Category: work

learning, work, yoga

Step 130: Climbing and Coasting

Christa Avampato

The downhill path is easy, but there’s no turning back.” ~ Christina Georgina Rossetti, British poet

We have all types of negative connotations that refer to climbing uphill: ‘an uphill battle’, ‘a vertical learning curve’, ‘moving up the corporate ladder’, ‘getting to hump day in the work week’. Last week my yoga teacher, Jeffrey, talked to us about the joy that’s found in the uphill climb. If the different kramas (stages) of an asana (a yoga posture) are akin to how a mountain climber ascends up a slope, he encouraged us to be at whatever stage we are and enjoy the view. If we can only do headstand prep and not full free-standing headstand, then he asked us to consider how powerful that prep posture is and the benefits we are receiving from it. It works in yoga, and it works in life.

While coasting requires very little effort, whether we’re talking about yoga, careers, relationships, or any other part of our lives, it’s tough to turn back and take advantage of the views that we had the opportunity to see on the upside of the climb. They go whizzing down the mountain too quickly. As we head downhill, there’s less time for learning.

It’s not that the downhill offers no value at all. It does provide us with the opportunity to reflect upon everything we learned on the climb. On the downhill, we can bask in the glory of all the work we did in the ascent. We get to feel proud of our accomplishments, and the joy we find and exhibit is an inspiration to others to start their own climbs.

The key to happiness may just be to enjoy wherever we are, knowing that it’s all temporary, that we’ll have many uphills and downhills, and that each has something magnificent to offer us on the journey.

career, Inc. Magaine, technology, work

Step 127: A Job You Like

Christa Avampato

“Find a job you like and you add five days to every week.” ~ H. Jackson Brown Jr., American author

I thought about this quote as I read the profile of Tim O’Reilly in Inc Magazine this month. Tim is known as the Oracle of Silicon Valley and for good reason. He has a way of seeing what’s coming next about 5 years before other really smart people begin to put the pieces together. His road has been unconventional. He’s not a trained businessman, nor is he a trained engineer or tech expert. Trend identification is his specialty. And so is happiness. He’s a keen people watcher and listener. And he’s got an important message for us: work should support what’s important to us in life, not be the axis around which we build every other moment of our days.

“Sure, sure,” we might say. “Get a job we like. Of course everyone wants to do that. But what if I can’t pay my bills by doing what I love? What then?” I’m not sure what Tim would say to that. Maybe he’d just smile. My response would be: “find something else you can really love. Don’t do something you don’t like just to make money. There’s too much fun stuff out there to learn to waste your time doing something you hate.”

I’m not telling you to go out and quit your job tomorrow. Maybe you should do that – actually, you should definitely do that if you absolutely loathe every waking moment at your current job. But if it’s bearable, find a way to make it useful. A project you can start or help out with, a contact who you can cultivate, a skill you can learn. Or switch roles within your company to something that’s of more interest. Or use that energy to actively seek out a new job, quickly.

Truly, I hated the last role I had at work. Starting around October of 2009, I woke up every morning and groaned; that’s when I knew I just couldn’t physically stay where I was. So it was either on to a new adventure in another role, or out into the world to a new company. And once I shared that sentiment with enough people, I found my way to a new role very quickly. Finding the new job wasn’t hard; deciding that it was time for me to get on with it was the tough part.

Once we admit to ourselves that we just can’t keep going down the road we’re on, there’s no turning back. And that can be scary. But if we’re willing to really seek out happiness and satisfaction in our careers, if we’re willing to say “I can do better than this”, then the world has a funny habit of opening the way forward.

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

career, change, work

Step 124: Biding Time Wisely

Christa Avampato

I’ve recently had some conversations with friends who are considering making career jumps. Some to a new industry, some to a new company, and some into their own ventures. A few are actively out there looking and some are wondering if they should hang around where they are until they see some more improvement in the economy.

One of my friends has taken a new position within her company that is going to help her transition out to another company when the time is right. She’s interested in tech venture capital. Her former role was tech heavy, and her new role is in business development. While getting this second piece of the puzzle in place, she’s also started a tech venture capital club as part of her business school’s alumni network. She’s biding her time while gaining incredibly valuable experience in segments and making contacts that will serve her well in her career.

This is what it’s all about – gathering the bits and pieces we can find to help us build a brighter future. Even if we’re in jobs that aren’t perfect, there are activities, role, and projects we can take on inside and outside of the office that will keep us moving forward, even while we look before we leap. I’m all for taking the plunge, but while I’m up here on the cliff, I’m also a fan of making sure I’ve squeezed every last drop of value from my current view.

I’d love to hear about how you’re biding your time in support of your long-term goals!

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

luck, work

Step 105: Making Luck

Christa Avampato

“I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.” ~ Thomas Jefferson

When my mother was in her mid-20’s, she and a girlfriend went to New Orleans on vacation. The way she describes the city over 40 years later sounds very similar to the way it is today. Lots of jazz music everywhere, amazing food, voodoo, history around every corner. (My friend, Dan, and I are planning a little trip down there in the Fall. Neither of us have ever been so we figured it would be fun for our next vacation adventure together.) My mom and her friend were walking down the street when they passed by a fortune-teller who asked if they’d like to have their fortunes read. And so the story goes that my mother said, without missing a beat, “No thanks. We’ll make our own fortune.”

That kernel of my mom’s truth got buried deep inside me. I don’t pray for things to happen in my life. I don’t wish for things, or throw up my arms asking for help. There are many incredible things that have happened to me because I was in the right place with the right people at the right time. It’s not that luck didn’t play a role at all. It’s just that luck is far below the title of my life. First, I had to be prepared, and that meant I have always had to work very hard in order to recognize and take a chance on a lucky break when it came my way. Without the preparation and the hard work, luck wouldn’t have helped me along at all.

I definitely feel that lucky wind on my back these days. I’m getting my arms around my career and my career shifts. I’m picking up freelance writing work. I’ve happened into wonderful, loving groups of new friends. I live in a lovely little apartment and have the luxury to really enjoy my life in New York. But this didn’t come about by accident or wishing or luck. It happened because I worked my tail off, especially when I didn’t have too many signs that I was working on the right things. A lot of this wonderful life of mine came about by going with my gut and taking a chance and having confidence to believe that if I really put my heart into something, I could get it to go.

I’m with my mom and Thomas Jefferson on this one. Luck is made, not born. I’d love to hear about your “lucky” breaks and how you made them happen!

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

work, yoga

Step 87: Effort and Ease

Christa Avampato

“Yoga is a balance of effort and ease. ” ~ Stacey Sperling, my yoga teacher

“It takes 7 years to get to enlightenment. 9 if you really try.” ~ Will Duprey, my yoga teacher

3 weekends of yoga teacher training down, 4 to go. We’re now 1/3 of the way through the course. I can feel the change in my body and in my mind. I’m finding ease in my effort, and it seems that the more effort I place into my practice, the more ease I feel. On the mat and off the mat.

Yoga in the west is about asanas, poses. In the west, we are always running, striving, reaching. We are afraid of never having enough, of losing what we have, of what people will think if we can’t keep up. That’s a lot of effort, and there’s no ease anywhere in there.

I’m beginning to wonder if it’s possible to have fruitful effort without a sense of ease. Perhaps this is just another way of saying that we should be on the path of least resistance. It doesn’t mean that path is easy; on the contrary, a good deal of effort is required to get on and stay on the path we’re meant for, our dharma. I’m suggesting that if we find ourselves heading down a road where we find no ease, where it seems that no matter how hard we try, everything just gets harder, then maybe we need to go another way. Yoga’s teaching me that effort and ease are not opponents, but rather partners.

career, leadership, work

Step 54: A Parade of Orange

Christa Avampato

Today I packed up my desk at work and at this very moment, the orange moving crates have are moving to a new floor where I’ll be sitting and working starting tomorrow. As a Pisces, the end of the zodiac cycle, I like endings because they allow us to complete a goal and look forward to new opportunities. I like the feeling of wrapping up a project, looking back on accomplishments that I worked so hard to achieve.

I do get a little sentimental during a wrap-up. Today it was a little hard to say good-bye to some co-workers, to know that I won’t be on the phone with them daily the way I was before. I’m so proud of the work we were able to do together, and I’m so grateful for the time I spent with them. This new opportunity before me is a dream position, and before I springboard head-first into the new job, I spent a little time reflecting on my last role and what I learned there:

1.) There’s no such thing as over-communication

2.) Never underestimate the power of honesty and reason to leave a lasting impression on people at all levels of an organization

3.) Saying what you mean and meaning what you say are the two most important things you can do on the job and in life

4.) Take care of a team so that the team can take care of customers so that customers’ opinions of and loyalty to the brand will take care of the shareholders’ investment; leaders need to focus their time on the base of the pyramid, not the top

5.) Leadership, above all else, is service and requires a high degree of empathy; care and concern for a team, as people first and employees second, is the surest way for a leader to be successful

Deep breath in, deep breath out, and here I go. In a new direction, on a new journey, armed with another experience to draw from.

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!

career, creativity, Fast Company, IDEO, work

Step 2: Working with Friends

Christa Avampato

Today I had lunch with Trevin and Blair, two of my friends whom I worked with a number of years ago. During our lunch, I was reminded of how good it feels to work with friends, to be such an integral part of their lives. I’ve heard some people say that it’s best to keep our personal and professional lives separate. I disagree. I’d always prefer to work with friends – it makes work feel like play.

Last year I wrote a blog post that referenced an article in Fast Company about David Kelley, the Founder of IDEO. He left a mediocre management job at an engineering firm to get his MBA at Stanford. Though he had job offers after graduation, he declined them to start his own company with his friends. That company became IDEO. In the article he describes that his one strong inclination for employment was to work with friends. Had he not taken the leap and followed his instinct, he probably would be toiling away in a grey cubicle doing less-than-inspiring work. Instead, he founded a company that is arguably the finest product design firm in the world. And he has fun everyday. Bet well-played, David.

What if we could all follow our gut with David Kelley’s creative confidence? What if we could turn down opportunities, as great as they seem, because they just don’t jive with how we’d like to live our lives? Perhaps there’s an IDEO for each of us, or at the very least a bit more happiness to be had in our careers. In 2010, I’d like to get back to a career of working with friends.

The photo above is not my own. It appears courtesy of IDEO.

career, change, work

My Year of Hopefulness – Take Up the Torch

Christa Avampato

“Life is no brief candle, it’s a torch. I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on.” ~ George Bernard Shaw

I saw this quote by George Bernard Shaw on Twitter over the weekend. Someone sent it to me after reading my blog posts about my trip to Costa Rica and my plans for the future. Thinking of life as a torch, something we can and should wield as a powerful instrument to light up the world around us, reinforced my belief that if we are just subsisting and not doing our life’s work every day, then a change is necessary, sooner rather than later. As my mom often says, “we will not pass this way again. So make this pass count as much as you can.”

Yesterday a friend of mine was telling me about a conversation he recently had with his dad. His father told him that his job was my friend’s life’s work. My friend objected and then his dad asked him a few questions:

“Son, where do you spend the most hours of your day?”

“At work.”

“What do you think about for the most number of hours per day?”

“Work.”

“Then your job is your life’s work. How do you feel about that? Is it fulfilling?”

“No. I don’t get any fulfillment from it. It’s just a job,” my friend answered.

“Sounds like you better change it. You don’t want your life’s work to be just a job.”

These are harsh words that could have been said with a kinder voice, though the point is crystal clear. Where and with whom we spend most of our time is our life’s work. I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about where my energy and time is spent, and what that’s accomplishing. I spend a lot of my time volunteering, and a lot of that volunteering is done in the field of education. I come alive in a classroom of any kind whether I’m the student or the teacher, and classrooms can be found throughout our communities. It’s that learning environment that is so invigorating, that gives me the most hope for our future.

And so, in the words of my friend’s father, I am about to set to work on making a change to make that time in education my life’s work. When I think about how much good can be done there, how much I have to offer in that setting, I realize that my torch is growing brighter.

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

choices, love, risk, work

My Year of Hopefulness – When Choice and Logic Meet

Christa Avampato

“We either make ourselves happy or miserable. The amount of work is the same.” ~ Carlos Castaneda, American anthropologist and author

I’ve been thinking a lot about work this week. Not necessarily where I am employed, but rather the broader definition of work that encompasses all of the activities that I am engaged in every day. The most valuable, affecting, satisfying work I do all day involves my writing. Whether it’s on this blog, for TJCC, the fiction I’m currently working on, or my after-school program, I now know that writing is what I’m meant to do. I really can’t imagine taking up another profession that doesn’t have writing and content creation as its main activity.

Now I’ve been down this road before. I’ve had several opportunities to take up writing full-time and I’ve turned away out of fear. Again, I am at this same, familiar cross-roads: Can I jump off the cliff as so many successful writers say they ultimately had to do? We hear it all the time – lawyers who just couldn’t be lawyers for one more day, doctors and nurses who couldn’t work one more overnight shift, corporate employees who lost all interest in climbing any kind of ladder. They wanted so much to do something creative that they could no longer make their living any other way. Can I be that brave (or ignorant as the case may be for me)?

There are a few tough things about taking great risks, whether the risk is in our professional or personal lives:

1.) Once you jump off the cliff, you can’t change your mind. You can’t get back to where you were before.

2.) There are no guarantees.

3.) You won’t know if it’s the right choice until you actually jump.

These are weighty considerations. I think of my friend, Allan, who is very close to returning to school for a degree that he knows will lead him in the direction of his dream job. Or my friend, LT, who is a phenomenal and engaging public speaker who is beginning to lay the groundwork for his own business. Or my friend, Lissa, who left behind her work as a GYN so she could build a supportive on-line community for women and conduct self-empowerment and personal development workshops. And my dear friends, Amy and Rob, who are in the transition process from financially lucrative careers in the arts to personally fulfilling ventures in peace building and social work. I’m drawing my inspiration from them these days. “Maybe I can do this,” I thought this morning in my cubicle.

The latest iteration of this thought started to take shape on Wednesday. At 10am I had a full-on argument, not raising the volume of my voice. Thank goodness it was by phone and not in person. Then someone basically told me to shut up and do what I was told. Hmmm….that doesn’t exactly sit well with me. I don’t do any of the things in that phrase well – I don’t shut up, I don’t like being told what to do if I completely disagree with it, and I certainly don’t take kindly to being told to do those two things in combination. And then I completely surprised myself – I articulated with passion and clarity why I would not comply with this person’s request. And my comments were met with complete silence. My friend, Jeff, calls it “The Ba-bam Response”, as in “Ba-bam, take that!” In that moment, the person yelling at me is the one who sat down and I stood up, way up, perhaps as straight and tall as I have ever been.

Today I read the quote above by Carlos Castaneda, and I have not been able to get it out of my mind. Castaneda is right. To not write requires that I work very hard at something that I’d rather not do for a living, and to choose to write full-time (and make a living at it) will be a tremendous amount of work, too. So shouldn’t I do a tremendous amount of work for something I really want to do rather than something I don’t want to do?

I went through this same process in my personal life a few years ago. I used to be afraid, very afraid, to fall in love. I flat out refused to do it. There is a great risk involved in opening up our hearts and loving someone. We could get hurt. Very hurt. And then one day I was able to consider the alternative: if I don’t open up my heart, if I never fall in love and never allow anyone to be close enough to fall in love with me then I will always be a very lonely person who feels disconnected and isolated from the world around me. This loneliness and isolation is its own kind of hurt.

So then I reasoned, “shouldn’t I take the risk and open up my heart because at least in that scenario there is a chance that falling in love can bring me great happiness and joy?” Loneliness and isolation will always, certainly lead to being hurt. And with that reasoning my heart opened up. And yes, I did get hurt, many times, and I also found a lot of joy and happiness, too. Falling in love generates a much stronger likelihood for happiness than not falling in love so I could no longer keep my heart locked up inside of me. It was no longer logical to resist falling in love.

And so it goes with writing full-time, and I think that this time around, when that fork presents itself, I will choose to go down the writing road. Carlos Castaneda’s quote made me realize that any other choice just doesn’t make sense.