Category: creativity

calm, creativity

Leap: Grow Creativity and Decrease Anxiety Through Solitude in the Dark

Christa Avampato

“You cannot be lonely if you like the person you‘re alone with.“ ~ Wayne Dyer

On the heels of my post about the value of quiet time alone, I read two articles in the Times – one of the age of anxiety and one of the danger of the new groupthink a.k.a collaboration. Both articles, from different vantage points advocate for the same course of action – disconnecting from others in order to alleviate stress, free our creativity, and do our best work. Both articles recognize the importance of interaction – we are social creatures – though they favor the idea of casual interactions as a break from intense personal work as the sure way to breakthrough ideas that generate valuable contributions to humanity.

Though my weekdays are jammed with work, classes – as a teacher and student, events, and seeing friends, I have tried very hard to guard my weekends as mostly me time with a special exception here and there. (Well, me time with Phineas, if you must know.) It’s felt a bit selfish, and also incredibly wonderful. I often shut off my phone, turn on my music, and spend time in my cozy little uptown apartment in the sky doing exactly what I want to do, exactly when I want to do it. It’s liberating to not dash from here to there and back again.

Silence is proving to be golden – for my creativity, curiosity, happiness, and confidence. I have time to think, dream, plan, and wonder. There’s a magic in it. By the time Monday rolls around, I’ve literally forgotten any stresses from Friday.

In Sunday’s Times, I also read an article in the real estate section about the virtues of dark apartments, of which New York has many. Writers, artists, musicians, and entrepreneurs featured in the article talk about their dark homes as places where they can get away from it all whenever they feel the need for escape. The beauty of making a home a sanctuary is the ability to come and go from solitude on a whim, at any moment. Walk through the front door, and they’re in a place of peace and tranquility. Walk outside the front door, and interaction is available everywhere. It is the best of both worlds.

As the year of the Dragon, 2012 is ripe with opportunity. And I can’t help but think that the very best way for us to seize the day is to seize every chance we get for some peace and quiet wherever we call home.

art, creativity, dreams, success

Leap: Success Defined by Ricky Gervais, Bob Dylan, and Emily Dickinson

Christa Avampato
Ricky Gervais - Bob Dylan's definition of success

“A Man can consider himself a success if he wakes up in the morning, goes to bed at night, and in-between did exactly what he wanted.” ~ Bob Dylan

“Forever is composed of nows.” ~ Emily Dickinson

Why do we delay?

We wait for more money, more time, more experience, for permission from others. Maybe someday, we say, we will do what we really want to do. Somewhere Bob Dylan is shaking his head at this idea.

Ricky Gervais is hosting the Golden Globes tonight and in a recent interview he quoted Bob Dylan when someone asked him about his definition of success. Ricky Gervais is a man who always does what he wants to do, and by Dylan’s definition, he’s found success. I agree.

A lifetime is made of tiny snapshots, brief moments. Our forever is now in progress; it is always in progress. We have to be smart about our time. We plan and take a step forward, and then another and another. Incremental, intelligent, meaningful. And while sometimes slow and sometimes a mad dash, progress is always possible. Emily Dickinson was right – it all adds up.

Figure out your endgame and then back into what actions will make it possible, bit by bit.

creativity

Leap: Advice on How to Stay One Step Ahead from Designer Philippe Starck, French Philosopher Baise Pascal, and Ronald Reagan

Christa Avampato
Image from http://stuckonrepeat.tumblr.com/

When asked what allows him to remain so consistently ahead of the curve, cutting-edge designer Philippe Starck replied, “I never read any magazines or watch TV. Nor do I go to cocktail parties, dinners, or anything like that. I live alone mostly, in the middle of nowhere.” ~ As told by writer Pico Iyer in his New York Times article The Joy of Quiet

Philippe Starck has designed a wider reaching assortment of products than perhaps any designer living today, from the interior of French President François Mitterrand’s private apartments to a toothbrush sanitizer. (Really!) I’d assume that someone with that kind of range would be networking out the wazoo and constantly taking in new information to fuel his creative engine. He does nothing of the sort. In fact he does just the opposite and completely turns the world off to dial up his own creativity. (You know what they say about assumptions…)

This is a tough, powerful lesson for entrepreneurs. We work our tails off networking, pitching, connecting, reading, and writing about our products and services. Too often we think inspiration is out there, in the ether of the world. It may be, but the richer, more authentic genius lies within each of us. It’s struggling against all the noise of our lives to be heard and heeded. We are sometimes pulled and prodded in so many different directions we hardly know where we’re going. And we have commitments and promises to uphold. Shut off the world? That’s madness!

Pico Iyer’s article goes on to detail our over-the-top addiction to communicating and our inability to ever be still or quiet. We worry about what we’re missing, who we’re missing, and who’s missing us. It’s a high we seem incapable of coming down from. It’s a permanent rush of energy that’s sapping our sleep, devastating our productivity, and wrecking our relationships. How can we have our devices and our quiet, too?

Enter Ronald Reagan and then 17th century French philosopher Blaise Pascal, in that order, to rescue us from ourselves. When faced with a tragic economy at the start of his presidency, Ronald Reagan famously said, “There are simple solutions – just not easy ones.” I fundamentally disagree with just about every policy Ronald Reagan put in place during his presidency, but on this issue of solutions I have to agree.We know we need to protect and nurture our creativity by shutting off our damn phones once in a while, but we just can’t seem to get ourselves to even try it much less adopt it as a regular practice.

This is where Pascal picks up and offers his solution. Again, simple but not easy. “All of man’s problems come from his inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” So that’s it? For everything that ails us, we should find a way to sit alone as a means of curing it? In a French philosophical word, Oui.

You had to know I would find a way to loop yoga and meditation into this solution, right? Some of my friends and family members tease me because I tout yoga and meditation as salves that can be applied to all wounds in the healing process. Pascal thought the same thing, so now I feel supported in my bias.

The answer of how to heighten our creativity is very simple. You don’t need to buy any more books about creativity, read any other blog posts on the subject, or network with any more designers to find your own creative voice. (Those resources are good for lots of other things, but only you can determine your own artistic direction.) Rather than spinning around like a whirling dervish in the mad search for our inspiration and muse, we must sit, breathe, and be if we mean to grow as artists, no matter what our art is. This is difficult, but necessary.

How to begin:
1.) Set a timer for 3 minutes. (What gets measured gets done.)

2.) Take a comfortable seat, devoid of as much sound as possible. If necessary, use earplugs to filter out as much noise as possible.

3.) Inhale for 4 counts, exhale for 4 counts.

4.) Repeat. Every day.

5.) Your mind will wander and when it does, bring it back to counting your breath.

No tricks. Just effort. As you get comfortable with the 3 minutes, grow it by 30 seconds, then a minute and so on. Eventually, just sit without the timer and see how long you can be on your own in stillness. It will be difficult at first but it will get easier. We must learn to be alone if we are to fully be in the world and ahead of the curve. Our light, collectively and individually, depends upon it.

adventure, business, career, creativity, New Years Eve, New York, New York City, wishes, writing, yoga

Leap: My 2012 Resolution, Four and a Half Years in the Making

Christa Avampato

In 2007, I graduated from business school, where I wrote a few feature columns for my school’s newspaper thanks to my friend, Alice, who was the Editor-in-Chief. I had always wanted to be a writer but was never sure I was talented enough to make a go of it. I really enjoyed the writing and a lot of my classmates complimented the columns. At graduation, my friend, Stephen, asked me if I intended to keep writing. I smiled, looked down at the ground, and said I wasn’t sure. “You should start a blog,” he said. I laughed. “Who would read it?” I asked. “I would read it,” he said. One reader was enough for me. It was a start, a beginning, and that was really all I needed.

The week after graduation, I sat on the couch in my living room in Charlottesville surrounded by moving boxes, opened Google, and typed in “free blogging software.” Blogger came up. I had an account from when I started my first blog, Eyes and Ears Wide Open, way back in 2004. It was private because I wasn’t sure at that time that I wanted strangers reading about my life. (How funny that seems now that I live much of my life online!) I reactivated my account and started the blog Christa In New York as a way of unleashing a writer who had been kicking around in me for many, many years.

How I learned to write
After a year and a half of bumbling around learning how to write, I decided I wanted to become a really good writer and the only way I knew how to make that happen was to practice every day. And the sure-fire way to make that happen would be to publicly promise as my 2009 resolution that I would write and publish every day. I kept my resolution and in 2009, I wrote every day about hope. My greatest lesson from that writing journey was that the more often we look for hope, the more likely we are to find it.

In 2010, I bundled up all of that hope and put my daily efforts toward crafting an extraordinary life. I discovered the truth that we build an extraordinary life by finding something extraordinary in ordinary moments.

To amp up my extraordinary living, I used 2011 as a year of new beginnings so that I could get into a beginner’s mindset – exploring, experimenting, and tinkering. As 2011 drew to a close, I wondered for a long time about how I could best make use of this beginner’s mindset. Where would I go from here?

Was there an ending in all this beginning?
I wondered if this would be the end of this blog altogether. I wondered if all this beginning was leading me toward an ending of this chapter. To experiment with that idea, I gave up writing on the weekends for a couple of weeks. I missed posting every day so much that I quickly reversed that decision. Four and a half years later, writing has become an integral part of who I am and how I spent my time. It brings me a lot of joy – and that’s the #1 reason I keep at it.

Perhaps another ending was in order. I briefly considered leaving New York and relocating to the west coast. That caused me to look differently at my city. Was I really ready to move? Could I really leave behind 4+ years worth of effort building a life I love? In about a month’s time, I reversed that decision, too. New York is my home, as crazy and unpredictable as it is. It’s where I belong and that’s a joyful thing to feel.

To solve this riddle, I began to look around at the other areas of my life assessing what brings me joy and what doesn’t. I love my yoga teaching and the healthcare field fascinates me. I adore stories – written, spoken, acted, and sung. I’m passionate about doing good work for people who need help and don’t know where or to whom to turn. I’m happiest when I’m making my own choices.

An ending found
The area of my life that seems to deplete me the most is the place where I spend 40+ hours / week. Though I’m incredibly grateful for the financial stability and experience I’ve gained as part of a large company, the work doesn’t inspire me and it’s not the best use of my skills. I’ve made a number of very good friends there whom I’m sure I will know all of my life. I’ve learned so much there, about the economy, the world, and myself. As 2011 drew to a close, I became acutely aware that I have learned all that I want to learn there. It’s time to move on.

I began to look around, applying to jobs that seemed mildly interesting. I interviewed and received a few offers, though in the end they all seemed to be variations on a theme, a theme I already had in my current job. After a few months, I could see myself in those new roles, unhappy with the circumstances and no better off than I am at my current job. If I wanted the job of my dreams, I would have to build it.

A beginning that was here all along
And so I realized that Compass Yoga could provide me with everything I wanted in a job – I could teach, write, be part of the healthcare field, and help people who really needed the help. I had the job I wanted all along. The trick is now to turn how I make a life into making a living.

So there it is, my 2012 resolution: to make the leap from my job into Compass Yoga full-time. It’s going to be a long and winding road, with many different twists, turns, stops, and starts along the way. I’ll be securing my footing along the path that I know I’m supposed to walk even though I’m not yet sure of all the steps I’ll need to take. Every day in 2012, I’ll be writing about this journey and I hope you’ll join me as this path is paved. Welcome to the beginning of a transformation a long time in the making. And happy new year!

art, career, choices, creativity

Beginning: The Art Born of Life

Christa Avampato

“If you want to work on your art, work on your life.” – Chekhov

I spent a lot of 2011 in a mode of planning and personal development. At turns, I would get frustrated with what appeared to be a lack of progress, or at least a lack of progress at the pace I wanted. And when it comes to my personal development, I always want to pick up the pace. What I didn’t realize is that in those times when we think we aren’t making any progress, the progress is really happening under cover beneath the surface. This is the most crucial kind of progress, the kind we need to really move forward.

Think of a cut or scrape. Beneath the surface of the skin, the tissue begins to repair itself immediately after the injury occurs. It starts knitting back together one tiny cell at a time, healing from the inside out. All we can see is the outward face of the injury, the very last thing to heal, but without that inner healing, healing on the surface wouldn’t matter. In fact, if we healed from the outside in, then we would be more likely to incur a repeat injury.

Think of a house. The building process begins deep within the ground where the foundation is laid. For a long time, it may look like very little progress is being made, as if all the work is for naught. But once a strong foundation is put in place, the rest of the building goes quite smoothly. And it lasts.

We need to live our art, creativity, and dreams in their own unique and beautiful form. Spending our lives any other way guarantees only that we will wish we made different choices. Living our dreams takes time time and planning. To give our all to our art, whatever that art may be, we have to spend time honing our craft and getting other areas of our lives in proper order. We may not always see the progress, but if we are diligently working toward our goal, we can rest assured that progress is happening and will reveal itself in its own good time.

Compass Yoga was like that. My writing was like that. My education was like that. My whole life, my greatest work of art, has been like that. Progress was slow and not always apparent but it was there. Piece by piece, I was knitting together the threads of my life that would form my foundation for my life, and from my life came my art.

Our art is always born out of our lives. You wish for an artistic breakthrough? Start with a life breakthrough. And then you can get to the fun part – with the foundation in place, it’s time to build that castle in the sky.

books, courage, creative process, creativity, innovation, writing, yoga

Beginning: Advice for Writers and Innovators from Kathryn Stockett – There’s Genius in Pain

Christa Avampato
Emma Stone, Viola David, and Octavia Spencer in The Help

“Write about something that bothers you and nobody else.” ~ The Help by Kathryn Stockett

The holiday slew of movies at the box office makes this one of my favorite times of year. I love going to the movies, watching movies on my couch, on a plane, or in an outdoor venue. One of my favorites this year was The Help, based upon Kathryn Stockett’s wonderful novel.

The heroine, Skeeter, wants very much to be a writer. (I can relate.) A publisher in New York gives her just one piece of advice – write about something that bothers you and nobody else. In other words, find what gives you pain and invent something to alleviate that pain. Pain in its many forms – anger, angst, anxiety, sadness, disappointment, heartbreak, injustice – is useful for writers and innovators. There’s genius in there.

I founded Compass Yoga on this same philosophy – simply, I was irritated. I’m glad that there are so many beautiful, shiny studios in New York City for people like me to take classes. What really bugs the heck out of me is that there aren’t a lot of places for people to go if they don’t have the financial or physical means and the confidence to take that first step. I’m also highly irritated that there isn’t more scientific research about the benefits of yoga in treating disease.

It’s terrific that 16 million Americans practice yoga. What about the other 291 million, especially those who don’t even know how much they could benefit from yoga because no one told them it could help? Who’s going to get to them and teach them and help them? And why are we so astounded and pleased that a measly 5% of Americans practice yoga when 100% of Americans could benefit from it? And why on Earth doesn’t it seem to bother anyone else? You see, my irritation is readily evident. And growing, right along with the Compass Yoga business plan.

People sometimes ask me what my big, audacious, out-of-this-world goal is with Compass Yoga. My answer: I’m going to get to those other 291 million people and at least give them the chance to give yoga a whirl. We, as individuals and as a society, have so much to gain and all I’ve got to lose is my irritation. It worked for Skeeter and this thinking can work for all of us.

art, books, business, comedy, creativity, innovation, inspiration, invention, theatre

Beginning: Make Your Own Funny

Christa Avampato
Carol Burnett and Jane Lynch on the set of Glee

“Comics say funny things and comedic actors say things funny.” ~ Ed Wynn via Carol Burnett, Happy Accidents

Over the winter holidays I started reading the wonderful book Happy Accidents, a memoir by comedic actress Jane Lynch. At turns the book is hilarious, heartwarming, and heartbreaking. Jane has the incredible ability to make people feel for her without making them feel sorry for her. I hope she’ll be writing many more books in the years to come. Carol Burnett, one of my creative heroes, wrote the forward for the book and in it she recounts a story the legendary Ed Wynn told her regarding his ideas about great comedy.

Jane Lynch is hilarious not because she tells jokes. She plays every one of her characters with a sincere sense of seriousness that makes her characters even more funny. It’s a rare and beautiful gift that she worked very hard to craft and hone. While Ed Wynn was talking about comedians and actors (and Carol Burnett extended this story as explanation of Jane’s abilities as a comedic actress), it got me thinking about how applicable this idea is to so many areas off the stage, especially to business. We have to make our own funny, meaning we need to make the very best of what we’ve got and shape into what we want it to be within the context of circumstances.

Jane Lynch isn’t handed a script full of jokes and one-liners. No one even tells her how or when to be funny. She’s given a script detailing a situation of her character, and then she runs with it. She doesn’t find the humor in the circumstances; she makes it.

Running a business is similar. We’re handed a set of market circumstances, not a business plan or even an idea of a business plan. We have to build the creative business idea and the plan that brings it to life that links to the market circumstances. We don’t happen upon a relevant and desired idea; we make it so.

I started my career working in professional theatre, and I was always surprised by the perceptions of those outside the industry who thought we were just playing. My theatre work was the very best business training I ever received (and yes, it did teach me more than my MBA.) Theatre is a lot more than actors, sets, costumes, lights, and a stage. It added up to be far greater than just the sum of its parts. It taught me how to craft not only a show, but a story, a life, and a legacy. It showed me that the very best road to take is the one we pave for ourselves.

choices, clarity, creativity, writer, yoga

Beginning: Create Something Beautiful and Good in 2012

Christa Avampato

“That which you create in beauty and goodness and truth lives on for all time to come. Don’t spend your life accumulating material objects that will only turn to dust and ashes.” ~ Denis Waitley

It’s with more than a bit of irony to find this quote among my reading during the holiday season. It seems that almost everyone except me went on a buying frenzy in the midst of Black Friday madness. Then they got their credit cards statements and logged an unprecedented number of returns. This is a good sign for American society – perhaps we’ve turned a corner when it come to how we think about stuff. It is all just stuff.

I think about stuff a lot because I am, by profession, a product developer. However, most of the products I’ve created aren’t tangible products. They are Broadway shows that inspired people, nonprofit programs that benefited worthwhile causes, and experiences that celebrated our creative spirit.

The tangible products I’ve created over the last few years for my current employer are things I am less than proud of, actual things that I have relegated to the back of my mind, and conveniently left out of my portfolio. Creating them has afforded me a salary that has helped me to pay back a good chunk of my student loans from business school and to save an emergency fund as well as another savings account so that I can chase my dream of starting my own nonprofit. I am grateful for this gift, particularly in a time in our economy when so many people have struggled financially.

If I think about the last three years of my professional career strictly from a product development perspective, they have been wildly pointless. I have churned out product after product that I don’t believe in, would never buy, and would never counsel anyone else to buy. These three years were really just about survival in a bleak financial market. The joy has gone out of my work.

Personally, these three years have been staggeringly exceptional. I have learned more in this time than I ever thought possible – about myself, the world, and my purpose. I have made oodles of friends along the way, reinforced my confidence and convictions, and found my voice as a teacher, writer, and leader. It has been nothing short of a blessing. It has been a transformation. I found and live the dream of my life, even if at the moment it is only after regular working hours.

This dichotomy – an enriching personal life and a stagnant professional life – has been brewing for some time now. I’d say it was at a slow boil for about a year, a rolling boil for another year more, and has been at a flat out screaming boil over 2011. The only thing that can possibly come next is a quick evaporation altogether. And that’s rather what my latest career decision feel like – an evaporation of what doesn’t matter in favor of activities that do matter, to me and to the world. Compass Yoga is my attempt to follow Denis Waitley’s advice to build something beautiful and good.

It’s going to be a beautiful 2012 – just wait and see!

books, children, creativity, dreams, encouragement, hope

Beginning: Push Through In Spite of the Chatter

Christa Avampato
Shel Silverstein

“Listen to the mustn’ts, child. Listen to the don’ts. Listen to the shouldn’ts, the impossibles, the won’ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me … Anything can happen, child. Anything can be.” ~ Shel Silverstein from Where The Sidewalk Ends via Dailygood

My friends Leah and Peter are having their first baby in January. (That lucky little one has two of the most amazing people in the world as parents!) I recently went to their baby shower and instead of a card we were asked to bring books to get their baby’s library started. I went to the bookstore near my office and by the end of it found myself with not a book but a stack of books after a solid hour in the children’s book section. (I finally settled on Goodnight, Moon and several Dr. Seuss books for Leah and Peter.)

I find this genre incredibly inspiring because it reminds me of a time when I fully believed that anything was possible – I could be an astronaut, a paleontologist (which was my childhood occupation of choice), or a brain surgeon. I could travel the world, live on top of a cloud, or discover an underwater civilization. There were no boundaries and books were my way of traveling across the universe. They still are.

Shel Silverstein remains one of my favorites for his optimism and eternal belief that we all have something to give. As we turn the page to 2012 and I turn much more of my attention to the work my life was meant for, his words will be comforting in the low moments and encouraging as I make my way up this “great big hill of hope.” And isn’t that what all our best adventures come down to – pushing on and pushing through despite all the mustnt’s, don’ts, shouldn’ts, impossibles, won’ts, and never haves? We have to continue to have faith in the idea that anything, absolutely anything, can be if it’s what we truly want and what the world truly needs.

Those words – push through, push through – will be ringing in my mind over and over again every step of the way in 2012.

business, creative process, creativity, organize, work

Beginning: How to Remember the Milk (and Everything Else!)

Christa Avampato

Working full-time, running a new nonprofit, plugging away as a freelance writer, keeping up with friends flung across the globe, and taking part in all of the exciting goings-on in New York City can take a toll on even the most organized person. My reflexologist, Heather, said to me on Wednesday, “Christa, your brain is swollen.” This is one of the incredible values of holistic care. To look at me, you wouldn’t know my brain is swollen. Heather knows better.

I needed to find a better way of wrangling all my projects, tracking their progress, and planning my next steps. Gmail, Google calendar, and my DROID are an incredible help, but I needed more than that – something open source, mobile and online, customizable, sharable, and preferably free. I got some incredible suggestions on project management software but they weren’t exactly what I needed.

I consulted my friend, Amy, who also has a wide set of interests and projects. She gave me a few suggestions, once of which is Remember the Milk. At first glance I was smitten and now I’m completely in love.

Remember the Milk’s clean, bright, and intuitive interface is exactly what I need. I have different to-do lists for each of my projects, each to-do can have a note attached to it with further detail and a due date. It is available online and through a large array of mobile devices and syncs with many of my existing services like Google Calendar. (One I’d love to see them add is Evernote, where I track all of my online links.) I can email tasks to myself as well and it archives all of the tasks I’ve completed. And all of the above is sharable with contacts and groups of contacts.

If you need to add more orchestration to the different pieces that comprise your life, I highly recommend giving Remember the Milk a try. (It’s also great for simpler things like, well, remembering to pick up milk on the way home.) It’s taken the pain out of project management and restored the joy in the projects themselves.