Taken by Christa Avampato in the West Village, New York City
I snapped this photo last weekend in the West Village in New York City. It struck me that this simple piece of sidewalk art is exactly what I’ve been doing since I left my corporate job 5 months ago today. I’ve diligently kept my eye on doing work that matters and takes full advantage of my experience in and passion for education, health, and service.
This road has not been easy. I’ve turned down a number of very tantalizing opportunities in order to stay true to my mission to live a life of my own design. I’ve cobbled together a string of work opportunities that light me up, that have me jumping out of bed in the morning to get going, and over the next week I’m hoping to add a few more. Despite juggling multiple priorities, doing joyful work has actually made me feel more at ease with my calendar. Somehow, time has expanded.
I once heard someone say that happiness is a warm comfort on a cold night. When I put myself to bed each night, I toss up a silent prayer into the Universe that goes something like this – “Thank you, Universe, for the opportunity to add to the greater good, to do exactly the work I want to do, and to rest safely and securely in the knowledge that today my efforts went toward crafting a better world so we can all have a brighter tomorrow. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I do know how lucky I am, how blessed I am. So long as I have breath in my lungs and beats in my heart, I want to keep moving in this direction.”
For 5 months, this prayer has been answered every day without hesitation. And that is its own kind of magic.
Yesterday I learned about two great job opportunities that I wanted to pass along. If you’re interested, please let me know and I can get more information to you!
The first is at Sesame Workshop where I am a consultant for The Joan Ganz Cooney Center (JGCC), the digital media research lab at Sesame. So, the best part of this job is that you’d get to work with me. (Kidding, kind of.) JGCC is hiring a Senior Project Manager to work on a wide variety of impactful projects around education and technology. The job is posted on Idealist.org and is now taking applications. I could fill up a whole post with the perks of this job, but I’ll keep it short and say that the JGCC team is stellar, the projects are filled with goodness, and there is flexibility in schedule. The job is based in New York City at the Sesame Workshop offices. (Yes, where Grover, Cookie, Elmo, and the whole gang spend their time.) Click here for the complete job description and to apply.
The second is an Executive Director role with The Mind Fitness Training Institute. This is a DC area 501(c)(3) non-profit research and training organization dedicated to teaching mindfulness and resilience skills that enhance performance and strengthen response to stress, change and uncertainty. The job is not yet posted but if you are interested in learning more about it, please let me know and I will get the details for you from my friend who let me know about the opportunity.
I like to help good people work with good causes. Please pass on these opportunities through your network.
“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.” ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Most people have no business managing others because they have no idea how to positively motivate others. In this void of motivation, managers think the best idea is to have update meetings with their team members so the team can offer up detailed lists of what they’re working on to account for their time.
How many of these meetings have you been in? And how many of those meetings left you inspired? I find meetings like this useless. If you’re an adult and you have a job that you care about, you just do whatever it takes to get the job done in the time that you have to do it. You go to your manager when you need help or want to talk through an idea. Why waste time accounting for the hours you worked by preparing a detailed list of tasks for your boss? That sounds unbelievably inefficient to me and it communicates a true lack of trust and respect between managers and their team members.
Here’s a better idea for managers: build a team that actually cares deeply and passionately about the work. Motivate them by caring about who they are as people and being vested in their success. My former boss, Bob G., had one simple belief about teams. When he hired me he said, “Christa, I hope you are really successful at this company. But more importantly, I support you personally. I want to see you as a person be happy and successful and I’ll do anything I need to do to make that happen.”
I was more motivated to work for Bob than any other boss I’ve ever had. This belief in how to manage also presented another unintended consequence: because I was so self-directed working for Bob, I became entirely self-directed in all of the work that followed. That sense of self-direction in a job made entrepreneurship much less scary for me down the line.
Unfortunately, Bob spoiled me with this attitude. He set the bar too high. I have expected every boss after him to be this wise and supportive. The fact that I now work as a freelancer should tell you that every boss I’ve had after him failed to rise to his level. Once you get used to working for someone like Bob who has an enlightened view of management, you can’t go back to the dark days of micromanagement.
Bob’s outlook is all too rare these days. But it doesn’t have to be rare. Anyone could take this point-of-view. Anyone could decide at any moment to give their team members freedom to grow, experiment, and shape their work. What have you got to lose? Try it in small steps with small projects and see how it goes. You’ll be surprised by how high your team can soar when you give them the opportunity fly.
I’ve recently been faced with a few career decisions. I’ve had some opportunities crop up that are tantalizing with a side of “I’m not sure this is really the right choice for me right now.” To be clear, they are really wonderful options – good pay, interesting work, nice people. But in each there is a key ingredient that makes me think I should pass. Either the flexibility in schedule isn’t there or the work doesn’t feel like the best use of my time.
These decisions feel like the textbook definition of “the fork in the road.” It would be easy on some level to take these jobs and I’d be good at them. Here’s the morbid, though quite helpful, question I keep coming back to: what if this is it? Post-Sandy, we’re hearing about people who lost their lives despite following all directions and making good decisions. This grim idea gives me pause. I’m not any different from these people. That could have been me, and perhaps a bit too easily.
These are the tough questions, ones that don’t have any right or wrong answers. Isn’t it now, on the tail end of youth prior to solidly moving into middle age, that I can really take every chance to firmly commit to joy in my work? And isn’t that the choice that could have an expiration date? Down the line, won’t there be some job that I could do that feels a bit less like joy and a bit more like selling out that I could take if I really needed to?
This is the hero’s journey and I am in the midst of the “challenges and temptations” portion of the trip. This is where the rubber meets the road. This is where character is formed and tested. Revelation and transformation lie in wait just around the bend. And it is not easy.
I spent the weekend in Buffalo with two of my best girlfriends, Kelly and Alex. Kelly is getting married next Fall to a wonderful man and Alex and I are in the wedding. Alex and I made it to our flights home just in time as Hurricane Sandy approaches the Eastern seaboard.
On my Delta flight, I had the most delightful flight attendant. As we broke through the clouds, I commented that it had been at least a week since I’d seen sunny skies.
“That’s the greatest thing about my job,” said the attendant. “It’s always a sunny day at the office for at least part of the time.”
How many of us can say that? And how many of us would like to say that?
This year, following happiness and joy has been a good strategy for me. I don’t always know what lies around the bend with my newly designed career. Heck, sometimes I barely know what lies in wait for me in my morning inbox. I don’t worry though because I just keep following goodness, sunshine in some form or other, and so far it’s always been a good day in my (home) office.
“Happiness is a choice… sometimes, a contagious one.” ~ Milkshake
On Thursday I had an interview for a wonderful job. A dream job for many. A year ago, maybe even just 6 months ago, I would have worked my tail off to land it and then willingly packed my bags to move myself 3,000 miles to take it. That was before I clarified that my dream work involves doing very cool trend and innovation research and then using that research to build things that are useful for the world.
This job is purely the research side, and I’ve been there before. It’s a great job; it’s just not a great job for me. I need tangible results that I can point to. I need contact with end-users. I need to know that I am spending my days in service to others.
Clarity is a beautiful and rare thing when it comes to our path in our careers. It takes years and years to get there. We long for it. We chase it down. We think that all of our problems will go away once we find it. I have not found that to be the case.
Finding our path can prove to be a giant pain in the ass because once we know it, way deep down in our gut, we can’t do anything else. We have to take it. All the other shining, beautiful opportunities of what we could do pale in comparison to what we know is our reason for being.
This job carried an incredibly handsome compensation package at a company with a great culture, working for a wonderful boss whom I respect and admire. But it’s not my work to do so I turned it down on the spot. I didn’t even have to think about it. I didn’t even hesitate to say it wasn’t for me. All the perks didn’t matter because I need to do the work I’m meant to do. That’s the only option.
If I took this job, I would have to put my teaching, writing, and consulting for good causes on hold. My personal life would disappear. It’s that kind of job – 24/7, nonstop, “jump this high now” type of work. I’ve grown too used to doing what I love, too used to finding complete joy in work. There’s no turning back now.
“There is virtue in work and there is virtue in rest. Use both and overlook neither.” ~ Alan Cohen
Last week there was a little cold traveling around my social circles. For a few days, I felt very tired. When I need to get work done, I usually just push through until I get my second wind. This time I went against the grain, closed my computer, and headed off to dreamland early for a few nights in a row. I never got the cold that was making its rounds.
My pup, Phineas, is with me most of the day now since I mostly work from my home. He is a model of good, healthy living. He sleeps when he’s tired. He plays when he has energy. He eats when he’s hungry. He doesn’t have anything on his to-do list except to go outside and run around a few times a day. Other than that, he just follows his instincts. He’s quite a little teacher for me; I’m trying to live my own life by his example.
There are a lot of wonderful gifts to be found amidst hard work. There’s also a lot to be said for walking away from work to enjoy the wonderful gifts of rest. When I get up from the dinner table, I want to feel comfortably satisfied but not bloated. I want the same balance in my schedule – just the right amount of work to feel accomplished and gratified, but not so much that I feel drained of every ounce of energy and will.
I’m not so interested in work-life balance. I just want one, cohesive life that feels fully balanced between effort and ease.
How many times have you churned your mind over and over to come up with a solution to a problem? And how many times have you found that taking your eye off of the proverbial ball, actually helps you to see the ball more clearly so you can hit it out of the park? This happens to me all the time. I read a lot of articles and books about the science behind creativity – it’s one of my favorite subjects to study – and from the research it appears to be true for many people.
So if we know that letting go of a problem will actually help us solve it, why do we hang on so tightly? Why do we have a problem relaxing and trusting in the process in which creativity works most effectively? It could be that we’re worried that while relaxation has helped us solve problems in the past, it will somehow fail us this time. It could also be that we are programmed in this society to believe that hard work equals self-worth. Without working hard, at every moment possible, will we somehow be less worthy?
I actually love to work hard. I love the feeling of accomplishment, of feeling like my effort matters. But here’s what I don’t love – the mania that comes from having a schedule that is so ridiculously packed that I have to remind myself to breathe. To balance this tug-of-war, I break projects apart into phases and give myself what I need in each phase to do my best work.
When I am working on the creative portion of a project, I give myself downtime to solve problems. I do trust the process of creativity, but I also give myself some guidelines. I get a few hours of downtime here and a few there, and I keep checking in with myself regularly to see if any new inspiration has arrived. When I am in the implementation phase and need to get something built, I really focus to give myself more structure and less downtime so I can do a lot of work while I’m in the groove.
Like anything, it comes back to needing balance – give both sides of your brain the opportunity to strut their stuff. They need different fuel because they do different types of work. If you’re taking too much downtime, or not giving yourself enough, try switching it up and see what happens. Creativity is all about experimentation.
“Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow; it empties today of its strength.” – Connie ten Boom, Dutch writer
People are worried about me. Some are afraid I am not making enough money. Some are sending me job descriptions just in case I’ve realized freelance work isn’t for me and I’d like to go back to working in a corporate office the way I was 3 months ago. I appreciate their concern and always answer these concerns the same way. I tell them I am just fine, not to allay their fears, but because I truly am fine. This is the life I wanted and it’s working.
Yesterday, I secured a wonderful contract through June 2013 with the Joan Ganz Cooney Center (JGCC) at Sesame Street to work on their National STEM Video Game Challenge. The JGCC is a digital media research lab within Sesame. (You can get more info on the program here – http://stemchallenge.org.) Pursuing my passion for tech that improves the world wouldn’t have been possible on this scale if I hadn’t taken a chance to go out on my own.
Yes, I still have to hustle. Yes, I am still working on lining up some additional assignments so that I can fully cover all of my expenses and not dig into my savings, but perhaps begin to add to those savings again. (If you can help on those fronts, I’m all ears!) I have all the tools I need to make this happen. I’ve been preparing for it all my life, and I know deep down that this is the path I want and need to take. I spent years acting on a plan to make this happen.
We can worry about tomorrow. We can let fear and anxiety stop us from doing just about everything. They are tough hurdles to clear, but if we are to ever doing anything extraordinary with our time, we have to go on in spite of fear. We have to gather our worries and burn them up to generate fuel for the work we are meant to do.
A buzzing street market in Sunset Park’s Chinatown. Photo by Michael Vito
Michael Vito is a dear friend, Compass Yoga board member, and all-around rock star advisor. When I founded Compass, Michael was one of the first two people I consulted to read my 5-page plan. (The other was Lon Tibbitts, another dear friend, Compass board member, and rock star advisor – I am a lucky girl!) Michael very honestly supported my vision and laid out about 100 things that needed fixing in such a way that I felt even more motivated rather than crushed. His ability to weave a tale is pretty darn extraordinary.
In a way, we took the big Leap into working for ourselves together, several weeks apart after about a year of seriously talking about how on Earth we were both going to do the work we love and get paid for it. I’m very happy to share Michael’s story below, in his own beautiful words. To learn more about him, check out the Third Place Media site and his personal blog, Like a Fish in Water.
Michael Vito’s Leap
About two and a half months ago, I decided to take my list of “stuff I want to do when I have the time and money, someday” and just do it. I left my research and communications position at the Corporate Eco Forum and launched my own business, Third Place Media.
The name is based on the term of art used by urban planners to refer to settings other than home and work that support civic engagement and help build social capital. On top of this concept I’ve layered transit oriented development and walkable neighborhoods, two related forces that work best in tandem to reduce dependence on automobiles. I think the combination of the three creates more diverse, economically vibrant and environmentally sustainable communities that address the needs of a broad group of stakeholders.
I place myself in the role of 21st century storyteller. In order to help drive more of this kind of land use and development, I think there’s a need for rich narrative content to help communities understand what is at stake and what tools are available to create change. Armed with cameras and a keyboard, I plan to get down in the trenches with local governments, planners, economic development organizations, community leaders and businesses, supporting their efforts to build better places. I will be offering both content development and communications strategy consulting to tie things together.
I’ve designated the first six months to be focused on pilot projects, designed to both get a feel for workflows and methodologies I’ll be using, as well as create a portfolio demonstrating the concepts. So far, I’ve spent plenty of time camping out in train stations and exploring of the communities built around them. I produced some prototype Third Place Media content that will be used by the newly formed South Orange economic development organization. I just wrapped up principal photography and will shortly begin the editing phase of a miniature documentary on 热闹 (rènao), the Chinese cultural affinity for noisy, rowdy, lively environments. Next month, my wife, daughter and I will visit our family in China. Both while there and during a short side trip by myself to Tokyo, I plan to photograph, film and document transit infrastructure, mixed-use development, and social phenomena in public spaces. All of these are things I would have done anyway, for no other reason than pure curiosity. Such is the magic of choosing one’s own path.
Looking back on the summer, it’s a little bit unbelievable to me how much ground I’ve covered, both in terms of the actual work and the emotional distance I’ve traveled since making my leap. I would never have anticipated how much and how intensely I could work (and still want to do more) after immersing myself in all of the things that really light me up. I’ve also lost what remained of my tolerance for the kind of uninspiring leadership and poor behavior to which I have been subjected in previous stages of my career. In my own approach to management, it’s my goal to make sure that the people who work with me never have to don the hard shell I needed to preserve myself. Regardless of position and level of experience, everyone deserves no less than complete respect, to do work that inspires their curiosity, and to be empowered to take risks and explore their creative potential. The great challenges of our time are too interesting and too complex to not bring everything we have to bear.
Christa Avampato 