action, clarity, thankful, time, wishes

Beautiful: Stop Wishing. Start Doing.

Christa Avampato

“Stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone ought to be.” ~ Elizabeth Gilbert, American author

When I wished on a star or the candles on my birthday cake, I used to wish for something I really wanted as if it might just fall down out of the sky and into my life. I used to make lists of things that I wanted to do, or have, or see, or be, hoping that verbalizing them would somehow actualize them. And then one day I realized that none of those wishes ever came true just because I wished for them. Some of them happened because I worked really hard and I almost always had help from other people who shared the same dream and were willing to work just as hard to see it happen. Some of them never happened at all, no matter how hard I worked, and for that I’m very grateful because I’ve ended up in such a good place.

So I stopped wishing for things out there and started wishing for things that would really make a difference: Now I wish for personal strength and courage, for an ever-deeper sense of compassion and understanding for the situations of others, for the opportunities to be useful and helpful to others, and for the ability to be at peace even in times of terrible turbulence. And a funny thing has started to happen: the more I want these things, the more capable I grow to cultivate them. And the more I cultivate them, the more good they do, in my own life and in the lives of others.

As it turns out, I don’t need to wish for any of these things at all. Wanting them for all the right reasons and tirelessly working for them are the surest ways to bring them into being.

art, business, creative, creative process, creativity, music, technology, time, writer, writing

Beautiful: What We Can Learn About Time from Robin Thicke’s Blurred Lines, Black Sabbath, and Angry Birds

Christa Avampato

robin_thicke_blurred_lines_album_cover_ARIA_120613_640x360Singer Robin Thicke has something to celebrate. After 10 years in the business, the 36-year old has his first #1 album with Blurred Lines. His first album never got out of the triple digits. Think Thicke has grit to stick with it for all these years? The band Black Sabbath recorded music for 46 years before their album, 13, hit #1 in June. The crackerjack team over at Rovio Entertainment created the wildly popular app, Angry Birds, after creating 51 other apps.

Age has nothing to do with it
Hollywood, Broadway, Silicon Valley, and American Idol have created a culture obsessed with youth. The wild rise of Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, and other tech moguls in their 20s has caused a dangerous and unfortunate fixation on youth among the venture and investor community. Many VCs and investors refuse to even hear the startup pitches of any founders older than 30. We bemoan getting older and so we nip, tuck, pluck, lie about our age, and workout to the point of breaking our bodies, never happy with how we look or where we are along life’s path. Robin Thicke is 36. Ozzy Osbourne is 64. Peter Vesterbacka, one of the Angry Birds creators, is 44. If you think you have to be at the top of your field before you see your first wrinkle or gray hair, think again.

Success takes time and talent
When we aren’t as successful as we’d like to be at something right off the bat, we often throw in the towel. Too often and too soon, we sulk back to our homes, hide under our beds, and hope for brighter days ahead. Sometimes we resign ourselves to the idea that time has passed us by. Don’t do that. Figure out what worked, what didn’t work, and try again with this knowledge in-hand.

If your work isn’t its own reward, then find other work
Success is a personal and daily process. Even if I never receive any kind of critical acclaim as a writer, I’ll never think of the time I spend writing as a waste and I’ll never stop writing. The act of writing, putting my story out there and knowing that it helps others, is all the reward I ever need from it. Certainly critical success on a large scale would be lovely, but I don’t sit down every day and write with that as a goal. I’m trying to tell a story as honestly and as clearly as possible. If you’re working only for external rewards, you are wasting your time and setting yourself up for enormous disappointment.

If you found work you love, stick with it. If you get up every day, excited to create something, then keep creating. If your work fills your heart as it grows your portfolio, then you’re on the right track.

economy, education, school, teaching

Beautiful: Keep It Positive – Another Lesson from Darden

Christa Avampato

bc2863aa70521ea32889f841ae1607c6“We have to be positive, right? What’s the alternative? Anything else is just a waste of time.” ~ Frank Warnock, my Economics professor at Darden

It’s back-to-school time and I’ve been thinking a lot about my teachers lately. I decided to reach out to them to say thank you for the incredible lessons they taught me. I wrote about my marketing professor, Robert Spekman, earlier this week and then sent him a note. Today, I want to tell you about Frank Warnock, one of my Economics professors at Darden. Frank is brilliant, but his brilliance isn’t what set him apart for me. It was his attitude.

Frank taught us the power of attitude in a class during a particularly tough case. The whole class was feeling pretty badly about the options before the main characters in the case and what they were going to have to do to save their company. Frank recognized we were going nowhere fast and to get us to buck up, he uttered the lines at the beginning of this post. They were like a lightning rod for me. These were the words I thought about all the time from 2008 – 2012 when I worked in financial services.

Attitude was, and continues to be, everything. I’ve seen it make or break so many people. My choice to be positive rather than negative, especially when it would have been so much easier to be negative, has kept me going through some very dark times.

I wrote this all out in a note to Frank and not surprisingly, he wrote back quickly. Here’s what he said:

“Hi Christa,
Wonderful to hear from you. And great to hear that you’re doing well and have found something you care about. I often think that one of the most important things Darden students need to learn is what exactly they care about, what exactly their preferences are.

I learned early on that attitude is vital. I absolutely hated a particular job about a month into it, felt that I was misunderstood by the boss, and was very close to being fired (which would have been fine with me). I then started repeating to myself over and over again, every day, “I love my job, I love my job, I love my job”. Within a week or so I forgot all about saying that…being positive helped turn everything around and more or less launched my career. Being positive is at times more difficult – it takes an extra step – but it is always the best way forward.

Best,
Frank”

Now that’s a teacher in the truest sense of the word.

creativity, meditation

Beautiful: From Ah! to Om…: A Meditation Guide for Beginners and Two Guided Meditations

Christa Avampato
From Ah! to Om…: A Beginner’s Guide to Meditation

I’ve been wanting to put together a few guided meditations for some time now. At long last, here they are for your viewing, listening, and downloading pleasure! Thanks to my pal, Alison, for prompting me to get this done and out into the world.

From Ah! to Om…: A Meditation Guide for Beginners is just that – 5 tips to help you begin your own meditation practice. Whether you’ve never tried to meditate before or you’ve tried many times before without much success (which was me not that long ago!), these 5 tips will help. With some beautiful images, music, and a voiceover by yours truly, I hope you enjoy this multi-media presentation. Prezi presentation link.

Ujjayi Breathing for Beginners is a guided meditation that shows you how to practice this simple technique to calm your mind and deepen your breath. Plus you can hear what I sound like, at least when I’m teaching meditation. Prezi presentation or audio only. Take your pick!

Chakra Meditation for Beginners is a guided meditation that gives you a little flavor of what chakras are and the power of each one to restore balance to your life. Prezi presentation or audio only. Take your pick!

Enjoy! Let me know if you have any questions. Happy Om…

career, choices, work

Beautiful: Stop Being All Things to All People

Christa Avampato

d9b6e50800e7f3e34529e77d41dec097And now for another installment of necessary truths I learned this summer. After spending my entire life stretching my mind in every which direction, on any subject that struck my fancy, I’ve come to a conclusion: I spend too much energy on the fool’s errand of trying to be all things to all people in every aspect of my work. Just because I can do it all, doesn’t mean I should. To really make my mark and keep my sanity in the process, I have to specialize.

I sat down last week and thought about all of the people I admire who have really driven their fields forward, who have had a significant and lasting impact on the world. I want to be one of those people. The one and only thing they all have in common? They specialized. They got very specific about who they help and how and why. They know their value, shout it from the rooftops, and roll up their sleeves to get the work done with the people they care most about and have the most fun / success helping.

I’m not totally sure what that means for me and my work just yet but I’ve got some ideas. And I’ve still got two more weeks of California sunshine and sea breezes to whisk that answer into my consciousness. I do know that the answer is on the way. When it gets here I’ll be sure to welcome it with open arms and invite it in for tea.

business, determination, opportunity, passion, product, product development, time

Beautiful: A Lesson in Persistence from Life is Good

Christa Avampato

good-yoga-studio-baulkham-hills-meditation-relax-stressMy friend, Moya, sent me this video yesterday. It is a 3-minute video interview with the Founders of Life is Good. Here’s what I love about it:

1.) They are honest about the fact they have made every single business mistake in the book.

2.) By all accounts, they failed for 5 and a half years before they hit upon their “Life is Good” slogan with their mascot, Jake. And here’s the best part – it wasn’t even their idea to put that slogan and character on a t-shirt. They had a ton of t-shirt designs taped to the wall of their apartment and they invited a bunch of friends over to get their feedback on the designs. Their friends are the ones who pushed them to put the slogan and Jake on a shirt and sell it. It was an immediate hit.

3.) They have a very clear, simple, and elegant business proposition: spread optimism. They don’t care what products they make; they care about the message that’s infused into each one of those products. Life isn’t great, and it’s sure as hell not easy, but it is good. And that’s why they want people to know.

Click here to view the video.

creativity, education, fear, marketing, teaching

Beautiful: The Best Class You Can Take Is Practice

Christa Avampato

23252c94afced662d93d9659daff6a69 “The only way I know to get anything done is to work like hell.” ~ Robert Spekman, my MBA marketing professor at Darden

A few years back, I contemplated going back to school to get my PhD in education. Robert was one of my favorite professors at my Darden MBA program and I spent a good amount of time with him during my two years there. When I was thinking of going back to get my PhD, he was one of the first people I talked to.

He was in New York for a meeting so I met him at the restaurant of his hotel and we had breakfast together. I told him about my own history and how my education literally saved my life. I explained that I was a bit worried about applying for a PhD in a field in which I’d never formally studied. Robert told me I had the best experience of all: I lived it. He followed up the line above with this – “Take all the classes you want in any subject. Until you actually sit down and do the work, with your a*s on the line for results, it doesn’t matter.” And with that I put my fear aside and applied.

Things didn’t exactly go the way I had hoped. I only applied to one school, Columbia’s Teachers College, and I didn’t get in. (You can read about my rejection letter here.) It turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened to me. And I never forgot that conversation with Robert, nor the lesson he taught me. I use his advice all the time. I’m grateful for his support, but I’m even more grateful that he didn’t coddle me with exclamations of how great I was, or intelligent, or talented, or any other load that he could have told me to just move the conversation along. He showed me that I already have what it takes to have an impact in a field that means a lot to me. I didn’t need another degree; I just needed to roll up my sleeves and get to work.

children, education, media, video games

Beautiful: Short Film I Worked on For National STEM Video Game Challenge

Christa Avampato

Hi all – fun video post today. This is the short film I worked on for the National STEM Video Game Challenge. It highlights the incredible work of kids in New York City who attended our fantastic workshops on video game design. It clocks in at just under 5 minutes and the insights from these kids will leave you hopeful about our future. Let me know what you think!

business, entrepreneurship, mentor, SXSW

Beautiful: Grab One of My Remaining Mentor Slots at SXSW V2V

Christa Avampato

It’s almost here!

The inaugural SXSW V2V conference in Vegas runs from August 12th – 14th. I’m giving 6 mentor sessions to new and would-be entrepreneurs on August 13th. Half of them are already gone. If you know someone going who might want to spend some time with me in one of my remaining sessions, send ’em on over to this link to sign up: http://mentor.sxswv2v.com/mentors/53.

Thanks y’all!

creativity

Beautiful: Don’t Work; Be More Productive

Christa Avampato
Mark Twain, one of my productivity idols, countered a busy week of writing by taking weekends off to spend with his family, read, and daydream

My summer break in Los Angeles helped me realize the truth in an adage that I have long-loved but only now really understand: “So often what’s needed in a change of self and not a change of scene.” I can, and should, take more breaks and I don’t have to skip town to do it.

I am inspired by this article from the Huffington Post about the un-plugging rituals of some highly productive folks, both past and present. It’s a fun and inspiring read. If these folks can take a break, so can I. And one of the happiest upsides is that it will make my work even more joyful and energizing.

Here’s how I plan to implement my own regular “take a break ritual” when I’m back at home in NYC:

1.) I love to spend my Sunday mornings curled up on my couch with a cup of something warm and tasty, reading the New York Times and watching CBS Sunday Morning. I always learn something new and inspiring. I’ve sacrificed this time too often in the past. No more. On Sundays, I won’t be reachable until noon.

2.) Mornings are a time that I feel reflective and clear. I want to make the most of that time. Of course Phin and I will continue to do our morning gratitude walks (the pup’s gotta get out!). I’m up early by nature so I plan to give them a bit more structure – morning meditation, some gentle yoga, a vegan smoothie, followed by a page of writing (not typing but actual writing) anything that comes into my mind.

I’m excited to see if and how keeping these two rituals change my perspective. Of course, I’ll be sure to report back right here on this blog.