Category: work

creativity, work

Inspired: Keep Up the Creative Energy

Christa Avampato
From Pinterest

“The secret of change is to focus all your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” ~ Socrates

The hardest thing to manage, and the most valuable asset we have, is time. When we are following a dream, especially when we’re doing it on the side, our success is largely determined by our ability to eliminate distraction and stay inspired about our creative projects. This is especially difficult when the distraction (our day job, for example) pays well and the work is easy to do. I’m dealing with a bit of this right now: a project that as a whole is interesting and will be great for my portfolio, but with daily work that doesn’t excite me. Because I’ve committed to it, I will finish it, produce high-quality work with a smile, and move on as fast as I can. Here are the lessons I learned from this experience:

1.) It’s a wonderful thing to try something that gives you the resources (whatever they may be) and identify very quickly if it’s the right fit. Don’t beat yourself for making a choice that doesn’t work out. Recognize it, learn from it, and let it go.

2.) There is just so much homework you can do when finding a day job that works for you. In interviews, everyone is on their best behavior. Even in the first few days or weeks, everyone does their best to make any set of circumstances work. That’s human nature – we do the best we can with what we’ve got. For dream chasers with passion projects, this state can only last so long. And that’s okay. When it’s time to go, go. And do it with grace.

3.) In every situation, there is something to learn. It may not be what you intended to learn, nor what you wanted to learn, but learn you will. And you never know when that knowledge will be valuable. So take it in stride. While you are somewhere, learn everything you can. Take it all in, and then take it with you when you make your exit.

4.) Don’t let your day job deplete you. This is the biggest lesson and challenge. The past couple of days, this is what’s happened to me. The work I’m doing for this client is very important to the project and equally mind-numbing. I get home and I’m worn out. It’s been an act of sheer will to keep going on my own creative projects, but I’ve muscled through, just as we do to exercise even when we’re tired. And you know what? I’m never sorry that I’ve exercised once it’s done. The same is true for creative projects. It might be a struggle to create at the end of a long day, but it’s always worth it.

Have you ever been in this situation? How did you find the energy and inspiration to create, even when your day job sapped your energy?

dreams, encouragement, work, writing

Beautiful: Discover the Hidden Pieces of You

Christa Avampato
From Pinterest
From Pinterest

There is unmapped territory in all of us. This week Facebook is giving you the option to review your biggest moments of the past year. Almost all of mine revolve around writing. I was surprised by this because I didn’t decide to write full-time until the end of the summer. The desire to pursue it was there all along, and I had a lot of support to take it, but it took me most of the year to decide to make the jump. It’s funny how we can so clearly be on a path and not see it until we’re ready.

This reminds me that we don’t always know exactly what our journey is nor where it will lead. Sometimes we can only see what’s immediately in front of us. It takes a while for things to become clear and to increase our visibility down the road to our future. Some of our talents and gifts lie hidden until they’re needed. The only way to find them is to keep living – fully, deeply, and freely. Don’t worry about how you’re going to get somewhere or how you’re going to do something. Just decide to figure it out. You’ll learn what you need to learn to make it happen.

dreams, goals, work, writing

Beautiful: Write It Down

Christa Avampato
From Pinterest

“There’s only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving and that is your own self.” ~ Aldous Huxley

It is an act of strength to stay the course, to focus our energy and efforts keenly during times of feast and famine. There are distractions, temptations, and doubts that try to derail us. Don’t let them. Right down your goal as simply as you can. Don’t worry that it’s too big or too difficult or too unlikely. Write it down and post it. Everywhere. You can’t hit a target if you can’t see it.

love, work

Beautiful: Work from Love

Christa Avampato
From Pinterest
From Pinterest

“Let all that you do, be done in love.” ~ I Corinthians 16:14

My leap into writing full-time grew from one simple wish: to make a living by doing what I love to do more than anything. It’s the best strategy I know. There are a lot of rough patches, hard knocks, and disappointments. However, the bruises are easier to bear because I love the work so much. I’m still excited every day to try again and again and again. When I get knocked over, I never think of staying down. Giving up is never an option I consider. I do the best I can every day. When I figure out how to do better, I do better. When our work grows from love, it’s no longer work at all. It becomes a source of joy, energy, inspiration, hope, and wonder. And once we have that, we have everything we need.

creative, creative process, creativity, fear, product development, work

Beautiful: A Lesson from American Express and The Ellen Show – You Have to Rise Above Fear

Christa Avampato
The Ellen Amex photo gift card
The Ellen Amex photo gift card

When I joined American Express in the summer of 2008, my first project was to develop a photo gift card that would give customers the opportunity to put a personal photo on a gift card. On Thursday, that product was featured on The Ellen Show with the original template design I worked on. My VP at the time said I had a $200K budget and 7 weeks to launch the product from start to finish or I’d be out of a job. He also said he and my director had no time to help me. This happened the same day Lehman Brothers failed, the bottom fell out of the economy, and the company embarked on its first major round of layoffs as the stock price fell to a record low of $9 / share. Panic was everywhere, and for good reason. I put my fear aside and got to work because I needed that job. The project launched on time and under budget, and the product is still going strong today despite intense criticism from many of my then co-workers.

Some day I’ll write about everything I learned during those dark days of our economy. Here’s the biggest lesson: in every circumstance, we have to rise above fear and criticism to do our best work. We have to look way out onto the fringes and trust our creative gut to pull the trigger, even and especially during difficult times. In the short run, this is a tough path though eventually history rewards us with the knowledge that our intuition is one of our most powerful and valuable possessions. It will always guide us in the right direction if we allow it to have its say.

work, writing

Beautiful: Capture Your Moments

Christa Avampato
From Pinterest
From Pinterest

“Keep a daily diary of your dreams, goals, and accomplishments. If your life is worth living, it’s worth recording.” ~ Marilyn Grey.

For the past couple of days, I’ve been taking my cue from The Big Bang Theory‘s Sheldon Cooper. To get comfortable with my new voice over microphone and recording software, I started creating “Christa’s log”. I spend a couple of minutes recording how I’m doing, what I’m worried about, what I’m excited about, and what’s top of mind for me in any area of my life. I don’t know if these recording will ever hear the light of day, but it’s been a fun way for me to capture what’s happening in my life. I feel like I’m experiencing a lot of change, and am gearing up for even more change in the year ahead. I think these voice logs are a fun way to capture my experiences.

I spend a lot of time on this blog, social media, and on the media outlets I write for in an attempt to capture what’s happening in my life and what’s happening in the world that catches my interest. My hope is that this helps others. It certainly helps me. It’s my anchor and my compass. When everything is in flux, my writing is always there to help me find my way. Each post is its own little stake in the ground to say, “I was here and this is how today unfolded from my vantage point.” Like breadcrumbs, they give me a way to look back to see where I was, how far I’ve come, and appreciate how far I still have yet to go. In my writing, I can always find my way back to my path.

faith, grateful, gratitude, Second Step, work

Beautiful: Thankful for Unknown Blessings

Christa Avampato
From Pinterest
From Pinterest

“Give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way.” ~ Native American Proverb

Every day I wake up with two thoughts – “Thank you” and “Today something amazing is going to happen.” I’m thankful that I get to wake up at all, that I’m healthy, and that I spend my time doing things I love. I’m a news junkie and one of the wonderful / awful side effects of my news addiction is that I hear a lot of stories of hardship and struggle. This keeps me from taking anything for granted and it motivates me do things to help make this world a better place.

I recently added the “today something amazing is going to happen” bit to my morning meditation. I believe in the power of intention and I’ve seen that the more often I intently look for blessings, the more likely I am to find them, create them, and recognize them when they cross my path. This belief restores my faith every day in our ability to attract wonder and absorb magic so that we can pass it on to others in our words and actions.

Every day behind the scenes, the Universe is working on blessings to send our way. So long as those blessings find us deeply engaged in work we love, we have the opportunity to hitch our work to the shooting star that races across the sky of our lives. This is the thought that keeps me going and will keep me saying thank you every morning that I have.

child, children, happiness, Second Step, work

Beautiful: Keep the Spirit of a Child

Christa Avampato
From Pinterest

Have you ever watched a kid at “work”? He or she is so absorbed that nothing else matters. There’s no checking the clock to see how much time has passed. There’s no distraction or boredom or frustration. Just pure focus. They are so fascinated by what they’re doing that they don’t want to do anything else.

I’m convinced that this is the secret to happiness, to be so in love with the work at hand that just the act of doing it is its own reward. In that work we will find our greatest talents, a peace that can’t be disturbed, a joy that can barely be described. That’s what we’re aiming for – to love our work so much that it becomes play, that there is no separation between our head and our heart. Then the feeling of fulfillment becomes not something we pursue. It’s just something that we are.

Ethics, New York City, travel, vacation, work, writer, writing

Beautiful: Integrity, Ethics, and Character are Non-Negotiables in Freelance Writing

Christa Avampato
What a beautiful world that would be
What a beautiful world that would be

I don’t ever write anything unless I believe it and support it 100%. That kind of standard has a price. I have a client that wanted me to write a post about crime in Central Park. This is a perfect topic for me because I live on the park and go at least once a day with Phin. I’m very passionate about the park and I like to share my passion for the place with readers. In the past couple of months, I’ve been alarmed by the crimes reported in New York City’s parks, Central Park included. In addition to analyzing crime stats of Central Park for the piece for this client, I also wanted to include a list of safety tips, particularly geared toward tourists who visit the park for the first time.

The client wants a rewrite. They want the piece to be softer and to position the park as a very safe place as opposed to being more data and safety-oriented. They also want it filled with links back to other parts of their site that have nothing to do with crime. I won’t do the re-write and here’s why:

1.) Crime and safety are not soft subjects and they are not topics that should be sugar-coated. Balanced certainly, but being soft on crime in content development is irresponsible. Readers need to armed with the facts: Central Park is far safer than it was 20 years ago and visitors still need to keep safety top-of-mind. They shouldn’t take safety in Central Park for granted because crime is down compared to 20 years ago.

2.) I’m protecting the site from a potential PR disaster. Let’s say that a tourist reads this “softer” article on crime and is lulled into a false sense of security during their visit. If something should happen to that visitor and they say, “I read on (name of site) that Central Park is so safe and look what happened to me” the site could be held responsible. That’s not a risk I’m willing to take with someone’s safety.

3.) Link loaded pieces, under the guise of content marketing, are no better than spam. A few links are helpful. 20 links in one article looks ridiculous. Whenever I see a piece loaded with links, I don’t even read it because I assume it is no better than a paid advertisement. I think this type of piece crosses an ethical line for the sake of marketing. I’ll leave that to other people who want to write those kinds of pieces. It’s not for me.

I did publish the piece, as is, on Allvoices.com. As freelancers, we cobble together our living from a number of different sources. Every dollar counts and sometimes it can feel like we’re backed into a corner, subject to extreme editing (many times by people who are not writers, nor editors) for the benefit of paying clients and at a detriment to our own standards. It’s tough to walk away from money. It’s even more difficult to walk away from money for work I’ve already done and won’t be paid for because I refuse to compromise my principles. However, I go to bed every night with a clear conscience knowing I’ve helped a lot of people and not harmed any. And that’s much more important.

business, product, product development, work

Beautiful: The Power of a One-Product Brand

Christa Avampato
Spanx
Spanx

Focus. Every time I think of entrepreneurs I admire, they all have this one quality in common.

My friend, Alex, has mentioned the story of Spanx founder Sara Blakely to me several times over the years. Sara created a women’s hoisery product that shook up an industry. At 42, she is the only female self-made billionaire in the world.

I’ve been inspired by Sarabeth Levine of Sarabeth‘s restaurant and specialty food company ever since seeing her a while back on a morning talking show. Sarabeth turned her family’s 200-year-old recipe for Orange-Apricot Marmalade that she made in her kitchen into a company that now has a jam factory, 9 restaurants, and an entire specialty food company.

Frownies are another amazing product created by a single female entrepreneur, Margaret Kroesen, who continuously turned difficult circumstances into business opportunities with her beauty products. She created her original wrinkle-reducing facial pads in 1889 for herself and her daughter to reduce fine lines and wrinkles without harsh skin treatments.

These entrepreneurs built companies based upon one single product that they perfected. These women created a simple product they loved and then pounded the pavement to get it into the hands of people who would benefit from it. What one, simple product can you build, perfect, and sell to begin crafting your story and your fortune?