business, education, entrepreneurship, social change, social entrepreneurship

Step 144: Sparkseed Supports Social Innovators at American Universities

Christa Avampato

A few months ago, I featured Jerri Chou from All Day Buffet and Teju Ravilochan from the Unreasonable Institute. Jerri and Teju’s optimism in action inspired me to continue seeking out social entrepreneurs who believe that the greatest positive impact on society can be made when we create opportunities for people to use their personal passions to do well and do good at the same time.

I virtually met Mike Del Ponte as a result of my interviews with Jerri and Teju. He emailed me to educate me about his initiative, Sparkseed, which invests in American college students who aspire to be tomorrow’s social entrepreneurs. They have ideas to change the world, and Sparkseed helps them get there by providing a unique blend of services including pro-bono consulting, mentoring, and seed money.

I meet a lot of social entrepreneurs with inspiring stories. Mike’s ability to combine his business savvy with his passion for and personal experience with social entrepreneurship is a rare gift. “When I was at Yale I launched a social venture and soon found that I had to teach myself everything: how to form the corporation, how to recruit and manage a team, how to pitch to investors, etc…I had to reinvent the wheel and wasted a lot of time…I noticed that almost all student innovators run into the same problem…Sparkseed was established to give young social entrepreneurs everything they need to fulfill their potential as change agents.”

The Financial Times recently awarded Sparkseed with its prestigious Best Social Investment Strategy award. To date, Sparkseed has funded over 50 social enterprise projects from a wide variety of fields:

Elecar Inc.: Founded by Brown University student Andrew Antar, Elecar is working to provide the missing piece to the electric car puzzle. By developing residential charging station and an online payment system, Elecar is laying a cost-effective framework to facilitate the mass adoption of electric cars.

MaloTraders: Founded by Temple University student Mohamed Ali Niang, MaloTraders specializing in the processing, storing, and marketing of rice for small-scale farmers in Mali. By making local production more competitive on the international market, MaloTrade is working to alleviate poverty.

Paper Feet: Founded by University of Michigan student Jimmy Tomczak, Paper Feet makes the world’s thinnest and most flexible flip-flop out of recycled billboard vinyl. Every year, 10,000 tons of billboard vinyl ends up in landfills. Paper Feet is addressing this problem by rolling out a line of hip products all made from up-cycled waste.

Get involved and be inspired! Learn more about Sparkseed and its incredible stable of social entrepreneurs by visiting the organization’s website, joining the Facebook page, and following on Twitter.

change, yoga

Step 143: The Last Class

Christa Avampato

“Often when you think you’re at the end of something, you’re at the beginning of something else. I’ve felt that many times. My hope for all of us is that ‘the miles we go before we sleep’ will be filled with all the feelings that come from deep caring – delight, sadness, joy, wisdom – and that in all the endings of our life, we will be able to see the new beginnings.” ~ Fred Rogers

My birthday falls under Pisces, the final sign of the zodiac. Pisces enjoy endings, resolutions, and projects completed. Today marked the final day of our 200 hour teaching training at Sonic Yoga, a happy-sad day as my friend, Vivian, called it so eloquently and accurately. We look forward to the time that will now be open again on our calendars, and at the same time have tears in our eyes that exactly the way we have all been together for the last 3 months will never be again.

As a closing ritual, we all lit candles, and one by one, stared into each others eyes with the silent gesture of Namaste, “the light that is in me honors the light that is in you.” We so rarely have these moments with others in our daily lives. We don’t acknowledge one another in that profound way nearly enough, and in our world today we so desperately need that mutual honor, respect, and support.

I found all of those things in abundance in Sonic’s teacher training. 23 women gathered together for 3 months, with incredible teachers, to pay tribute to one another’s light. We laughed, cried, worked, and played together. It is a rare and precious gift to join a community so filled with joy, one that recognizes the beauty baked in to each of its souls in a unique and stunning way.

I tried hard to think of a way to say thank you enough, to the students and to our teachers. For someone who nearly always knows exactly what to say and when to say it, I found that the silent gaze into the eyes of each person conveyed more authentic gratitude and love than any phrase I could have uttered. The best way to honor the gift of this training is to pay it forward with wild abandon.

future

Step 142: Here Comes the Future

Christa Avampato

“Objects in the rear view mirror may be closer than they appear.” ~ every car sold in America

I make lists for everything, and my favorite lists are those that describe things I want to accomplish. I like to see how they change and grow; I like to reflect on which items I accomplished and which I tossed away and why. When I make these lists, I think that the check-mark next to each is an elusive, distant thing. Sometimes I think my future exists out there somewhere in the ether. I think I’ll see it coming way off in the distance so I can ready myself. So I can prepare. It never works that way. The future resides just over there, only a moment away, never as far away as I imagine. And always more beautiful.

writer, writing

Step 141: Reasons for Writing

Christa Avampato

“You must trust and believe in people, or life becomes impossible.” ~ Anton Chekhov

I recently landed a freelance writing gig that caused my mind to reel in a very different direction. I will tell you the groovy circumstances of how it happened when the post goes live next week. For now, I’ll share how the conversation I had with the company’s founder started to change my outlook on my writing.

I spend a good deal of time writing about creativity, hope, and personal growth. Sometimes I struggle to sum it all up. I write about my life in New York, ‘Christa in New York’. When I put that down in writing, it sounds awkward to me. Too cliché, too flat.

The company founder I spoke to helped me articulate my writing purpose when he asked me to write about how to stay positive in a big company job with big company challenges. While the post focuses on career, the ideas it explains have broader applications within our lives. This blog really focuses on positive thinking – how to find it, get it, and keep it. Sure, I get discouraged from time to time. In some posts, you will see glimpses of that. Mostly, I write to celebrate and commemorate moments – this act makes the bad times bearable and the good times even more joyful.

Negativity exists in a lot of places, on a lot of faces, and within a lot blogs. Those blogs have their place and their followings, just not here on this site. I believe in full expression and experience, and I also believe that hard times, shortcomings, and failures offer us valuable opportunities to stop, listen, look, and examine our lives. They give us the gifts of faith, trust, and belief that together we can make everything better. I write to connect with people who hold this idea in their hearts and then take it out into the world, bravely and boldly.

books, love

Step 140: Meet Tre Miller-Rodriguez

Christa Avampato

I met Tre Miller-Rodriguez about a year ago as a result of my Examiner.com column. At the time Tre worked as a Senior Account Manager for Harrison & Shriftman. She set me up with several start-ups to feature in my column about entrepreneurship. Once Tre left Harrison & Shriftman we stayed in touch and then I discovered her inspiring lifestory outside of her career.

A little over a year ago, Tre, 34 years old, lost her husband, Alberto, to a sudden heart attack. I have trouble getting over a break-up with a boyfriend. I can’t imagine how I would get through losing the love of my life at such a young age. Tre’s strength bowls me over. She left Harrison & Shriftman to travel to Cuba, Alberto’s family home, and finish her book, The White Elephant in the Room: Diary of a 30-Something Widow. She recently launched her blog, of the same title as her book.

Her writing packs a punch, and her heroic journey reveals just how much might this woman has in her heart. Her first page of the book put a knife in my heart. She placed me right into the center of the situation with Alberto, and my mind raced with questions. I found myself saying out loud “no, no, no! This can’t happen!” I wanted to stop, rewind, get Alberto to a medical center, and save him. Tre recounts her loss with awe-inspiring grace and dignity. Your jaw will drop, as mine did, before you turn to page two.

Want to know how to rise above tragedy and live an extraordinary life? Get to know Tre.

The photo above depicts Tre and Alberto on their fairytale wedding day. Tre’s blog can be found at: http://whiteelephantintheroom.tumblr.com/

books, community, neighbors

Step 139: Good Neighbors

Christa Avampato

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping’.” ~ Fred Rogers, The World According to Mister Rogers: Important Things to Remember

I feel sick watching the news about the unending oil spill in the Gulf. As someone who has worried about our water supply since age 5, this story breaks my heart. Bill Maher got it right when we so poetically stated, “Every a**hole who ever chanted ‘drill baby drill’ should have to report to the Gulf coast today for cleanup duty.” I agree.

Whenever these sad moments hit me, I go to my book shelf and pull from a small collection of books that I refer to again and again for inspiration. The World According to Mister Rogers is one of those books. For Christmas in 2003, my mom bought me this book about Mister Rogers. The inscription on the inside of the book reads, “This book is dedicated, in Fred Roger’s memory, to anyone who has loved you into being.” My mom added, “and continues to love you every day for everything you do, for caring so much about all of us. I feel so lucky to have you as my daughter.” Moms always have a way of making us feel better, no matter how bleak the world may seem.

Last week, my yoga teacher Stacey read us the quote at the top of this post. I had forgotten it and when I went searching through the book tonight, I found it on p. 187. It made me feel better about the Gulf. And about Haiti and Afghanistan and the South Bronx. Blight and tragedy play out all over the globe every day, making it too easy to get lost in the sadness. Look for the helpers – they dwell in every neighborhood, sometimes acting behind the scenes and sometimes taking their rightful place at center stage. Find them, wherever they live, and celebrate them.

Mister Rogers taught me about community and the priceless value of a helpful neighbor. I grew up in a tiny, rural town on an apple orchard. We struggled financially; a lot of people in my town did. But we had really kind, generous neighbors, and we tried to return the favor every day. We tried to take care of each other as best we could. In my cushy Manhattan apartment tonight, I may have left behind the circumstances of my childhood, but I never lost the lessons of good neighbors.

P.S. – Trish Scott, a very talented writer, animal behavior expert, and extremely loyal reader of my blog wrote a post several years ago about how Mister Rogers raised $20M in 6 minutes. She put this link into the comments section but it’s so powerful, I had to include it on the main page of this post. Happy reading!

community, society

Step 138: Invest in Others

Christa Avampato

“We are each other’s harvest; we are each other’s business; we are each other’s magnitude and bond.” ~ Gwendolyn Brooks

As the weather gets milder, I’m spending more time on my terrace. I stare up at all of those stars, and they remind me that the world has a lot of room for glowing. I really hate that term “top performers”, the idea that the world takes shape on a bell curve with us as nothing more than points on that path, grouped in standard deviations from the mediocre mean. Ridiculous. If the universe in its infinite wisdom thought that way about the galaxy, I would spend my nights gazing into a black, empty sky, with hardly any light.

Everyone has within them the opportunity to display extraordinary abilities. Our only real work consists of bringing out that glimmer in ourselves, and in those around us. We owe it equally to ourselves, to those with us now, to those who came before us, and those who will follow. I for one would rather leave a legacy of light than a legacy inscribed with the idea of “I did what was rational, safe, and standard.” I would rather believe that by changing expectations, I can change performance. I would rather spend my days chasing down my own unlikely dream than abiding by someone else’s rules and standards.

I invest in people before I invest in the stock market. When push comes to shove, I double down on my own efforts and I don’t bank on a better opportunity to magically appear. I have to build the better opportunity, for myself and for others as my responsibility, my privilege. After all, without one another, we don’t have much at all.

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

faith, music, yoga

Step 137: The Sound of Faith

Christa Avampato

“All major religions carry basically the same message. That is love, compassion, and forgiveness. The important thing is they should be part of our daily lives.” ~ Dalai Lama

Last night I hopped over to Sonic Yoga’s kirtan to make up a few teacher training hours that I’m going to miss on Saturday. I attended the first kirtan in March and was excited to see how the event was evolving. Most of the people there were involved with the teacher training currently or were alumni of previous trainings. Sonic has done an incredible job of keeping its teachers in touch and bridging the divide between classes. My friend, Courtney, leaned over to me at one point and said, “I’d really like to just roll out my mat and sleep here because it feels so good to be in this.” I felt the same way.

Though Sanskrit is a foreign language to me, I feel like I’ve spoken it before. The words have so much power and vibration in them, sometimes subtle and sometimes so strong that I think my heart might leap out of my chest. I’ve heard some people express the same feeling about their religious faith or going to their church. For me, yoga is my church, and kirtan is the soundtrack to my experience on the mat.

Last night as I walked to the subway with two other friends from my teacher training class, we talked about how alive we felt after the kirtan, about how it swept away our tired, worn-out feelings. Somehow that song that is almost entirely improvised breathes life into us in a way that food and water and even relationships cannot. It’s the sound that awakens something in us that is very tangible but somehow still too elusive to put a name on. It is a feeling we can take out into the world and infuse into everything we do.

We walked out into the night wanting very much to bring the peace and confidence and creativity we found at the kirtan out into the world. Even this morning I am still humming the melodies, sometimes purposefully and other times subconsciously. Sound and song have been a part of so many revolutions throughout time. I wonder if our little kirtans at Sonic, in some small way, are helping to shift the world’s energy in a way that we so desperately need it to shift.

books, commitment, yoga

Step 136: A Dedicated Life

Christa Avampato

“Learn to lead a dedicated life…the dedicated ever enjoy peace…the entire life is an open book, a scripture. Read it. Learn while digging a pit or chopping some wood or cooking some food…OM Shanthi, Shanthi, Shanthi. OM Tat Sat. (OM peace, peace, peace. OM unlimited truth.” ~ Sri Swami Satchidananda

In one week, I will complete my 200 hour yoga teacher training. I’ve been trying to take my yoga practice out into the world. I practice my balance on the subway as it roars down the express track. I find it while cooking my meals. I use it when I encounter someone who is having a tough day and showing it. In the mornings, I try to be mindful of my commute, visualizing my day and what I will be able to accomplishment. I am trying to show up and be present at every moment. I look at service as yoga, too, even though my mat may be no where in sight.

Sri Swami Satchidananda wrote the translation of the Yoga Sutras that we read for the yoga teacher training. While I didn’t agree with all of his notes, the quote above that he used to close out the book has really stuck with me throughout this training. It’s great to be able to start to do arm balances or be on the verge of doing headstead in the middle of a room without a wall. My physical yoga practice has grown by leaps and bounds – for the first time I actually understand how my body is pieced together and why it works the way it does. I began a daily meditation practice with this course, a practice that will always be with me, even when my body stops working so well. I grew to look forward to change, and accept that all of this is temporary. But the real achievement for me is that I am conscious every day of living my yoga, on and off the mat. Yoga gave me a way to grow my dedication to my own happiness.

The most beautiful piece of yoga is that there is no end to the learning. In all the years I’ve been going to class and even with this wonderful training at Sonic, I haven’t even scratched the surface. Yoga has been around for ~6,000 years. Its applications in the world, in our lives, and in the physical practice have no end so long as we are dedicated to their study and to our own personal exploration. Tat Sat, indeed.

The image above depicts Sri Swami Satchidananda at his Yogaville Ashram in Buckingham, VA. Ironically, his ashram is only 40 minutes from where I went to business school; I never knew it existed until my training at Sonic.

change, humor

Step 135: Laughter Makes a Difference

Christa Avampato

“If you laugh – you change; and when you change – the world changes.” ~ Shilpa Shah

I don’t care what people say about TV – I love it. When I was feeling badly about my job, I watched The Office as often as possible. Even re-runs. My boss at the time reminded me of Michael Scott. The Office made it easier for me to go to work in the morning while I found another job. Laughing changed my perspective.

I’ve experienced this same phenomenon when a friend cheers me up after a tough day or when someone emails me a joke or a funny story right when I need it. Yoga puts a smile on my face after I get through a rigorous class. My niece does something hilarious like see the space shuttle take off and say, “Look, Mommy. Fireworks.” If we look closely, there is no end to the hilarity of life.

Laughter changes the lens through which we see the world. And once we can see the world differently, we can see our role in the world differently. And once we see our role differently, we find a way to make a difference.

The image above was found here.