Category: friendship

friendship, relationships, work

Step 53: The Gift of Clans

Christa Avampato

“Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family. Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one.” ~Jane Howard, British actress, model and novelist

This past week, I’ve been getting emails and phone calls from so many incredible people I worked with in my former position, and it was only then that I realized the impact my work had on others. My dear friend and co-worker, Lon, sent me this message, “I’m so proud of you! You are amazing. Knock ’em dead! I’m probably not your biggest fan (cause you have so many – and then, there is always your Mother – who can beat a Mother for fan-dom?) but I’m big and you are wonderful.” How can you ever fully thank someone for that kind of support? I did a little dance of gratefulness upon seeing this email in my inbox.

Today was my first day on the new job. As I sat in meetings today and worked through the volumes of information that I need to master to get up-to-speed, I realized how exciting it is to be behind the curve, with so much learning out ahead of me, and with so many people who are excited for me to get all of this new info straight in my head. At one point, almost everyone in one of my meetings had their smartphones of some variety out on the tables, and we were all comparing different capabilities across different platforms. We talked about social media and how to provide the best possible experience for our customers. We hashed what would be cool and useful, in balance with what was possible for roll-outs phase 1, 2, and 3. This is a dream assignment, not only because I love the work, but also because I think I found a new clan to take me in this new direction of my career.

In each area of our lives, we need a clan. Among our friends, at work, in our community, in our respective hobbies and interests. We need people cheering for us, and we need people we can cheer for. A clan makes everything in life easier, and we can accomplish more as a result of them being in our lives. With social media, our clan can certainly be online in different corners of the world. On this blog, in my city, among my friends, at my yoga studio, and in each interest area that I have I feel so much love and support from my clans. And I do everything I can think of to return the tremendous gift of their care and concern.

This post today is dedicated to all the members of my clans, to tell you how much I value and appreciate everything you’ve done for me, and to underscore the sentiment that I’m standing at the ready, always, to send that support and love back at you!

friendship, social media

Step 13: Off the Screen, Into the World

Christa Avampato

My involvement of social media has led to some amazing friendships in my life. I’m certainly better off for them because they inspire me, support me, and keep me going in pursuit of my dreams. My friends, Col, Laura, Phyllis, Amanda, and the lovely ladies of Owning Pink are examples of this phenomenon. There are amazing people across the globe who are my kindred spirits, and social media has allowed me to connect with them.

One of my favorite outcomes of this process is getting to meet these amazing virtual people in person, when I get to read their witticisms online, and then realize they are even more fantastic in person. Tonight I got to meet up with Amanda, one of my favorite social media friendship success stories. Long-considering a move to New York City, Amanda began looking for creativity focused blogs by New York City authors. Amanda found my blog via random search, and then we discovered that we went to the same college, graduated the same year, loved yoga, performed, and were writers. Tonight we got to meet in-person for the first time, and 2.5 hours later, we still had loads to say. What a great feeling!

There’s been a lot of criticism of social media because some consider it so impersonal. “It’s replacing real-world interaction,” some people say. “People spend too much time in front of a computer and not enough time living their lives,” others say. Both valid arguments, though I’ve found such a rich, contrary existence in social media. It’s allowed me to connect with people whom I may never have met otherwise, people who enrich my life and share my sensibilities and dreams. Social media’s brought me friendships I never expected, and for that I am incredibly grateful!

friendship

Step 12: Old Friends

Christa Avampato

Last night, I stopped over at my friend Ben’s house for his annual Winter Party. It’s been about three years since I’ve seen him. We are friends from my way-back days in theatre and he’s been successfully touring around the country ever since. He’s back in town now and so the Winter Party resumed this year. At the party, I saw two other friends, August and Jessica, from the same tour that Ben and I worked on. It had been many more years since I’d seen them. I laughed out loud so many times that I lost count. I was reminded at how much I love rekindling old friendships. It feels good to know they’ve been out in the world, active and happy, and that we can pick up where we left off.

On my way home, I thought about other people I’ve lost touch with over the years, despite our best efforts. It’s to be expected as people’s lives move forward, and I’ve also changed jobs and cities quite a bit. With the advent of social media it’s now so much easier to be in touch and keep track of people we love having in our lives. I’m so grateful for that. In the past year I’ve been fortunate to find so many people again, and am always amazed how similar the tracks of our lives are, despite the distance. It’s been a true gift to reconnect.

I can’t help but think that some of these connections are coming back into my life at just the right time: that we’ll be working on projects together, supporting one another in our dreams and ambitions, or even just providing one another with a good laugh and a thoughtful ear. It’s so much easier to build an extraordinary life when we connect with and surround ourselves with extraordinary people.

career, courage, friendship

Step 7: Nothing Left to Lose

Christa Avampato

A friend of mine is making his final pitch tomorrow. In a job that he’s grown tired of, and quite frankly is far too talented for, he’s going to the powers-that-be (and I use the word powers very lightly) to see if he can get funding for a project that interests him. The chance to work on this project is the only reason he would stay at the job. Otherwise, he’s leaving to get his own business going. His bravery inspires me.

My friend has been looking to make this move for a while, though like so many he wanted to do the reasonable, responsible thing in a difficult economy. At a time when so many are out of work, he was nervous about voluntarily leaving his job. As much as some economists will tout that the recession is over, there are many dissenting voices who say it will be a long, slow climb out of this hole. So what changed for my friend? How did he make a change within his own mind when little around him has changed? Where did his boldness come from?

“Well, Christa, I have nothing left to lose now,” he told me today. “This is the only project on the table that interests me and if I can’t work on it, then I’ve got to make myself useful somewhere else. I just can’t stay where I am anymore.”

On the phone today, I was bursting with pride for my friend. He flipped that switch, recognized and embraced his own talents, and recognized how they could be used in his current situation. More importantly, he realized that if his gifts couldn’t be utilized where he is then he has to make use of them somewhere else. Leaving them unused is no longer an option in his own heart.

To be sure, in the last few weeks leading up to this decision he has at times felt completely terrified. I’d argue that this means he’s really on to something here. It’s amazing what we can accomplish when we realize that the direction of our lives really is up to us.

design, friendship, innovation

My Year of Hopefulness – Find Your "T"

Christa Avampato

This morning on the plane home I read an article from Stanford’s Social Innovation Review entitled “Design Thinking for Social Innovation” by IDEO‘s Tim Brown and Jocelyn Wyatt. In the article the talk about looking for team members who have their own “T”. The vertical line of the “T” is each team member’s unique skill or knowledge that they bring to a cross-functional team and the horizontal line of the “T” is a shared set of characteristics that all of the team members share: empathy, respect for the unique talents of others, openness, curiosity, optimism, a tendency to learn by doing, and experimentation.


I like this approach to team-building because it inherently incorporates diversity into the structure of a successful team while also making sure that team members are cut from the same cloth at a very basic human values level. I also think it’s a healthy recipe for building out friendships and relationships in our lives, as well as a good strategy for building a family. It’s a formula for accumulating a set of good-hearted, talented people. And isn’t that the kind of people we’d all like to surround ourselves with?


How does one go about building a personal “T”? Can empathy, curiosity, and optimism be taught or are these traits we must be born with? Can we build an education system that instills and nurtures these values into our children at the very beginning of their learning years? I’d like to think that we’re all born curious, and I’d like to think that our natural creative, empathic nature is so strong that even if we have lost our way, these tendencies can be recovered and strengthened.


And what about that vertical in the “T”? How do we discover what makes us special? Is that something special about each of us something we are born with or is it something that we learn? And can it be changed throughout our lives? I believe that the answer is a resounding “yes” on all counts. My special trait is my storytelling, my writing. While I have a natural inclination for this, it requires practice. I certainly wasn’t born knowing how to write well. I needed to put a lot of time and effort into it, though because I enjoyed it and saw a rapid rate of improvement with my practice, I was encouraged to become an even better writer.


I’ve seen this same pattern with every person in my life: my brother-in-law who is a fine painter, my friend, Kelly, who is a master project manager, my friend, Ken, who is a beautiful dancer and a gifted physical therapy assistant, my friend, Brooke, who is one of the most promising young acting talents on television, and my friend and mentor, Richard, who is one of the most successful and talented fundraisers in the nonprofit field. Incidentally, they all have a fabulous sense of humor and are some of the kindest people I’ve ever met.


I suppose that there are Mozarts and Einsteins among us, walking around, born brilliant, born as prodigies. I just don’t know any. All of the brilliant people in my life, and I am very fortunate to have many, have found and leveraged their “T” because they have worked hard at something they love. And they’re better off for this because their hard work also gives them the empathy and appreciation they need to be not only brilliant, but to be imbued with hearts of gold. Their “T”s are apparent in every part of their lives. They give me an example to strive for and are my greatest reason for hope.

dreams, family, friendship, future, thankful, thanksgiving

My Year of Hopefulness – More Thankful Than Ever

Christa Avampato

“A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue, but the parent of all the other virtues.” ~ Cicero


This Thanksgiving is a particularly special one for me. All week I have been with my family in Florida, playing and laughing and cooking, grateful for all of this time with them. I’ve never spent this much time with them over the holidays. In a year that has been so difficult, in a year when I came very close to not being here at all, I can hardly think of something I’m not grateful for. This Thanksgiving was a big milestone for me because I have been using it as a marker to a time I wanted to get to, a time when I would be in a position to make some big decisions about my life going forward. And this week I have – applying to a PhD program, formulating my own business plan, signing up for a full yoga teacher certification course. Life is looking grand from this side of Thanksgiving.

Today I am very thankful for my family and friends and mentors, people who have not only been supporting me through this difficult year, but also encouraging me to get the most out of my time here.
Earlier this week Weez and I went to the grocery store to do some Thanksgiving shopping and we talked about the fire in my apartment building. I told her how that event really eradicated any fear I have about all aspects of my future; when you almost don’t get a tomorrow, every day is gravy so I might as well get on with doing exactly what I want to do with my days. No more compromises. There’s no sense in waiting. She agreed, as has everyone in my life that I’ve talked to about this experience. That fire made every day Thanksgiving for me.

I’m grateful for my health and my ability to imagine a new future with new dreams. Surprisingly, I’m thankful for all that I lost this year because it has made me so grateful for what I have. It cleaned out my life and made room for a drastically better future than the life I was living. It made me realize that a lot of good can be created from something terrible so long as we have the right attitude, so long as we embrace the idea that everything we live through can be an opportunity for learning, for strength, for love. It’s this learning, strength, and love that I am most thankful for and I plan to use this thankfulness to bring these new dreams of mine to life.
career, change, dreams, friendship, risk

My Year of Hopefulness – Safety in Change

Christa Avampato

“It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power.” ~ Alan Cohen

My friend, Rob, and I were talking about safety a few weeks ago. Rob talked to me about how we’ve conned ourselves into believing that a company, a job, can give us some feeling of security and stability when really it’s a house of cards. I’ve seen it happen to so many of my friends – they are cranking along in their jobs, exhibiting exceptional performance and results, and then the pink slip. Rob’s advice on my news of moving on: “You’ve done the hard part: making the choice to step outside the box that hems one in, and keeps one from dreaming bigger dreams…know you are supported from many quadrants. More as it goes…”

I emailed some friends about my impending jump off the cliff. I told them that it feels great to have made this decision, though my friend, Eric, in his characteristic empathy sensed that I’m scared. And then in his continuing characteristic empathy, he responded : “Don’t worry, Christa – I already hit rock bottom underneath that cliff – so I’ll be there to catch you!” Not at all surprising since Eric honestly saved my life as I muddled through my MBA. My friend Laura simply responded “I am 150000% behind you.” My friend, Allan, said “You are very brave and thoughtful.” These are the very messages I needed today to lift me up.

When I think about finding security and stability, I’m reminded that it’s in our friends and family and in the chance we take on our own abilities that we can find a haven. The safest route for me is not to stand on that cliff hoping that it doesn’t crumble beneath me; it’s to jump, knowing that friends like Rob, Eric. Laura, and so many others are there to catch me if I need catching. They are the ones I can place my faith and trust in.

My friend, Jamie, finished up his last day at his job today. We went for a celebratory dinner, yummy cheap Thai food around the corner from my apartment at Sura. We toasted to our new adventures, to our choice to be free and to build the lives we want to live. And while there is still that underlying ripple of fear of the unknown, fear of what’s next, there is also a tremendous sense of excitement, of realizing that we are on the edge of becoming more ourselves.

I was reminded all day today, through so many different channels, that in September I came very close to never getting a tomorrow. I stood on West 96th Street, watching smoke billow out of my building, realizing I was living a life of great comfort and little meaning. That great “what if” hangs over my head every day, and rather than being plagued by it, I am so grateful for it. What if I hadn’t made it out of that building? What if that was the end? Could I have looked back on September 4th and said, “yes, I’m so glad that I was living that life?” No – not at all. In that moment, change became not an option, but an inevitability, and it’s been driving me forward, upward, and onward toward a life lived with greater meaning, greater purpose, every day since.

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

celebration, friendship, love, relationships, silence

My Year of Hopefulness – The Power of Silence

Christa Avampato

“Let us love, since our heart is made for nothing else.” ~ St. Therese

I have completely lost my voice to this cold I have been fighting. I can barely eek out an audible whisper. This is especially hilarious because talking is one of my favorite activities. Truly, I’ve been known to have a very interesting conversation with a brick wall. I talk to myself in my apartment, as I’m working through problems. I have lots and lots of opinions on just about everything. And now I have been silenced.

I was in DC this weekend with a load of my business school friends for our friends’ Chris and Steph’s wedding. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a groom that happy. Seriously, if Chris’s smile was any wider his face would have cracked. It was wonderful to see someone I love so much so happy.

After the wedding and reception, my voice was really getting hoarse. The trouble with this sore throat is that it is not currently accompanied by any other symptoms. I feel fine; I just sound a little funny. Actually, I sound a lot funny. To get the blood flowing in my throat, I went to a yoga class with my friend, Julie, at 9am. I always learn so much going to a yoga class. I watch for teaching technique and I invariably learn a new pose or a new way of thinking about a pose that allows me to deepen my practice and teaching.

In Savasana, corpse pose, I was completely relaxed, or so I thought. Savasana is done at the end of virtually every yoga practice. It allows our bodies and minds to approach a meditative state after being worked through the preceding asanas. People have become so relaxed in Savasana that they’ve been known to fall into a sleep / dream state.

The teacher came around to each of us, pressing our shoulders firmly to the mat and down away from our ears. Until she did this, I didn’t realize that I was holding any tension there at all. In fact, I was scrunching up my heart a bit. With the teacher’s pressure, my heart opened with a little bit of a creak and a crack. I felt lighter. I felt a bit more love.

It is an amazing thing about silence and time with friends and yoga and the witnessing of an act of love and commitment. In the past few months, I have been shown how risky and wonderful loving with an open heart can be. I looked around at the wedding reception: at Chris and Steph, of course, and also at my friends Daphne and Eric, and Courtney and Brian, also newly married this year. Their lives are richer for having one another. There is this unspoken chemistry that just works with all of them. At some point, they must have all been a little bit scared, too, maybe afraid to keep their hearts open. Somehow, they worked through that fear and emerged happy and healthy and whole to find another person happy and healthy and whole with an open heart ready to love them.

Today I felt more certain than ever that eventually I’d find the guy for me. That creaking and cracking of my heart was symbolic of that openness I’ve been able to find in the second half of this year. In the midst of my forced silence and voluntary yoga practice, my heart and my mind came together, my mind accepting that this heart o’ mine after being put through the fire many times is now shined and polished and poised for the kind of love and commitment that so many of my friends have generously shown can work.

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

dreams, failure, friendship, mistakes, success

My Year of Hopefulness – The Blessing of Mistakes

Christa Avampato

“A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.” ~ James Joyce, Irish novelist, from Ulysses

The passing of time can be a frustrating thing. We may spend time on one activity that leads us to a dead-end when we could have spent that time on something that would have lead us to a success. It’s easy to become overwhelmed by how many ways we have to spend our time; so many in fact that we might feel that no matter how much we love what we’re doing, we could always be doing something that would make us even happier. The odd paradox of choice, as Barry Schwartz calls it. Too many opportunities leads us to too many opportunity costs. These increased opportunity costs are beginning to effect the way we view failure and mistakes.

Rather than valuable learning tools, we might be tempted to view them as a waste of time. Why should I try and fail and learn when there are so many other things I could be trying and possibly succeeding at? And yet we know that failure is a part of this life. We have to fail. We have to stretch ourselves well beyond our comfort zones, well beyond even the most optimistic view of our own abilities. If we don’t push our limits and fail, then we’ll never know exactly how much we can achieve. Unrealized achievement that was within our grasp had we pushed a little harder is far worse than failure.

I think about failure a lot. In terms of jobs and relationships and pursuits I’ve considered, even in places where I moved and tried to make a home. Sometimes I feel badly about all my failures, and then I consider so many of my brave friends and family who just refused to let fear stand in their way. My friend, Phyllis, who just today wrote to me and said she left her job to focus on her own business full-time. “I’m secretly scared sh*tless,” she said. “I think that’s probably fairly normal for anyone who quits a well-paying job in this crappy economy.” I agree. And I’m so proud of her and inspired by her actions.

My friend, Allan, has a good paying job, albeit a little boring for him. He had the opportunity to continue with a new assignment there – one he could certainly do if he could just resign himself to not liking the job. Instead, he’s taking a risk and going back to school for a graduate degree in mathematics, his greatest passion.

I have a few friends who are getting married next year. And guess what? They’re all scared, too. They’re afraid of failing, of being hurt, of hurting someone else. They’re afraid of letting other people down, of wasting someone else’s time. They’re afraid they aren’t enough. When I asked them if they really thought this was a good idea, to be getting married, they all said yes unequivocally. “Marriage,” one of them said to me, “is the greatest leap of faith there is. We can be afraid of failure. We just can’t let it prevent us from going after happiness.”

What if we could think of failure as a blessing? What if we could seek out failure as a great teacher? And what if we opened up our hearts and minds and accepted and forgave our own failures and the failures of others, too? Would that kind of acceptance and forgiveness make the failures easier to bear and the successes that much sweeter to earn?

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

friendship, hope, letter, loss, nature, women, writing

My Year of Hopefulness – Owning Pink’s Tribute

Christa Avampato

I usually only publish one hopeful inspiration per day on this blog. Today is special for a lot of reasons, so I’m publishing two.

One month ago today, my apartment building caught fire, and set off a month of changes in my life that I never saw coming. Quite, frankly, none of them were changes I wanted. They were uncomfortable, sad changes that made me question everything in my life. Everything. One month ago today, at this very moment, I ran out of my burning building, fire crackling underneath my kitchen floor. I was standing on the street with nothing but my keys, watching my building burn. I was crying, scared, and alone. And much to my surprise, I emerged from this month, today, a stronger, happier, more confident person than I ever was before.

So it is with such heart-felt thanks I wanted to pay a big Pink tribute to a group of women who are one of the very best parts of my life. Today my lovely friends, Lissa and Joy, over at Owning Pink, an on-line community I belong to, honored me by making one of my recent blog posts, a letter I wrote to October, their mainstage story. I barely know what to say. I had no idea that my little post would inspire such beautiful writing from others women whom I respect and admire so much. I cried when I read the story that Joy and Lissa wrote about my post. I really don’t have any words to tell them how honored and fortunate I feel to have them in my life.

Today I realized with clarity how much good we have to offer by sharing our stories. One of my favorite quotes is by Isak Dinesen: “All sorrows can be borne if you can put them into a story.” I am living proof of this. As the telling of our stories frees us, they also allow others to free themselves through their own writing. The ladies of Owning Pink also made me realize without a doubt that I can make a go-of-it as a full-time writer. It’s a gift that I am not sure how to repay.

Owning Pink is a community I am so fortunate to be a part of. They have gone above and beyond the call for me during the last few weeks of my life that have been so difficult. Their love and support is a gift in my life that I truly cherish and I look forward to being there for them in the months and years ahead. Here’s to a beautiful, enlightened October for all of us!

To view the story on Owning Pink’s website please visit:
http://www.owningpink.com/2009/10/05/mojo-monday-exercise-write-a-letter-to-october/