I tell wonder-filled stories about hope and healing
A few months ago, I decided to put together a monthly newsletter to share goodness and inspiration with all of you in a concise format. I’m happy to say that the introductory newsletter went out in the wee hours of the morning and I’d love to have you sign up for it! Sign up for future newsletters here.
View this month’s newsletter here.
I am very excited to share the news that I will be live blogging the Social Good Summit at 92Y in New York City from September 22nd – September 24th. Huge thanks to the networking groups Ladies DC and Ladies NYC, and especially to Anastasia Dellaccio of the United Nations Foundation, for inviting me.
The Social Good Summit is a three-day conference where big ideas meet new media to create innovative solutions. Held during UN Week, the Social Good Summit unites a dynamic community of global leaders to discuss a big idea: the power of innovative thinking and technology to solve our greatest challenges. The most innovative technologists, influential minds and passionate activists will come together with one shared goal: to unlock the potential of new media and technology to make the world a better place, and then to translate that potential into action.
This year’s Social Good Summit will be more engaging than ever. People from around the world, in both the developed and the developing world, will unite in person and online to participate in The Global Conversation – the world’s largest conversation on how technology can grow communities and improve life for all of us as we move toward being a networked society.
On September 24, 2012 the Social Good Summit is coming to China and Kenya. Key leaders and citizens of Beijing and Nairobi will unite and explore the same themes that inspired the birth of the Social Good Summit. You’ll hear directly from these countries via Livestream, and can witness the live intersection of New York, Nairobi and Beijing on Monday morning from the stage of the 92Y in New York City.
The 2012 Social Good Summit is brought to you by Mashable, 92nd Street Y, the United Nations Foundation, Ericsson, the United Nations Development Programme, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
There are plenty of ways to follow and participate in the conversation, no matter where in the world you live:
Follow this blog for updates and to leave comments on my posts http://christainnewyork.com
Follow my Twitter stream at http://twitter.com/christanyc and use the hashtag #SGSGlobal
Watch the Livestream of the event
Attend or organize a Social Good Summit meetup in your city
Buy a ticket and attend in person
Follow the Social Good Summit website for updates
I look forward to all of the conversations!
I had the extreme pleasure to interview the talented partners at Prehype for a piece I wrote for PBS MediaShift – Collaboration Central. The piece is live and available for your reading inspiration. Hop over and have a look by clicking here. My thanks to the keen editorial mind and eyes of the site’s editor, Amanda Hirsch.
I am thrilled to announce that an article I wrote based about the collaboration process at New York Theatre Workshop is now posted on the inspiring PBS site MediaShift. A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of interviewing Jim Nicola, Artistic Director of New York Theatre Workshop, who made me believe in the magic and power of theatre again. As you may know, I spent the early years of my professional career as a manager of Broadway shows and national tours. I’ve been out of the business since 2004 and until I interviewed Jim, I hadn’t missed the process. Now I’m reconsidering how I might slowly ease back into that wacky and wonderful world of professional theatre.
And with this publication I must thank the editor of MediaShift, Amanda Hirsch, for her continuous support of my writing. I am humbled and honored to now have the chance to work for her on a project that is near and dear to her heart. Amanda and I met because of this blog. She was moving to New York City from DC with her husband, Jordan, and she was searching for people writing about creative living in New York. My blog popped up in her search.
The internet has such a lovely way of tangling together fates and futures. I recently went back to that first introductory email that Amanda sent to me over 3 years ago. True to form, she closed the email with “keep writing.” I’m glad I followed her advice and encouragement.
Let me know what you think of the article on MediaShift!
In the 2 months since I returned from India, I’ve thought about it everyday. It has a hold on me unlike any other place I’ve ever been. It is in my bones.
Over these past two months, I revisited my journal and pictures from the trip. My memories are multi-sensory. I don’t just remember what something looked like. I also remember the scent, the feeling, the emotion, the sound. It was a hard journey. Much harder than I expected. And it was beautiful, too – sometimes in ways that I didn’t appreciate at the time.
To sum up as much reflection as I’ve done to-date, I wrote an eBook – In Search of the OM in Everything: 8 Days in India. I struggled to get it all down on paper. I cried through much of the writing because I changed so much during the trip and change is hard.
Had I just set out to write this book for myself, I’m not sure I would have finished it in two months. But I wrote it for a group of people whom I admire, love, and respect – my teacher training group at ISHTA Yoga and all of our beautiful teachers. The book was my final project for the program, which we completed yesterday. In order to graduate, I needed to finish this project so I pushed through the tears and get it all down on paper. The experience of the training and the experience of writing this book are just two of the countless gifts given to me by this amazing group of people who lent their support, love, energy, and time to one another.
So here it is – the link to my book, In Search of the OM in Everything: 8 Days in India, and my photo album from the trip. I’d love to know what you think.
Someone recently sent me an email and asked, “You clearly spend a lot of your time reading. Could you cut through all the chatter of the news and just send me links to the things you think are most interesting?”
Yes. Yes, I can.
I’ve been overwhelmed and honored by the number of people, some whom I know and some whom I don’t know, who have reached out to me in one form or another to say how excited they are about my leap into my own business. They ask me to explain how I made the leap and the planning that went into it. They want to know how they can apply it to their own lives and ideas.
I noodled on how to efficiently get this information to anyone who wants it and decided that the oldie but goodie mechanism of a monthly e-newsletter was the best way to go. After 5 years of daily blogging about living a creative life, I’m putting together the e-newsletter to highlight great books I’m reading, intriguing people I’m meeting, links to interesting articles on creativity, and helpful advice for entrepreneurs and people who are thinking of becoming entrepreneurs.
Get this goodness delivered to your in-box every month by clicking here or following the link at the top of this page.
Every year, I choose a theme for my posts on this blog. In January, I made the New Year’s Resolution that I would Leap into entrepreneurship full-time by December and write about that journey every day.
I left my corporate job last Friday, 6 and a half months ahead of schedule. Many people came forward to tell me that my Leap inspired them and that they want to make a Leap of their own. They asked for my advice, help, and encouragement, and I’m completely happy to offer up all 3 and then some. Leaping isn’t the end; it’s just the beginning!
To that end, I’ll be writing daily about the following topics for the remainder of the year:
I hope you’ll join in the conversation, share your own stories, and be inspired. Let’s go – we’ve got a lot of living to do!
5 years ago this weekend I started this blog. I never thought it would become such a labor of love that would bring so many incredible gifts. And finally, after all of this time, I got it together and created a Facebook Page expressly for the readers of this blog for several reasons:
1.) To provide a way for me to connect more closely with all of you and for readers to connect with one another
2.) To promote the works of other writers and to give readers the opportunity to do the same
3.) To offer all of us a way to share what inspires us – books, articles, photographs, stories, good works in our communities, quotes, travels, ideas, questions, etc.
4.) To give writers another way to promote their own work and connect with other writers
5.) To connect people who are taking big leaps in their careers and lives
I want this page to be a place where we can all offer up ideas and commentary in a supportive and thoughtful way. As I’m preparing to make my own professional leap, I’ve met so many people who are in the process of doing the same thing. Here’s our chance to get behind one another and encourage each other on the path forward. I really want this page to be incredibly dynamic with many contributions by a wide circle of people who are curious and passionate about living their best lives.
I really hope you’ll all join me, like the page, and then let the sharing begin at http://www.facebook.com/ChristaInNewYork.com.
K. D. Lang sings that love makes sweet and sad the same. What’s true for love is also true for India.
It was the hardest and most incredible trip I’ve ever taken. India pushed me to my edge at almost every moment. I had the chance to experience the full range of my emotions, sometimes all at once.
I would catch glimpses of ordinary, every day living like playing cards and sharing tea, only to turn and see that I was bearing witness to deeply powerful events: a woman in deep prayer at a temple and the first day of a newly married couple’s life together. I wept and then laughed out loud. I had profound insights with a deep sense of peaceful knowing, followed my massive amounts of confusion that made me question everything. India was nothing like what I expected it to be – it was more and it was less, in equal amounts.
I’m unpacking my journal and my pictures. The 8 days I spent there may have given me a lifetime of writing material. So much of it still needs sorting, tending, and reflection. I struggled with the idea of how I might make everything I experienced available through these daily posts and determined I couldn’t. India needs more from me.
As part of my advanced yoga teacher training at ISHTA, I have to complete a research project. I considered a half dozen different ideas until I realized that I was being handed the perfect opportunity for research and reflection upon my yoga teaching and my personal yoga practice – India. Just as yoga was born out of India, the country and her people gave me a new lease on life. And that’s worthy of extensive exploration.
By the end of July, I need to complete my research project and I am going to put together an interactive experience with writings, photos, and video footage that uses my time in India as a lens to re-examine my yoga. Pieces of this project will be published on this blog along the way and once it’s complete, I’ll publish the link to the full work. It’s the only way that I think of to really honor my time in India for all that it is worth.
Last week, I wrote my first volume of Thank You Notes in tribute to Jimmy Fallon’s segment. This week I had a few shining and not-so-shining moments:
Thank you, Delta Airlines, for making me fully aware that if I book with miles, then getting me to my destination on time is not your priority.
Thank you, SXSW, for helping me realize that there’s a better way to spend my 9-5.
Thank you, local hardware store, for keeping my wallet safe when I absent-mindedly left it at your counter for a solid 30 minutes before I noticed it was missing.
Thank you, older women, for being the new face of real beauty. Now the rest of us can stop trying to look like we’re 19.
Thank you, Greg Smith, what all people in financial services know but are afraid to say.
Thank you, Rick Santorum, for reminding us what a scary country this would be without separation of church and state.
Thank you, Will Ferrell, for teaching us that we’re never too old to learn a new language.
Thank you, Think Coffee, for showing us that opportunity can be found in the most unlikely places such as a Korean talk show that helped this NYC local business expand internationally.
Christa Avampato 