My friend, Pam, recently posted on Facebook about a new service she’s trying out from Me You Health. After a quick sign-up, Me Youth Health will email you one simple step every day that will bring you closer to wellness. Clean out your closet for 15 minutes. Stand up and stretch your abs. Trade your sugary snack for a healthier choice. Click the “Done” button in the email after you’ve completed it and you’re awarded points that can be redeemed for content that helps you improve your wellness is a specific area of your life.
You’ll be able to track your wellness overall, as well as in specific areas of your life. With a few quick questions, I was able to get a clear snapshot of how the pieces of my life are fitting together and which ones really need my attention. It helped me focus my efforts and chart a path to success, exactly as I define it. It’s a brilliant example of how technology can further health.
The site is incredibly interactive, easy to navigate, and has a great community where it’s easy to participate. Ah….everything a social site should be. And all in the name of wellness. I’m in! Join me and add me as a connection so we can share the goodness and encourage each other along the way.
Lucille Ball is a towering figure of comedy and of my childhood. When I was little, my mom would take my dad to the train station to go to work and I would wake up, make myself some oatmeal, and watch I Love Lucy reruns with my mom until I had to get ready for school. I loved her spunky, “I can do it” attitude, and in many ways I think I fashioned myself after that side of her.
She wasn’t content with an ordinary life, on screen or off, and I admired that. I wasn’t content with it either. Like Lucy, I had big dreams. I wanted to break through, and she showed me that was possible. That we could find our own way.
Today, Lucy would be 100 years old and though she’s been gone now for over 20 years, she’s still making us howl with laughter. With much love and thanks to her for giving me such special memories, here’s a classic Lucy clip that happens to be one of my very favorites. The Spanish subtitle make it even funnier. Enjoy!
“Find out how a character feels, and why he feels that way. That’s how we write stories.” ~ a member of Disney’s 9 Old Men
Last week I watched the documentary The Pixar Story. Their story is one of resilience and confidence, vision and courage. They are the stuff dreams are made of, and that includes plenty of doubt and failure, grueling schedules and conflict. That company fought for every success they’ve had, and against all odds. It’s better than anything they’ve ever put on screen, and what they’ve put on screen is phenomenal.
They are master storytellers. It’s the most important work they do. The effects and the artistry is groundbreaking and beautiful. It transports us to another world, and it’s all done in service of the story. They take the advice in the quote above very seriously, and it’s been a good reminder to me as I work on new writing projects and genres. All I ever have to do to create a compelling story is to find out how my characters feel, and why they feel that way.
This sentiment is so simple and powerful, not only for writing, but also for living. You seek enlightenment? Get to the bottom of your emotions and you’ll find all the wisdom you’ll ever need.
“For some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth. What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet or excite you.” ~ Anne Lamott
Anne Lamott is one of my favorite authors. I keep her books close by – she’s taught me about writing and faith, fiction and biography, the human heart’s resilience even when faced with the toughest human conditions. She made me realize the wonder of thoughtful writing.
I use books and writing to take me away. When I was younger, I used them as a way to let my imagination travel. They would help me consider new possibilities; they helped me learn how to dream bigger and brighter. In books, there are no boundaries, and so I realized the same was true of life.
In many ways, I became a writer to pay it forward. Books made me free, even when my circumstances seemed so binding. I wanted to give that gift to someone else, anyone else who wanted as extraordinary life as I want. Books and writing give us a way to give and to get exactly what we need.
Scene from The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore
In the past few months, I’ve been working on some fiction writing for a young adult audience. It’s a fun and interesting project, and it stretches my skills as a writer. I can write lifestyle-type pieces, as I do for this blog, with a certain ease after 4+ years of daily writing. Over 1400 days of practice, and counting.
Fiction is something different. When I write for this blog, I know where I’m going. With fiction, the future is an open road and while you may have a map, the characters take on a life of their own. You have to find out what they’re feeling, and why they feel that way. Sometimes they make you laugh out loud and sometimes they break your heart. The author may create these characters, but like children they grow up to be independent with their own ideas about the world they live in. The author just has to get it all down as honestly as possible.
The story I’m trying to tell is fantastical and though I’m not a terribly visual person, I’ve found myself imaging scenes and colors, as if I’m on the outside of a large picture window, peering in with my hands framing my eyes. I’ve struggled a bit with how to describe in words what I see in my mind’s eye, with how to communicate to a reader everything that I imagine. How do I get the reader to see all of the detail I see, exactly as I see it.
And then I came across “The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore”, a creation of Moonbot Studios. The story is not quite a cartoon, not quite an ebook. It’s a delightful mash-up of the two, and it is the new poster child of just what’s possible with electronic books, particularly for a young audience.
After watching “The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore”, I realized that writers and storytellers have just picked up another hat. I can now imagine a time not too far off when people will laugh about the term “transmedia storytelling” because all stories will have to jump across different mediums with ease in order to delight an audience with increasingly savvy expectations. It won’t just be a nice bonus, but required development. Writers, grab your virtual paintbrushes – you’re going to need them!
Opposites are a blessing. We gain new insight into joy through sorrow, love through heartbreak, health through sickness, success through failure. In this way, not getting what we want is a reason to be grateful.
A blessing wrapped in disappointment
When I graduated from business school, I wanted to get a job in media. I had been out of the entertainment industry for a few years and I wanted to get to it more than anything. I interviewed at NBC and it proved to be a day of horrible experiences. I didn’t get the job, and even if I did I wouldn’t have taken it. The day of interviews was that bad, and I was horribly disappointed and hurt by the process. I have been a huge fan of NBC since I was a kid, and this was a dream job for me for as long as I can remember. With this opportunity gone, I had to get a new dream. And I did through Compass Yoga. NBC did me a huge favor in the long-run, even if I didn’t know that at the time.
A chance to show what you know
As life often does, I got another chance to enter the world of television. I recently interviewed for another large TV network whose work I greatly admire. This time I didn’t go into the situation with rose-colored glasses like I did with NBC. I was clear about who I am, how I like to work, and what I’m meant to do. This opportunity just wasn’t what I wanted, and so I opted out of the process despite the network’s strong plea for me to see it through.
That wound from my NBC interview provided me with a great amount of wisdom and the confidence to take control of my own career. It felt good to turn toward a path of my own making.
by Thomas Spiessens“A truth: the more you squeeze, the less you have.” ~ fortune cookie
I had dinner with my friend, Amy, on Saturday night and in my fortune cookie I received this message. Amy and I had just been talking about her decision to not renew her work contract after it expires in January. She’s wanted to pursue a career in the humanitarian field for a number of years and has been saving toward this goal. Now that she’s saved the necessary amount and has a back-up plan in place, she’s giving her dream a whirl.
Amy’s decision requires a lot of faith and flexibility. She needs to be open to a lot of possibilities and outcomes. As with every dream, there is some personal sacrifice that Amy will have to make – the hours will be long and the competition for the roles she most wants is fierce. However, Amy has so much heart and has been preparing for this moment for so long that I have every confidence that she is heading off in a beautiful and meaningful new direction.
To make this choice, Amy had to let go of a bit of her job security and take a road that she will have to build herself. Her greatest insight came when she realized she was holding tight to a job that is not her life’s work. The more we release, the more freedom me gain. As she sees time ticking by she feels an urgency, a call to action to at least give her dream a shot. The worst that could happen is that it won’t work out and she’ll find a new dream, fulfilled with the knowledge that she gave it her very best try. Her example is such a good lesson for me, and for all of us: an open hand can hold more than a clenched fist.
A photo I snapped of Friday's storm before a stranger rescued us with his umbrellaPhineas and I got caught in the downpour on Friday night. I had gone to pick him up from his first time at daycare and the raging storm took us by surprise as we made our way home. We were both crouched underneath an awning outside Cafe Frida, my favorite Mexican restaurant in our neighborhood. Phineas hates the rain, as most dachshunds do.
Just inside the restaurant a couple watched us through the window, looking on us with a great deal of pity. The man got up from the table and opened the door.
“We have two little dachshunds at home and we know how much they hate the rain. Take our umbrella so you can get your little guy home,” he said.
“But I can’t take your umbrella. How will I get it back to you?” I asked him.
“You don’t have to. We’re going to stay here until the rain stops and we’ve got plenty of umbrellas at home. Really – take it,” he said.
I thanked him profusely and Phineas in his tired / scared state gave him a smooch. Away we went. People often think of New Yorkers as pushy, arrogant, and self-centered. And maybe we are or can be from time to time. Though I must say that after 12 years of living in this city on and off, I’ve had more kind, generous, and selfless interactions right here in New York than I have anywhere else in the world. This was one of those times.
The wind whipped us around a bit on the way home and the umbrella didn’t keep us completely dry but it did a good enough job to get home before the next batch of really heavy rain started pelting down. The umbrella partially busted along the way, but I just didn’t have the heart to toss it in the trash can at the corner of our block. I’m going to hang on to it for a bit as a reminder of just how much good there is flowing through the streets of New York, at least if you have a dachshund in hand.
I’ve been on the hunt for some new blogs to add to my regular reading. Here are a few of my recent favorite finds.
The Found Gen is “an independent publishing house and story/scripting group that focuses on providing the world with original stories and works from authors who represent the best of what the written word has to offer.” It focuses on bringing great new fiction writing to the attention of the world through the Lost & Found Quarterly. The Found Gen also focuses on reminding us of great fiction writers whom time has forgotten and is filled with valuable information for writers, particularly those interested on self-publishing. Get in on the story and check them out.
The Daily Reader is a Macmillan project piloted by my friend, Amanda Hirsch. The goal of the blog is simple: “to help us discover great reads while connecting the dots between books and current events.” As someone obsessed with the news (I’m one of those people whom they worry about getting current events fatigue when a major news event is underway), this is the perfect blog for me to read right after I finish watching the morning news and have read my daily dose of e-newsletters, alerts, and an online scan of 3-5 newspapers.
I first heard about Ollin Morales of Courage 2 Create on Problogger. His blog offers writing advice as he carves his path to the completion of his first novel. What I found so intriguing about Ollin was his optimism. The old paradigm of brooding writers who are a little bitter with a healthy dose of the dark side doesn’t fit Ollin at all. He started his blog about writing to chronicle is progress and learn about the process and commitment of putting word to page. I love how open and honest he is, sharing the good, the bad, and the ugly, and somehow always finding his way back to the good.
Those are my latest greatest finds. Have any you’d like to share?
“You know the rule: If you are falling, dive. Do the thing that has to be done.” ~ Joseph Campbell (given to me by reader, MJ)
“If you have a financial safety net, you’ll always be able to walk away. And that in and of itself will prevent you from having to walk because you can be brutally honest about what you need to stay.” ~ Margaret Heffernan
Being truly honest in the workplace is difficult. Companies have these nasty little things called performance reviews that they can and often do lord over us to get us to fall in line. That is until you just can’t stomach the party line anymore. Some of us have lower tolerances for this than others. Mine is extraordinarily low to nonexistent. Everyone I’ve ever worked with will attest to this, and all of them will say that I am very straight-forward. My favorite description that one of my team mates used a number of years ago to describe me is “tough and fair.”
My mounting frustration at work over the past few months is plainly obvious, to me and to others, and this has been intentional. Authentically, I have to let others know when something just isn’t working. And finally I just decided something had to change, or I had to walk – or dive as Joseph Campbell would say. I am just done with the current situation, and during my mid-year review this week I expressed that. No anger or cynicism. Just a simple statement – “I’m done.” It needed to be said for my own health and the health of the whole system.
This kind of statement is alarming to most because a) few people speak that plainly at work and b) it takes a lot for most people to get to this point. It was a risk certainly, though with Margaret Heffernan’s brilliant advice and my saving abilities, I have the luxury, and I mean luxury to the highest degree for which I am very grateful!, to be able to back it up. I can walk if I need to or want to, and so I can lay out very clearly why improvement needs to be made quickly or we need to part ways.
I had my doubts about whether anything could or would be done in enough time, though I was pleasantly surprised to show up today and find that a shift was put into place overnight. I have some strong beliefs about improvement – 1) it’s a continuous process, 2) it’s always possible, and 3) it’s important to give people a chance to try. It’s incumbent upon us to lay out our frustrations clearly and succinctly, with possible solutions. It’s incumbent upon leaders to get to the bottom of those frustrations and try to solve the systematic problems that cause them. And if those leaders show a genuine effort in trying to improve, I think they deserve a chance to give it a whirl on our behalf. A former boss of mine once told me that it’s important to let people apologize for their mistakes. I’d extend that same kind of sentiment to improvement, too.
So, we’ll see how it goes. We’ll see if the change sticks and if this situation can be turned around, at least in the short-term. Clearly there is something for me to learn in this latest twist in the story. I promise to keep you updated.
My friend, Pam, recently posted on Facebook about a new service she’s trying out from Me You Health. After a quick sign-up, Me Youth Health will email you one simple step every day that will bring you closer to wellness. Clean out your closet for 15 minutes. Stand up and stretch your abs. Trade your sugary snack for a healthier choice. Click the “Done” button in the email after you’ve completed it and you’re awarded points that can be redeemed for content that helps you improve your wellness is a specific area of your life.
Christa Avampato 