Category: creativity

choices, courage, creativity, curiosity, decision-making, design, work

Step 351: Beauty – One of Life’s Non-negotiables

Christa Avampato

“I think “beauty” has a (prominent) place in every project.” ~ Tom Peters

I’d go one step further than Tom Peters and say if you are living somewhere, doing something, or learning something and you can’t find any beauty it, then move, do something else, and pick another topic. I know that this week I espoused about how life is long and we have more time and space than we actually realize. But your life and the amount of time you have is not enough to warrant the wasting of it.

I’m one of those efficiency junkies. I despise waste of any kind, whether the resource is tangible or intangible. I especially hate having my time wasted. I kind of self-implode without a vertical learning curve. Actually, I don’t know how to live without one so if I feel even a tinge of boredom, my mind is off and running. What never fails to captivate me is beauty, and I especially treasure ironic beauty – moment and places that don’t seem beautiful on the surface but with a little digging have a great abundance of beauty underneath.

In 2011, I’m not doing a single personal project that doesn’t have a kind of beauty that inspires me. Truly, I refuse to struggle through projects or experiences or someone else’s decisions that don’t make any sense to me. I can’t do that anymore. I’m done with dreading any place, or project, or event. If what I’m doing isn’t useful to me, or you, or the world at-large, then I’m going to find something else to do. The world needs so much help right now and we need eachother.

I have a lot to offer in the way of resources. We all do. Talent, time, experience, care, and concern (perhaps the most underrated resource of all!) We can no longer afford to do work that doesn’t matter. We are what we do.

The beautiful image above is not my own but I think it’s stunning. It can be found here.

choices, creative, creative process, creativity, decision-making, design

Step 334: An Impossible Goal

Christa Avampato

Today I had lunch with General Counsel of the company I work for. I asked her how she fostered creativity among her team and she told an interesting anecdote. One of her teams manages a very large portfolio of patents, and while valuable they are very expensive to obtain and maintain. She challenged her team to devise a solution to cut the cost of the patent program in half, a ridiculously provocative goal (her words, not mine.) While she has a great deal of confidence in the talent of her team, she had serious doubts about being able to reach that goal.

So why did she do it? Why set a team up to “fail”? She wanted them to really get into the problem and find a new way of doing things. If she had set the goal at 10%, they probably could have made a few tweaks here and there, and met the goal. She wanted radical transformation and extreme creativity to come into play. To get at that, she needed to set the bar so high that it seemed out of reach. Even if they didn’t hit it, she was certain that they’d find a new way forward that would be beneficial.

And with the ingenuity of her team operating on all cylinders, they did find a new ways forward and they did hit that crazy goal of a 50% cost reduction. And as an added benefit, they also liked the new system much better because it was much easier to manage.

Impossible goals can be very valuable. They can push us to our edge and then some. They ask us to not tinker, but to go out to the wide open white space of our minds, into areas that we would likely never even approach because our logical minds would get in the way. If we make a goal far out of sight, it ceases to be a roadblock to our creativity. It can actually free us to do our very best work, to imagine a whole new world of possibilities.

art, blog, creativity, imagination

Step 326: Keep a Canvas Blank

Christa Avampato

When I moved into my apartment over a year ago, I had nothing but a borrowed air mattress from a friend and a handful of clothes. My apartment building fire in my former apartment building ruined most of my belongings and the few that were salvageable were sent away for a special cleaning to remove the soot and the horrid smell that’s left in everything after a fire. It’s a smell that I’ll never forget. I looked around at my very blank, very empty apartment and my heart sank. I would have to start over. Again.

In the months after my fire I tried putting my material life back together. It was slow going. I had some art that was saved but the frames were ruined. I got them re-framed and tried to hang them on my blank walls. I couldn’t do. I’d start to put a picture hook into the wall and start crying. Starting over was painful, lonely work. Eventually, I just cried my way through it because it had to be done, and once I got to the other side of that good cry, I had walls that were decorated and a heart that felt more peaceful.

This experience caused a recent blog post by Derek Sivers to really hit home for me. Derek is the musician, programmer, and entrepreneur who created CD Baby and then gave away his company to charity to support music education. He’s a brilliant guy, generous, courageous, and best of all an incredibly honest writer. A few days ago he wrote a blog post entitled “Why wreck a blank canvas“. My only criticism of the post is I wish he had written it sooner. It would have helped me through my struggles of starting over. I wouldn’t have felt so badly about my very blank, new canvas known as my apartment, and in many ways, mirrored my life at that moment, too.

In the post Derek talks about the large blank canvases he has on the walls of his home. He leaves them blank intentionally to inspire others. A blank canvas allows every person to have his or her own unique vision of what should populate that area. It’s a conversation starter for Derek and a creativity jump starter to everyone who views those blank canvases. The comments on the post are equally fantastic – read through them. I’m taking my cue from Derek. I’m getting a blank canvas and hanging it up on my wall as a reminder that I will always be strong enough to start over.

change, choices, creativity, imagination

Step 312: Growing Imagination

Christa Avampato

“Even as you research, you are filtering out the things that do not resonate with your inner ideals and choosing what does. In doing so you are telling the universe to narrow down the infinite possibilities, focusing all the combined energy of co-creation on what you have chosen. This creates a channel through which your goals can find you, like a beacon in the vast darkness of the universe. Today you are the creator of your future, and your only limits are the boundaries of your imagination.” ~ My horoscope from DailyOm on Friday, November 5th.

My friend, Laura, introduced me to DailyOm horoscopes about a year ago and I am always amazed by their ability to strike just the right chord and help me to feel okay with where I am. I read the horoscope above on my phone just as I was leaving Brian’s office. I was talking with him about a shift in my career that I’m hoping to make in 2011, as well as some other plans I’m making for new projects. I’ve been toying with different ideas and filtering as needed. I explained to Brian that the filtering process can be a little frustrating because it seems to take so much time and the pay-off builds in such small increments.

I’ve started to believe that every creative act requires more editing than content. The initial recording of the idea is important, though the culling down, the focus, and the distillation of what matters and how to execute it are equally important. And that focus is needed if we want to truly expand and grow our imaginations to their full potential. And the incredible thing about imagination is that once we choose to embrace it, celebrate it, and nurture it our goals really do find us. This isn’t magic; it’s only the harvesting of all the seeds we’ve sewn for so long.

creativity, holiday, imagination

Step 303: Our Chance to Be Someone Else

Christa Avampato

I love Halloween, mostly for the candy but also for the chance to take on another persona. For one night it’s perfectly acceptable, and expected, that we take a giant leap outside of the ordinary. So maybe it’s not the dream of your life to be Lady Gaga, but for one night at a party it’s fun to think about.

Halloween asks us to stoke the fires of imagination and humor, to get creative and bust out of our day-to-day routine. We’re willing to see and enjoy the ridiculous, the clever, and the well put-together, and encouraging of others to do the same. The fun is allowed to grow and multiply with every new costume we see, whether we know the person wearing it or not. I always find that Halloween makes us friendlier. Somehow those costumes give us permission to laugh at ourselves and with others.

We all need a break from ourselves from time to time. Let the trick-or-treating commence and enjoy the holiday that lets us literally walk in the shoes of someone else. Happy Halloween!

business, community, creativity, entrepreneurship, love

Step 294: Love Connection

Christa Avampato

“You are connected to everything. Love accordingly.” ~ All Day Buffet during The Feast Conference

The Feast Conference happened last week in New York. I didn’t attend this year but plan to attend next year. The Feast Conference is curated by All Day Buffet, a company based in New York City that connects, develops, and launches purpose-driven ventures. I featured my interview Jerri Chou, one of the co-founders of All Day Buffet, in my book Hope in Progress. She is among the most inspirational, dream-pumping innovators out there, as is Co-founder Michael Karnjanaprakorn. I regularly visit the site to keep up with their work. There’s always something good cookin’ over there.

The quote above showed up on All Day Buffet’s Twitter feed last week during The Feast Conference, and it is now the title image on their site. There’s so much emphasis put on connection and collaboration, and it’s an easy thing to do. There is so much knowledge that lies just a few clicks away. It’s found just outside every door and during every interaction we have. We have the opportunity to connect every moment.

Love is a main ingredient to connections. Love for people, ideas, learning, causes. Every time we put negative energy out there, and particularly when we direct it at someone, we are actually hurting ourselves more than we realize. This is a big, big world, despite how small it feels given technology. There is more than enough room for more dreams and ideas and voices. And they don’t threaten our own ideas and voices. When we build others up, we do ourselves a favor by growing our networking and engendering support and faith in return for the support and faith we give to others.

Call it a retro idea to love our neighbors. Think of it as crunch-y and granola-y to believe that we reap what we sow. I love granola and I love love.

Image above from All Day Buffet’s website.

business, creativity, entrepreneurship

Step 292: Leaders Should Establish a Cult of Creativity

Christa Avampato

Start-ups need cults – that’s the assertion of Steve Newcomb, the incredibly successful entrepreneur associated with a variety of start-ups, many with a bent for social change. Ventures Hacks featured his essay on on why it’s critical for start-ups team to be incredibly passionate about their work. If you miss that piece as a founder, it’s akin to throwing in the towel on the whole idea. (Incidentally, Steve started blogging with the platform created by Squarespace, a company I featured in my book Hope in Progress.)

There’s a lot of lip service paid to the saying “our people are our greatest asset”, particularly in big companies. Companies have two choices – really live that statement and get behind it with everything you’ve got or stop using it altogether. Companies, start-ups or otherwise, need to give their people resources and support to shine, or be honest about the fact that the company actually isn’t about the people, but about profit or PR or the CEO’s ego or whatever other asset they really believe is the most important one they have. My suggestion is that leaders should do nothing else except serve their people. That’s their job.

Steve articulately and honestly wrote out his manifesto on teams in this essay. It’s a long one and every word is worth reading. My favorite pieces of his advice include: “Suspend Disbelief, then Think Backwards” (Bill Keating) and “Make Sure Every Single [Job] Candidate is Treated Like Gold” (Steve Newcomb). There are numerous other nuggets of gold for entrepreneurs in his essay – it’s well-worth the time to take them all to heart.

Image above by Steve Newcomb.

art, community, creativity, talents, technology, TED

Step 291: Collaboration Gives Life to Dreams

Christa Avampato

“Have a collegial, supportive, yeasty, zany, laughter-filled environment where folks support one another, and politics is as absent as it can be in a human (i.e., imperfect) enterprise.” ~ Tom Peters

“If you want to be incrementally better: Be competitive. If you want to be exponentially better: Be cooperative.” ~ Author Unknown, via Daily Good

Here’s the most exciting development in an increasing global marketplace and integrated society: collaboration is no longer an option. To get anything done these days, we must play nice in the sandbox and we must encourage and support the dreams and visions of others. I used to have a refrigerator magnet that read “Be Nice or Leave. Thank You.” I used to post it up at work and people would think “oh, isn’t that funny?” And actually it wasn’t. It was my truth. If people can’t be nice, then I can’t work with them. I’m 100% fine with people who passionately and vocally stand by their convictions and have opinions. I have loads of them, and I love people who have a strong point-of-view. But respecting and accepting that different ideas are possible and viable is critical to the kindness I’m looking for in others and cultivating within myself. We learn a lot from the opinions of others, particularly if they don’t match our own.

My friend, Chris, just spoke at TEDxGotham, whose theme centered on collaboration. (Check out his Twitter feed at http://twitter.com/Chris_Elam.) His dance company, Misnomer, is working on a technology platform that greatly enhances an artist’s ability to connect and collaborate with an audience. Artists are the perfect group to lead this charge for collaboration across the board because their livelihoods are predicated on it. They must work with others to convey their visions, and rely on the opinions and actions of others to spread the message of their work.

We all have that artist spirit within us. We all have visions of the world we’d like to live in. We have dreams and hopes and fears. It’s one of the underlying aspects of being human – our imagination. The tie that binds. And so even if we don’t understand or agree with someone, we can take comfort in the fact that all people, everywhere, have the desire to build the life they imagine.

There’s a tendency for a little voice inside us to get too much air time. “How could you possibly do “x”? or “Are you really qualified to make “y” happen?” We can sometimes feel selfish for getting all that we work for and deserve. Thank that little voice for its efforts and then turn its volume down to zero. You deserve to see your dreams come alive, and then some. When we base our lives on our imaginations, we’re giving others the inspiration and strength to do the same. Living the life you want is actually the most generous gift you can give the world because you’re giving us the very best of you. It’s the very highest ideal of collaboration.

creativity, garden, nature

Step 288: Be a Greenhouse for New Ideas

Christa Avampato

There is a strong parallel between gardening and creativity. Gardening has elements of design – color, placement, texture, size. There’s also a common element of surprise in gardening and creativity. We may plant the seeds of a specific plant, but we aren’t sure exactly how it will look until it blooms. The same goes for creativity – the solution or product or service we ultimately create may be very different from our first idea. There’s an even deeper parallel between gardening and creativity, one that we can and should intentionally, powerfully pursue.

A few months ago, I wrote a post about new ideas needing friends. Part of being a friend to new ideas is providing a safe place for them to be in their infancy, providing nourishment and space to grow. To be a friend to new ideas, we must act as greenhouses for them.

New ideas can cause disruption and inconvenience. They ask us to change and grow and alter our existing perceptions of ourselves, of others, and of the world around us. They can make us uncomfortable. They can scare us. Rather than shying away, we should pursue the ones that scare us the most. Ask why they stir our emotions in a specific way. That’s where the learning is. Ultimately, we may decide to put those ideas aside, and even if we do, they will have been great teachers for us by strengthening our convictions provided we give them a chance to show us what they’ve got.

creativity, determination, inspiration, writing, yoga

Step 283: Meeting Inspiration

Christa Avampato

“When inspiration does not come to go me, I go halfway to meet it.” ~ Sigmund Freud

Twyla Tharp quotes Freud in her book The Creative Habit. I read this book about two years ago and worked through the exercises faithfully. I flipped through it again last weekend, reading about my creative journey through the eyes of my 32-year old self.

Two years ago, I wanted to find more outlets for my writing. That’s happened to an even greater extent than I imagined, though not by accident, or hoping for that good fortune to find me. I had to go out there, dig it up, and then persist, persist, persist. I had to risk rejection and all that comes with it in the hopes that there would be some breaks here and there.

I followed a lot of leads to a very dead end, and considered just throwing in the towel. “Maybe the world doesn’t need my voice,” I thought more times than I’ll ever admit. And then here and there I got a bit of encouragement, which helped me to keep trudging out there again for more inspiration and more leads. Creativity, writing, hope, inspiration – they are all more easily cultivated with practice.

This has been true of my yoga teaching as well. I tried lots of avenues to get regular gigs, but the work didn’t come pouring in as I had hoped. This was going to harder than I thought. Stubbornness can pay off. It keeps us reaching up, even when the world seems to be pushing us down. On occasion, good luck shows up on our doorstep, but more often it’s up to us to get out there and discover it. Recognizing luck in all its disguises requires preparedness. Eventually a few things broke and now I teach at NY Methodist Hospital and Columbia Law School, with a possible third regular gig on the way. (More info to come if that pans out.)

I used to think of inspiration as a thunderbolt that reaches me at my dining table in front of this laptop. Sometimes that does happen, but more often it’s sparked by something I’ve witnessed or done outside these safe haven walls of my home. Being out in the world more by walking Phineas, my pup, has helped me see the gifts that lie just around the corner, literally. So now when I find that inspiration just isn’t flowing, I don’t get frustrated. I just pick myself up out my my chair, and go get it.