Category: Obama

books, Obama, politics

Step 11: It’s the Little Things

Christa Avampato

“Let’s not forget that the little emotions are the great captains of our lives and we obey them without realizing it.” ~ Vincent Van Gogh

It’s easy to pay attention to the big emotions of our lives: Falling in love, grief from losing a loved one, pride for a hard-won accomplishment, or disappointment caused by betrayal. There’s no way to avoid those huge swells, positive or negative, because they take over our lives. Reading this Van Gogh quote made me think about all those tiny emotions that we feel at every moment, and that often pass by unconsciously: frustration at getting on a crowded subway car, wincing at the sting of the cold weather, gratitude when someone holds the door open for us, and joy from an encouraging message from a friend. These smaller emotions, while less significant in size, can add up to a great deal of our happiness quotient.

How do we feel about lives in the empty moments, when nothing particularly emotional is happening, when our lives are just humming along without any type of massive shift? In those quiet moments, we get a sense of our base emotions and attitude. The trick is to recognize and appreciate that empty moment. With all of the opportunities to fill up empty space, it’s easy to avoid ever having an empty moment. The empty moments are important because they allow us to take stock of the little emotions; they let us get a sense of where we are on the happiness curve.

On the way to work this morning, I was thinking about how we handle the constant tweaks of the little emotions that every day circumstances cause. Because I just interviewed Sasha Abramsky, author of Inside Obama’s Brain, I’ve been considering Obama as a role model for how to conduct our daily lives. Whenever Obama is thrown a curve ball, and isn’t quite sure how to react, he smiles. We can observe this behavior in his debates, during his press conferences, and during one-on-one media interviews. The smile lets him pause, gather his thoughts, and remain outwardly composed in the process.

This tactic gives him the opportunity to work through his small emotions, rather than having to obey them. And he looks good all the way through the process: he looks as if nothing ever phases him and provides a thoughtful, articulate response. A wonderful example to manage the little emotions we all experience.

economy, Obama, writer

My Year of Hopefulness – We are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For

Christa Avampato

We have been waiting for someone to save us. We have said,”Once Barack Obama becomes President, he will save us.” “Once the government gets us a stimulus package, we will be saved.” “My company will protect my job.”

Truthfully, no one is coming to save us. Not Barack Obama, not Ben Bernanke and a stimulus package, not corporate America. So stop waiting. We need to stop standing on our doorsteps, timid and scared to take a step outside to see how the world has changed. We need to stop waiting for our neighbors, our friends, our family members, our companies, our government to make a move only so we can follow suit.

We are the ones who must move. We must take action and change and grow and learn and be brave. Our world has changed. This is not a cycle. There is a fundamental shift, a step-change, that has occurred in our markets and it is not reversible.

We can only look forward. Don’t look back over your shoulder; there is nothing left to see. We have spent our time mourning, and now we must begin living again. As the author Alice Walker so beautifully, simply, and powerfully put it, “We are the ones we have been waiting for.”

In case you didn’t hear and see Ms. Walker deliver her beautiful letter to President Obama (just before his inauguration), and to the nation as a whole, click here.

The image above can be found here.

change, hope, Obama, social change, social entrepreneurship

My Year of Hopefulness – The Power of Intention

Christa Avampato

This year, I’d really like to get my writing out in front of a larger audience. On January 20th, I was inspired by President Obama who believed in himself, believed in us, and called us to take action. He empowered us to change our lives, change our country and our world. “If it has to be, then it is up to me.” I took this to heart as I watched him take the oath of office. First, I jumped around and did a little dance for joy, and then I set about looking for a part-time blogging gig. 


With the enormous need for content generation, there are a lot of blogging opportunities out there. Most of the ones I found are non-paid, though I found one fairly quickly with Examiner.com, an on-line newspaper with city-specific news that spans a number of areas from art to food to business, and everything in between. It pays its reporters, Examiners, by click which is a fair and reasonable system and in New York, they had a need in their Business Section. Perfect. Exactly what I want to write about. So I pitched to them my angle on entrepreneurship, specifically social entrepreneurship, and the power it has to transform society. They liked the pitch and several days later I got the job. My first posts will appear this week and I’ll put up a short post on this blog every week to reveal the week’s topic and give a very brief overview of what will be up on Examiner.com.

After applying for the Examiner.com post, I put the last few stamps on 8 letters I had written to social entrepreneurs whom I admire. At my friend, Richard’s, urging I composed the letters rather than taking a class on the subject. “Just go out there and talk to people doing the work,” he told me. So I walked out my door to the mail drop box on the corner, said a little prayer, and dropped the letters in. Three days later, I received an email from Pat Christen, the CEO and President of HopeLab, a organization in California that built the video game, Re-mission, to help kids fight cancer. She invited me to come visit when I’m in the Bay Area and we’re in the process of setting up a date and time. (Pam Omidyar, the co-founder of HopeLab, will speak at TED next week.)

These two experience taught me about the power of intention. It is fine to hope for fortuitous events, turns of good luck, and the realization of a dream. But after we acknowledge that hope, it’s time to roll up our sleeves and get to work. My mom loves the saying, “God helps those who help themselves.” Hope does, too. If we want change, particularly social change, the journey is best started by looking in the mirror and asking ourselves the question, “What am I willing to do to make a difference?”  
government, hope, Obama, politics

My Year of Hopefulness – The Gift of Obama

Christa Avampato

There are many articles that will be written today regarding the inauguration of Barack Obama. January 20, 2009 will be referenced for decades to come as the day that the US turned the corner and found light in all the darkness. It was the day when we all came together to lift the heavy burden of the dismal economy, multiple wars, a crumbling environment, a healthcare system in tatters, and an education system that needs serious attention. It will be known as the day that we began to rise up and over obstacles that for so long have shackled us to bad policies and petty grievances. It will be remembered as the day when our inspiration and creativity was alighted again and never to be put out. A miracle of hope and faith and belief that we can and we will lift ourselves out of the muck, and reach down to help others out, too.  


I will remember it as a day when my confidence soared because I watched a man who believed in himself and in all of us so that he could overcome centuries, literally centuries, of deep discrimination, prejudice, and injustice. The son of an African immigrant, a continent largely forgotten by our foreign policies, received a top-flight education and ascended to our country’s highest office and honor. And he did this with the small contributions of help and time and dedication by hundreds of millions of common people just trying to get by. He rallied us to make us believe that each of our individual voices could and should and would make a difference if we could all get going in the same direction. He won the Presidency by winning our hearts and our minds and our spirits.

Today we received a great gift – a talented, trustworthy, empathic leader whom we can look to for guidance and support. He believes in us as much as we believe in him. And it’s with that mutual respect that we will be able to turn our country around, eventually. Lend your voice at http://www.whitehouse.gov
government, hope, Obama, politics

A Perfect Union

Christa Avampato

Can you feel the excitement and anticipation and trembling from joy in America and around the world? Everywhere you look, no matter who you speak to, there is this wonderful sense of hope. I am watching scenes from Washington D.C. on the news and so wishing that I was there with everyone to share in this moment. Thank goodness for television and the Internet that will let us bear witness no matter where we are tomorrow.


We are in the last hours of the Bush administration. Tomorrow night at this time he will be back in Texas, his long eight years as our President having come to an end. My mother has a saying that I have had to repeat to myself almost daily for 8 years, “This too shall pass.” She’s right – it did. It was arduous and painful, but it did pass. I would feel a bit bad for the man if he hadn’t so completely decimated our country and left it in such a state to hand over to Barack Obama. Now I am just grateful to finally big him farewell. 

Four years ago, I was living in Washington, D.C., working for an environmental nonprofit. I was crying on that inauguration day. I had just finished reading “Dreams of My Father” and tried very hard to convince myself that Barack Obama was elected not as a Senator from Illinois but as our President. Four years later, it is an awesome thing to realize that that wish has been answered. 

Last night, NBC replayed the SNL Presidential Bash episode. In all of the excitement about Obama’s election, I had forgotten what a long-shot he was for most of the past two years. He an unlikely choice – inexperienced, too young, not accomplished enough. Now he is about to become the most popular President in history because he gave a voice to people who had been silenced for so long – the young, the disgruntled, minorities, middle and lower-middle class, the poor, and those who never had any kind of interest in politics or candidates. He not only got them to listen, he got them to rally. He got them to all go in one direction. And all the while, “experts” and “insiders” doubt him publicly. He believed and he made us believe. And he got us to not only believe in him, but more importantly to believe in us. 

If there is one lesson that his election has taught us it is the incredible belief that possibility is only limited by leadership and empathy. In my early career I was trained that hope was useless – only hard work ever got anyone anywhere. Barack Obama changed that for me – he showed me that hope is a powerful motivator, a powerful tool that can help someone create something from nothing. He awakened in me a new sense of commitment and creativity and conviction. He made me feel lucky and proud to live in these times. 

Congressman John Lewis gave a very powerful interview with Brian Williams tonight. Congressman Lewis describes his feelings about the Obama inauguration and what it means to him having marched on Wachington with Dr. Martin Luther King. 6 minutes long, elegant, and emotional. And his quote that most stands out to me is, “To see this event, this achievement, it was all worth it.”
career, economy, entrepreneurship, hope, Obama, work

Dreamers and Doers

Christa Avampato

Big companies are announcing layoffs right and left, and those who do keep their jobs are being asked to do evermore work without any pay increase, bonus, or title promotion. We have felt very secure at big companies because in large part they have taken good care of their people and rewarded loyalty. With this latest downturn, we are seeing people with 10+ years of service turned out, replaced by younger and less expensive employees. The game has changed.


Here is the reason for hope in all of this economic mess. Maybe, finally, people will begin working very hard for themselves and not for these large companies. Perhaps we will begin to place more trust and faith in ourselves than we do in these behemoth organizations. One observation my former boss, Bob, made about a year ago is that the difference between generations these days is that young people, by and large, will bet on themselves rather than bet on a corporation to make their careers. 

In today’s New York Times there is an article entitled “Dreamers and Doers” that discusses entrepreneurship programs and classes on college campuses. They have experienced double digit growth in the past few years, and some colleges like Babson have become known for their entrepreneurship programs.

It is my greatest wish for the economy of 2009 that all of this corporate downsizing sparks a surge in entrepreneurship and innovation by small companies. Will giant corporations that have long dominated the business landscape go the way of the dinosaurs? Maybe. Think of all the talented, capable, well-educated people that are now being laid off. If they banded together to create something new, leaving behind the saddle of corporate politics and bureaucracy, couldn’t they be more productive? 

Supporting small business may be President Obama’s shortest road to economic recovery, and we would all be better off for it.   
career, corporation, education, job, magazine, Obama, Penn, work

A victory for generalists

Christa Avampato

Change at a fast pace can be disconcerting. 2 years ago, I was in the middle of my second (and last) year of graduate school. I knew I’d be doing an off-grounds job search, and my only criteria for my next employer was that I be treated with respect and be in New York City. Beyond that, the options were endless. I was grateful for a (seemingly) strong economy that allowed me to take my time to find the right match.


I was exploring a myriad of options, networking with alum in all stages of their careers and in different industries. I was explaining to one of my career counselors that I really enjoyed having a job where I wore a number of different hats. He looked at me quizzically. He is one of those people who really prefers to file people into neat little boxes. Needless-to-say, I cannot be confined to a neat little box of any kind when it comes to my career. (Mind you, this career counselor convinced the majority of my classmates to become investment bankers and management consultants and we see how that story’s gone in the last few months…) After I explained my varied work experience to him and employment possibilities I was considering he said to me, “Well, Christa, eventually we all have to decide what we want to be when we grow up. We can’t stay generalists forever.” Little did he, or I, know that being a generalist is just about the best thing I could be in the job market that would exist 2 years later. 

I walked away feeling a little badly about myself and my life. Maybe I was aimless; maybe I was like one of those little kids raiding her mother’s closet and wearing grown-up clothes that are 5 sizes too big. I was masquerading as a grown-up, with no intention of actually ever growing up. I am happy with my own special brand of optimistic realism. Fittingly, I went to work for a toy company right after graduation whose motto is, “I don’t want a grow up. I’m a ….” You get the idea. I found my place in the world being exactly who I am.

Surprisingly to that career counselor of mine, though no to me, being a generalist is what is savings me (furiously knocking on wood) right now in this economy. My broad-based experience is allowing me to play many different roles on one stage – I can do whatever task needs to be done at the time it needs to be done. And that’s true of many people I work with. It also happens to be true of President-elect Obama – his broad-based experience allowed him to speak genuinely to people from many different walks of life. His honesty, humility, and ability to emotionally connect with so many people and bring them together played a large part in his victory. It also helps that he’s brilliant, confident, and capable. He is a generalist at heart. 

This week, my Penn alumni magazine ran an article by President Amy Guttman entitled “A Pitch for the Uncharted Path” that described her speech at this year’s convocation. Like me, she meandered across a whole host of disciplines as an undergraduate, stopping to inspect anything and everything that interested her. And now she is Penn’s President, a job that could only be filled by a infinitely-curious generalist. She encouraged the newly matriculated class to be open to the possibilities that will be set before them in the coming four years. Being a person who has wanted to be everything from a champion dog breeder to an astronaut, I whole-heartedly agree. 

Our world is complex, and to get into the thick of it and make a positive impact, we have to appreciate every shred of that complexity. The best way to gain that appreciation is to live our lives in many different directions, on many different planes. Yes, this is a time that “a genius wants to live.” And it wouldn’t hurt if that genius also moonlighted as a generalist. 
books, government, history, Obama, politics

A time for geniuses

Christa Avampato

Traditionally, grade A educations have been more prevalent in elite, affluent circles. But the tide may be turning on that trend – Obama could do for high-quality education what Target did for design. He could make it desired by, and possible for, all.


This past week I had lunch one day with a group of people I don’t know well. We were discussing the election and one of my lunch companions said, “Who would ever want to be President at a time like this?” This morning, I was watching Meet the Press. Doris Kearns Goodwin, Presidential historian and author of Team of Rivals, quoted Abigail Adams when asked about how Obama will govern with all of the problems he is facing. “These are times that a genius wants to live.” If only I had access to that quote during my lunch. 

And the same could be said of anyone who runs any kind of team, any kind of company. The challenge, the fun is rolling up our sleeves when things are messy and in disarray and setting them straight again. It’s in the churn that we find our new direction. Abigail Adams was right — this is a time that a genius wants to live. And I would add, it is also a time when a genius wants to lead. Thank goodness we had the sense and foresight to elect one.      

career, corporation, leader, leadership, New York Times, Obama, politics, Thomas Friedman

The value of and quest for alignment

Christa Avampato

I walked around all day today with a smile from ear to ear because this morning I woke up more hopeful about our future than ever before. The afterglow of the election was shining brightly on people’s faces everywhere I went – at work, on the subway, in the grocery store. Construction workers at ground zero, my co-workers, doormen of apartment buildings in my neighborhood. I’m getting emails from friends telling me how excited they are about our future. And that excitement is infectious. Obama will be the greatest President this nation has ever had. I believe. As Thomas Friedman said in his column today, “The Civil War is over. Let Reconstruction begin.”


The critical activity that lies before Obama, and us, now is one of alignment. I thought a lot about the difficulty of achieving this state, especially among parties, factions, and classes that are sometimes so disparate with competing interests and values. I’m working on a project at work that is nearly at completion and just when I think I have alignment, something threatens to derail us and I have to gently and firmly coax that detail back into line. It is amazing how much daily effort and time alignment costs; it is an endless pursuit. 

So how will Obama get to alignment and how will we help him get us there? I’ve found that focusing on the finish line and getting others to place their focus there is most helpful. Playing pool helps.

An old boyfriend of mine was a very good pool player, and he taught me how to play. When I first met him, I wasn’t very good. I always focused on my cue ball, not on the ball I was trying to hit. And without fail, I would miss my shot. What I needed to do was get my eyes in line with exactly where I needed to hit that prized ball to sink it, not on the ball right in front of me that I would hit with my cue stick. I needed to keep my eye on the prize in the distance- that ball that I couldn’t quite get to directly. My game dramatically improved. 

The same strategy that works for pool can work for alignment. Get everyone looking toward the same goal, the same prize. And then you will find that they are less concerned that their desired road must be taken to reach that destination. As the leader, you choose the road that’s leading the group to the common goal, and cast the players according to their strengths and curiosities. Alignment is possible, even in the most fragmented of circumstances, if we as leaders are committed to making that alignment priority number one, every day.     
election, hope, Obama, politics

O-ba-ma

Christa Avampato

“O-ba-ma”. That is the chant that is echoing down the streets of my neighborhood. People throwing back their heads in laughter. Cars beeping their horns in celebration. There is joy in the air. 

We have a long road ahead to rebuild this nation, to heal this world that has been plunged so deeply into despair. And while hope is not a strategy, it is certainly a tool, something that will build us up, something that will give us confidence to keep going, in spite of the tough times that lie ahead.
We banded together. And we did it. We stood up, we let our voices be heard, and we count.