surface, gets out a stick, and goes to town etching her branches in the sand all the way down the beach. She gets one night to crank it all out and then the next morning that tide of reason is coming in to soften it up and wash the worry away. And then she toddles off to bed, spent but in a good way. She said her piece and wrote out all her fears. I listened carefully, and then I moved forward.

The meditation that was a long time coming
It took a long time for me to develop this tool, this imagery, and use it in my daily meditation whenever I feel any sense of anxiety. For many years, I knew nothing but a monkey mind and then for several more years I tried very hard to get her to shut up. Neither approach worked. The balance – energy and peace – is so much more valuable and in moments of high stress I remember that the stress is there for a reason. It has a purpose. It has something to teach me. We can take the concerned many of the monkey mind and distill them down to the vital few of the inner sage. Give the two the chance to walk together.

That’s how decision-making works best: lay it all out on the table, no judgements passed. The real heart of the matter is hidden in there somewhere. Give yourself the chance to explore your thoughts, really peel each layer back, and see what you find. The truths buried in there may surprise you.

business, cooking, creativity, food

Leap: We Could Learn a Lot About Business by Studying Coffee

Christa Avampato

Last Sunday morning I went to Sur la Table with my friend, Allan, to take a coffee class. One of Allan’s new year’s resolutions is to learn more about food and its preparation so he asked me where he might take some classes. I had read about Sur la Table’s new course schedule in the Times a few weeks ago and wanted to check it out.

Allan has also been a tremendous support of every adventure I’ve attempted over the last 7 years I’ve known him so I’m all too happy to return the favor. Judging by the fun we had on Sunday, I think the coffee class is just the beginning of our culinary classes.

The class was put together by Illy and coffee master Giorgio Milos walked us through the intricacies of selecting, preparing, and enjoying coffee in a variety of its beautiful forms. A caffeine lightweight and a lover of a good adventure story, I was sufficiently buzzed through Monday, body and soul. Giorgio spun a tale of intrigue, passion, and jealousy peppered with royal battles and thievery, all while he served up cup after cup of rich, frothy coffee. It was like sitting around a campfire late at night and hearing the rich oral history of a people passed down by a wise village elder in a fine Italian suit.

Lesson #1: We determine our destiny
The bit of information that had my mind whirring (beyond the effects of the caffeine) was how the method of brewing deeply affected the taste, consistency, visual appearance, and aroma. Same raw grounds and water in, completely different end-product out. The only variables were the pack of the grounds, the pressure and temperature of the water, the texture of the grind, and how long the water was in contact with the coffee grounds. All variables are controlled by the person making the coffee. The raw material matters, certainly, but how we treat that raw material has an incredible impact on our results.

Lesson #2: Every moment offers the opportunity for creativity
I was also struck by the artistry of coffee-making, and I’m not talking about pretty pictures made in crema. Giorgio had a finesse and a grace that reminded me that creativity can be brought to bear in every act we take. Whether we’re painting, playing the piano, or making our morning joe, we can always find ways of expressing our deepest selves and enjoying our work.

In life, business, and coffee, it’s the actions we take and the manner in which we take them that matter most. And it doesn’t hurt to have a guide with an Italian accent.

books, career, choices, creativity, writing

Leap: Heat Up the Iron and Carve Your Own Path (in Life and Book Publishing)

Christa Avampato
From Pinterest

“Do not wait to strike until the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking.” ~ William B. Sprague via Alison Lewis

Over the past few months I’ve been sending out query letters and full book proposals to potential agents for a book I’m writing about yoga and personal finance. I love the project and have faith in the methods it uses because I used them to transform my finances. These are ideas born from experience, not theory.

While many agents have been encouraging of the project, they have all said it’s so different that they don’t have a proxy to point to that assures its success. In the often cut-throat world of modern publishing, they need to know every book they advocate for is a winner. Their reputation is on the line and risk-taking is rare these day in the hallowed halls of books.

I have yet to feel badly about any of these rejections; I feel badly for agents and traditional publishers. They’re part of an industry of tied hands, locked hearts, and icy cold eyes fixed on P&L statements. It’s sad and they’re missing a lot of boats. I’m sure they know this, and feel powerless to do anything about it.

So now I’m at a cross-roads trying to decide if it’s worth it to continue down the traditional book publishing path for my project or carve one of my own through self-publishing and platform building. There’s the prestige of having a traditional book publisher, but also the loss of control. The publisher also makes the lion’s share of the profit from the book, even though the author is doing just as much work, if not more, to market the book.Teh list of pros and cons is endless; even though I’m an avid list maker, I’m getting tired of this analysis.

A recent note from a high-powered agent began to tip the scales toward self-publishing. It began:

“A book is like an iceberg: Writing is 10%; marketing is 90%. ~ Chicken Soup coauthor Jack Canfield

Christa,
Many thanks for writing about your excellent idea for a book. Out of necessity, our goal is to sell books to New York houses, and they want writers with a platform and a strong promotion plan. So the challenge is to maximize the value of your book before you sell it. Publishers aren’t buying promise, they’re buying proof. So before we can help you with the 10%, we need to know how much you can help your publisher with the 90%. Because we can usually tell from a platform and a plan if we can help a writer, that’s where we like to start.”

That 10% / 90% ratio sticks in my craw a bit. However, this agent went on to give me a lot of wonderful advice and some ideas of how to develop a solid book plan and platform. I did find it humorous that he quoted Jack Canfield, an author whose initial book was rejected by publishers 123 times and began a series that now boasts 200 titles and 112 million copies in print in over 40 languages. Jack is also an advocate for the advantages of self-publishing and the value of small presses. (Learn more about Jack’s writing journey and publishing philosophy here. To read tales of 50 rejected writers who went on to write treasured works, click here.)

When making decisions like this, I examine my past experiences. I’m most proud of the roads I built myself. They’re exhausting, though they’ve always been worth it. During the times that I took a path prescribed by others, I found a bit more sleep, a lot less joy, and a lack of inspiration. I’m a person meant to carve my own canyon through the mountain, to fire up the iron myself rather than waiting for someone else to do it – that’s just how I roll.

creativity, time, writing

Leap: Anne Lamott’s Advice on Writing, Life, and Time

Christa Avampato
Anne Lamott. Photo taken by James Hall.

“Time is not free—that’s why it’s so precious and worth fighting for…I’ve heard it said that every day you need half an hour of quiet time for yourself, or your Self, unless you’re incredibly busy and stressed, in which case you need an hour.” ~ Anne Lamott

My friend, Kristin, who pens the fantastic blog Writerhead recently featured this piece from Anne Lamott on her site. Lamott is my favorite author and her advice on writing has been a treasure trove for me since I was an undergraduate at Penn. My old copy of her book Bird by Bird is well-worn and more true every time I re-read it.

Since the start of 2012, I’ve received advice from others on the value of peace and quiet on an almost daily basis. I wrote about it on this blog here, here, and here. My friend, Derek, sent me a quote a long time ago that read, “The Universe is a very generous place. It will give you the same message over and over again until you learn it and don’t need to go through it any more.” Universe, I hear you.

Lamott recently offered her contribution to this ongoing societal dialogue about the value of quiet and unplugging from the world for a while. She writes so beautifully and poignantly that I won’t even attempt to recap her words. Read them here in her short essay Finding Time. Hint: we all have time to do something we love.