Category: decision-making

books, choices, decision-making, technology

Beginning: My E-reader Dilemma, Solved

Christa Avampato

I’ve changed my mind a hundred times on which e-reader to buy, that is once I decided I did want an e-reader. I love books, the feel and smell of them. I even like the feel of the weight in my hands, but not on my shoulders.

I just finished Conversations with Myself, a collection of papers, interviews, and letters from Nelson Mandela’s archive. At 480 pages, it is a hefty item to tote around on the crowded NYC subway to and from work. I looked around the car and saw everyone on their devices that slide easily in and our of their bags, no sign of trouble when flipping the page or holding it close to them as they navigated the too-small space between them and their closest neighbors.

I, on the other handle, was fumbling to such a degree that I just packed the book away in my overstuffed bag, where it barely fit. On my subway car, I was the only person with a paper book, a book I borrowed from he library! Despite that I make my living working in mobile technology, I was a relic of a time gone by. Books made out of paper? They call those antiques!

And now it was time to take a serious look at my decision tree. I have been comparing models of e-readers since the first Kindle was a whisper in the market. I took my friend, Susan‘s, advice from job searching and applied it to my e-reader decision. I stopped comparing models and considered my perfect e-reader, available options aside.

Here’s what I need, in order of importance:

1.) A comfortable reading experience – I spend so much of my day looking at shiny screens and I’m already worried about my eyes. I need a near-paper reading experience.

2.) Borrow library books – I love the New York Public Library and I’d like to be able to download e-books from the library to my e-reader.

3.) An electronic notepad – I do my best writing while I’m traveling and carrying my laptop with me is getting to be a burden. I don’t need anything too fancy – just a way to easily jot down my thoughts and upload them to my laptop when I get home.

Now that I knew what kind of e-reader I really wanted, it was easier to evaluate options. By getting clear on my needs, the clear answer rose to the top: meet my new e-reader, the new Kindle Touch, featuring e-ink, library book borrowing, and personal annotation capabilities (Kindle does one better on this last point by sinking all my documents across all of my devices.)

And this is just the beginning of what it offers. It will be ready to ship around November 21st and I can’t wait to get started on it. My shoulders are going to be so happy with this decision. Already I can hear them sighing, “It’s about time!” Indeed, it is.

choices, decision-making

Beginning: Let Your Mud Settle

Christa Avampato

“Do you have the patience to wait
till your mud settles and the water is clear?
Can you remain unmoving
till the right action arises by itself?

The Master doesn’t seek fulfillment.
Not seeking, not expecting,
Is present, and can welcome all things.”

~ Tao Teh Ching by Lao Tzu

We are raring to go. I know. I hear you. I’m with you. We want to will and action every idea we have into being right now. It’s understandable. We are ambitious people on a mission that the world needs fulfilled yesterday.

Retail enlightenment
I was at ISHTA Yoga last week for Douglass Stewart’s class (which by the way is one of the very classes I’ve ever taken in my 13 years of practice.) I was early and browsing around the little retail area by the entrance. I came across a t-shirt with the first two lines of Lao Tzu’s poem. I took note and went into the class.

Board member enlightenment
Compass Yoga held its second board meeting this weekend and I asked the board members to give their thoughts on whether or not we should begin to build a second program. There was a resounding call to get our program for vets running smoothly before diving in to assist a second population with serious healthcare needs. Noted. They are brilliant and thoughtful people.

Therapist enlightenment
Several days before the board meeting, I spoke to Brian about a bit of my angst around Compass Yoga. There is so much need and I’m growing impatient with the slow grind of legal, government, and nonprofit wheels. I’m looking for a way to grease the skids and get our projects moving faster. Brian listened to me with his trademark empathy and simply replied, “Christa, there are some things that are out of your control.” Noted, unhappily. I love control. Brian continued, “Go to your mat. Do your yoga and see what you find.” Okay, I like that advice better.

I finally get it
Brian, Lao Tzu, and the Compass Yoga board members are all sharing the same wise advice. It took the advice of all of them to get me to see the light. I am by nature unreasonable and restless. I have high standards for others and even higher standards for myself. Waiting is not my forte. But sometimes waiting is all we can do.

When the mud of our lives is clouding our vision and nothing is clear, we must wait for more information before we move. It doesn’t mean the right path will be easy; in my experience, the path has never been easy but I have always made more progress when the direction was clear. So these days I unroll my mat more often that usual, grab my bolster, sit, and listen. I breathe in and breathe out, and ask for guidance. The path forward will appear; it always does.

career, change, choices, decision-making

Beginning: The Grass is Greener Where You Water It

Christa Avampato

“The grass isn’t greener on the other side. It’s greener where you water it.” ~ my pal, Sharni

Earlier this week I wrote about my decision to turn down a recent job offer in favor of staying at my current company and pursing my own entrepreneurial projects through Compass Yoga and my writing. I have been surprised by how invigorated I feel from the decision. There is something to be said for having a look around at the career landscape, being given the opportunity to move, and then realizing that I have it pretty good exactly where I am. My current company, while it has its flaws, offers me tremendous flexibility and the opportunity to work with a lot of people whom I truly like and respect. The process of considering another offer gave me fresh eyes to see my current situation’s benefits to my life.

Just before receiving this new offer, friends of mine cautioned me about leaving. I initially wrote off the caution as their own hang-up about change. However, their advice planted a seed of balanced decision making. I really did need to weigh what I was giving up at my current company and what I could potentially receive in return at the new company. Ultimately it came down to realizing that I was going to have to give up a lot (flexibility, relationships and a reputation that I have worked hard for, and a solid compensation package), and I wasn’t going to get enough in return (lower title and compensation than I had expected, and a real loss of my personal time). Once that became clear to me, I knew the new offer wasn’t the right fit for me.

I was away on a business trip when I received the new offer and on the flight to my destination I saw the movie Midnight in Paris. The movie follows the lead character who is obsessed with 1920s Paris and The Lost Generation. He has the opportunity to live in that era of history, and in the process realizes that the people of that period longed for the Belle Époque, Paris in the 1890s. While he realizes his life in 2010 needs some changes, he recognizes that we’re always longing for another time. Too often we think the grass is greener elsewhere when in fact we almost always have the opportunity to make the grass we already have greener through our own efforts.

My friend, Sharni, has been blogging about this very point-of-view and her tag line “the grass is greener where you water it” perfectly sums up my recent career decision. My cautious friends were absolutely right – I have a lot more opportunity right at my fingertips than I realized. I bet you do to!

career, choices, decision-making

Beginning: Let Priorities Shape Reality

Christa Avampato

“He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” ~ Nietzche

With my recent career decision, I had to get my priorities back in order. I used to think of priority setting as a one-and-done action. It’s actually a daily process, a constant tinkering based on new bits of information and insights.

To make my latest career decision, I relied on an old technique that has worked for me in the past: I write my priorities down on paper and post them just above the doorknob of my front door.

 

Here’s the latest list:

  1. Developing Compass Yoga
  2. Teaching – yoga and business
  3. Writing – the daily posts on this blog as well as several other writing projects currently underway
  4. Freedom – in terms of finances, time, and geography

These priorities give me broad context for how to cultivate and slot in opportunities. If an opportunity doesn’t support one of these priorities, then I can pass it on. These priorities are lenses and funnels, a deceptively simple decision tree of sorts. In Nietzche’s words, they are the “whys”. Now, I have a way to evaluate the “hows”.

career, decision-making, job

Beginning: Why I Chose to Not Leave My Job

Christa Avampato

“Man is without a doubt the most interesting fool there is.” ~ Mark Twain

A few weeks ago, I wrote about my conversation with Brian that involved the futility of living on a ledge. At the time, I thought the name of that ledge was the job that I currently have that pays my bills and makes the financing of all of my personal projects possible. That job had grown stale and boring to me. I felt like time was slipping away from me in a wasteful way and so I decided to look around, up and away from my current job and on to new pastures.

As it turned out, I was on a very different ledge. I was offered the opportunity to move on to a new company. I was all set to take it though the offer was not exactly what I had expected. The title of the job had changed, as had the compensation, and there was a sticky direct report situation to deal with that was created by potential future boss. I was asked to share the burden of cleaning up the mess left behind. I didn’t know what to do, so I paused and consulted. I am blessed with an incredible inner circle of loyal, honest, and exceedingly brilliant friends. I contacted a number of them with my conundrum.

The advice was split down the middle: some felt I should absolutely jump to the new role; others had a truly visceral action to my potential departure for this possibly greener pasture that wasn’t of my design. My friend, Susan, a career and personal branding guru, was an exceptionally shining voice. (Her book The Right Job, Right Now: The Complete Toolkit for Finding Your Perfect Career is literally my career bible.) She did something more than offer yes / no advice. She gave me a way to think about opportunities. She asked me to look at the job I wanted, not the options in front of me, and use that as my yardstick. Put another way, what mattered most was the life I imagined and wanted to live, not the opportunities created by others. I was looking in the wrong direction – outward instead of inward. The focus needs to be on the road I want to pave, not on the road that is laid out before me.

My friend, Lon, offered up sage advice as well. He’s had 34 years of Fortune 50 company experience. He has seen it all and then some. He cautioned against the sale pitch of the new job and asked me to truly see what was being masked. While I believe the new company had every wish of keeping my best intentions in mind, they are truthfully in a bind. They need me more than I need them, and I was not getting enough in return for my efforts.

The new job promised a review to change my title and salary in 6 months. Lon reminded me that promises are empty until fulfilled, no matter how earnestly they are initially crafted. People are fickle; they change their minds so all we can truly know are their current words and actions. Now is certain; later is all guesswork, no matter how educated those guesses may be. Lon helped me to see that the ledge I had really been on the well-paved and traveled road built by someone else. The courageous jump I’ve been looking for starts by using the fuel I have in my current job to get me to a new place of my own making.

I received loads of other phenomenal advice from friends and colleagues and I plan to reveal the nuggets of wisdom from each one, paying tribute to each friend, in my posts this week and next. They will be as helpful to you as they were to me. I call out Lon and Susan in this post because their advice hangs together so well, and reminded me so much of advice (and foreshadowing!) that I received 4 years ago from my then-boss and forever-mentor, Bob G. I’ve detailed it before in other posts, but it bears repeating: the difference of my generation to earlier generations is that we will bet on ourselves, not companies, to make our careers.

I didn’t believe Bob at the time. I had never thought of myself as an entrepreneur; I didn’t yet know that I wanted to be at the helm. I thought I needed others to design the structure of my career. I didn’t yet know my ability and desire to craft and design; Bob did and it is his advice, like Susan’s and Lon’s, that I will never forget and always be grateful for.

choices, decision-making, relationships

Beginning: What We Have, Hold, and Share

Christa Avampato

I recently had a conversation with a mentor who wanted to give me some food for thought. As someone who often wears my heart on my sleeve and my feelings on my face, she told me about some advice that her mother gave her a long time ago: “No one ever said you had to show all 52 cards.” This stunned me.

For the past couple of years I’ve been doing a lot of work on getting to my true nature and at every turn letting my authenticity have the reigns. In this time, I’d never realized that I could still be authentic and not give away the farm. Subconsciously, I’d equated the two.

Putting on my writer’s hat, this idea makes a lot of sense. It would be possible in one paragraph to tell a reader the entire plot of a book though if we gave away the ending up front, the reader would miss all of those wonderful nuggets that are embedded in the middle of the story. They’d know the final destination, but they wouldn’t have the benefit of the lessons learned along the way.

Similarly, if someone sat us down the moment we were born and said, “Look kid, this is how it’s going to play out for you,” we’d miss out on the act of living and all of the guess-work and experimentation that it involves. When we meet a new person, part of the fun of getting to know him is learning about his life one story, one moment, at a time. The mystery is fun.

There is so much joy in not knowing, wondering, hypothesizing, guessing, rethinking, and tinkering. If we just throw everything out on the table all at once, we lose the power of context, surprise, and delight. When you’re starting new, it’s worthwhile to consider letting your authenticity seep out a bit a time. Let that new fact about you, your history, and your abilities be fully appreciated morsel by morsel. A bit of suspense and intrigue has made many a work of art all the more interesting to experience. And remember, you’re a work of art, too.

choices, decision-making, fear, Life

Beginning: Somewhere Between Fear and Boredom

Christa Avampato

On Friday I was having a conversation with someone about his varied career practicing law. Though he’s been a lawyer for several decades, his bath is rather unorthodox as he’d practiced in a number of different specialties and now serves as the vice chairman of a large firm. As someone who has had a varied career, I’m always interested in hearing what makes people change course and what has served as their catalyst for change. This lawyer had a very simple answer:

“I chart my career. On the vertical access I’ve got fear and on the horizontal access I’ve got boredom. Every time I started in a new field I’d be all the way in the top left – high fear, no boredom. Over time, I move down the curve of fear and closer to boredom. Once those two cross, I know it’s time to do something else.”

That way of thinking resonates with me, too. I actually enjoy biting off more than I can chew; I get a rush from the doubt of wondering if I can really do what I’ve set out to do. It gives me drive and stokes my determination. It took a long time to get there.

When I worked in company management on Broadway shows and national tours, I had the great privilege of working with Petula Clark on Sunset Boulevard. I always got her meal so she could eat in her dressing room between the two shows on Saturday and Sunday. Sometimes she’d feel chatty so I’d stay and keep her company during dinner. She once asked me if I ever acted. I’d done some college productions and some work in summer stock, though never wanted to pursue the field professionally.

“Why not?” she asked me.

“I have terrible stage fright. I throw up every time before I go on stage,” I said, more than a little embarrassed.

“We’re all a little stage fright, dear,” she said. “The good ones never lose that fear. Keeps us on our toes.”

I liked that idea. I still didn’t want to be an actress and I wasn’t quite sure I believed Petula. She was famously supportive and kind, particularly to young people in the company. I thought she was just saying that to make me feel better. Years later I realized she was absolutely serious. I learned to use my stage fright productively – to help me stay prepared and on point at every turn.

If Petula Clark and this attorney had a conversation about career, I have a feeling they’d see eye-to-eye. The fear we have in starting a new adventure is really quite a gift. It gives us the chance to really feel alive, to feel like we’re taking on something so much bigger than ourselves. We’re going out along our edge to see just how far we can reach. It’s always thrilling to find that the ground out there at the edge is so much more stable that we imagine it to be, and not by happenstance, but because our determination and hard work makes it so.

choices, decision-making, happiness, health

Beginning: Let Your Body Set Your Priorities

Christa Avampato

My cold from last week is persisting, and to some degree worsening. Rather than shocking my body with an overload of cold medicine, I’m riding it out for one very simple reason: the medicine didn’t work because my cold is due to stress, not that nasty little common cold virus.

Last week I had a very upsetting event happen and I literally felt the moment when my mental stress transferred to my body. My throat started to close, then a few days later a full on cold had found its way into my sinuses. My joints filled up with pain and it took a great amount of effort just to walk Phineas last weekend. My body was begging me to listen and if I wouldn’t go willingly, then it would make sure I rested by knocking me out.

There are a few amazing things at play here as I battle this cold of mine:

1.) I have actually heightened my awareness to such a level that I am fully aware of exactly when and how my mental state manifests itself into illness. This is the first time that’s ever happened.

2.) It’s become very clear to me that certain situations in which I’ve put myself and made compromises must come to an end, and quickly. Time is precious and my body and mind have had enough. It’s time to get on with happiness.

3.) This cold has given me quite a bit of time to think and evaluate how I spend my time. I notice that my symptoms wane when I’ve been doing things I truly love and want to do over the past week. My symptoms worsen when I’m doing activities that make me feel like I’m wasting my time. The difference is blatantly clear to me, mentally and physically.

And here’s the big one…

4.) If we’re wondering what to do next, there’s no need to crack out the pro / con list, the decision tree, the horoscope, the I Ching, or any other external device about decision-making. (And I’ve used them all, and frequently!) Stop, close the eye, and listen to the body. It is the ultimate prioritizer, the master of triage. Give it what it needs to be strong and healthy, and you’ll be assured of being on the right path.

The body knows the way. Listen to it.

career, choices, decision-making

Beginning: Spend One Day in Your Ideal Job

Christa Avampato

“What you are is what you have been. What you’ll be is what you do now.” ~ Buddha

You and I have been doing some soul-searching. In Mary Oliver’s beautiful words, we’ve been working hard to figure out what to do with our “one wild and precious life”. Yesterday I wrote about being at a crossroads in defining my soul’s work, and I’ve been spending a lot of time laying the foundation for Compass Yoga. Yesterday, I lived a day in my ideal job running Compass, and it was by all measures one of the happiest working days of my life. This is no small revelation.

I started out the morning at a reasonable time without feeling rushed – I walked Phineas, got ready, had some breakfast and was able to spend a few moments in meditation to prepare for the day ahead. I then went to meet with a group of attorneys who will potentially take Compass Yoga on as a client in their pro bono practice. I took away a few key items and decisions to speak about with the board when we convene for our first meeting in a couple of weeks. Then I gave a presentation on how yoga and meditation alleviate the body’s stress response at a men’s health fair at Jericho Project, a nonprofit partner that provides assistance to the homeless and like Compass has a particular interest in helping returning veterans.

It was a very good day, an ideal, fulfilling career day. And this got me to thinking, “Why couldn’t every one of my work days feel like this?” The answer of course is they can be, given certain decisions that I am on the doorstep of making. It was a motivating experience.

This day in my ideal job gave me a whole new perspective and new confidence in pursuing my entrepreneurial path. I felt such a sense of peace and satisfaction on this road. Even at a couple junctures when there was a bit of stress, it dissipated quickly and completely. I didn’t go running for the hills when the work day was done. I just eased into my evening. It’s been too long since I had a work day wrap up like that. I must remember Buddha’s wise advice – what I do now, today, becomes the basis for who I am tomorrow.

Give it a whirl
Maybe you have an idea of how you’d like to spend your work days. Maybe you have an idea of a venture you’d like to consider. Is it the right path for you? Should you leave behind your current job? Perhaps. My advice would be to take a day off and really live that ideal career day. See how it goes. Your body will tell you if you’re on the right path. Listen to it, and let me know how it unfolds.

choices, decision-making, fate, future, work, writing, yoga

Beginning: Protecting the Crossroads

Christa Avampato

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both, and be one traveler long I stood, and looked down one as far as I could…knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back…Two roads diverged in a wood, and I — I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” ~ Robert Frost

While on vacation I started and finished reading the book Hanuman: The Devotion and Power of the Monkey God. Since beginning a deep study of yoga philosophy about a year and a half ago, I have felt very close to Hanuman. A tiny monkey, he is the most loyal servant of Lord Rama. The child’s version of the story of Hanuman is that he leapt across the world to rescue Sita, Lord Rama’s wife, when she was captured by the enemy during a long and brutal war. The truth is a bit more complicated, as truths tend to be.

In incredible detail, the book elaborates on the story of Hanuman, his dual-characteristics of great devotion and great might, his ability to be a fierce warrior and to lay in wait when that is what’s needed, and his dark and light sides. I had envisioned him as an adorable and adoring little monkey. He is so much more.

I won’t spoil the story for you – you should read the beautiful prose that author Vanamali lays out in exquisite detail. What I do want to share in this post is a role that Hanuman plays that i never knew before reading this book. He is the protector of the crossroads, those places in-between in our lives, the transitions. Ironic (or perhaps just synchronous) that I would learn this now when I feel that I am at such a huge junction in both my personal and professional lives, as I craft a living and a life with Compass Yoga.

In my daily meditations for the past few months, I have felt change arriving slowly, like a light slowly rising, like a clearer vision coming into focus that honors my experience and celebrates my potential offering to humanity. While I am crafting an extraordinary life, I am fully aware that I am also lovingly building a legacy. This is my soul’s work.

In my meditations I have heard a faint and distant voice conveying what I know is very important, though I cannot yet decipher its exact words. I think maybe it has been Hanuman unrolling the map of the decisions I must make, laying out the carpet that takes two directions of which I must choose one.

Joseph Campbell is famous for elucidating the hero’s journey, a choice between two roads that is never easy. Both roads contain trade-offs, good and bad experiences, joy and sorrow, pain and freedom, light and dark. Our goal is not to choose the “right” road, but to choose the “right road for us”. I am at the crossroads, but Hanuman is here with me and so I don’t have to be alone or afraid in my choosing. He will protect and defend while I decide. He will do the same for you, too, and you should take great comfort in that. A bit of help makes the choosing easier, right?