Step 7: Nothing Left to Lose

A friend of mine is making his final pitch tomorrow. In a job that he's grown tired of, and quite frankly is far too talented for, he's going to the powers-that-be (and I use the word powers very lightly) to see if he can get funding for a project that interests him. The chance to work on this project is the only reason he would stay at the job. Otherwise, he's leaving to get his own business going. His bravery inspires me.

My friend has been looking to make this move for a while, though like so many he wanted to do the reasonable, responsible thing in a difficult economy. At a time when so many are out of work, he was nervous about voluntarily leaving his job. As much as some economists will tout that the recession is over, there are many dissenting voices who say it will be a long, slow climb out of this hole. So what changed for my friend? How did he make a change within his own mind when little around him has changed? Where did his boldness come from?

"Well, Christa, I have nothing left to lose now," he told me today. "This is the only project on the table that interests me and if I can't work on it, then I've got to make myself useful somewhere else. I just can't stay where I am anymore."

On the phone today, I was bursting with pride for my friend. He flipped that switch, recognized and embraced his own talents, and recognized how they could be used in his current situation. More importantly, he realized that if his gifts couldn't be utilized where he is then he has to make use of them somewhere else. Leaving them unused is no longer an option in his own heart.

To be sure, in the last few weeks leading up to this decision he has at times felt completely terrified. I'd argue that this means he's really on to something here. It's amazing what we can accomplish when we realize that the direction of our lives really is up to us.

Step 2: Working with Friends

Today I had lunch with Trevin and Blair, two of my friends whom I worked with a number of years ago. During our lunch, I was reminded of how good it feels to work with friends, to be such an integral part of their lives. I've heard some people say that it's best to keep our personal and professional lives separate. I disagree. I'd always prefer to work with friends - it makes work feel like play.

Last year I wrote a blog post that referenced an article in Fast Company about David Kelley, the Founder of IDEO. He left a mediocre management job at an engineering firm to get his MBA at Stanford. Though he had job offers after graduation, he declined them to start his own company with his friends. That company became IDEO. In the article he describes that his one strong inclination for employment was to work with friends. Had he not taken the leap and followed his instinct, he probably would be toiling away in a grey cubicle doing less-than-inspiring work. Instead, he founded a company that is arguably the finest product design firm in the world. And he has fun everyday. Bet well-played, David.

What if we could all follow our gut with David Kelley's creative confidence? What if we could turn down opportunities, as great as they seem, because they just don't jive with how we'd like to live our lives? Perhaps there's an IDEO for each of us, or at the very least a bit more happiness to be had in our careers. In 2010, I'd like to get back to a career of working with friends.

The photo above is not my own. It appears courtesy of IDEO.

My Year of Hopefulness - The Center

"The artists' role is to do what's honest for them. So if you're in New York and everyone is looking at the floor, you can look up. It's not your role to follow the others. It's your role to go to your center and then reflect that, not just to be a mirror to what's happening." ~ James Hubbell

Here is a tricky balance to keep: how can we be mindful of what's happening around us and also learn to follow our own hearts? It's easy to get swept up in the moment, in the emotions and circumstances of others. In its best form, we know this as empathy. In its worst form, we know this as distraction. How can we see the whole picture, and also our own role in it? How can we see both the forest and the trees? The role of the artist, in any medium, demands this balance, and that balance is our Center.

Our Center is an elusive thing. We clearly know when we have moved away from our Center: it's apparent in our lack of energy, enthusiasm, and joy. Finding and holding the Center, particularly in our daily adventures in chaos, is a tough thing because it sometimes requires that we disappoint others to be true to ourselves. It requires that we believe in ourselves and in our own abilities more than we believe in anything else. It asks us to take our future into our own hands.

There are three ways to know if we've found our Center:
1.) It makes time pass by so quickly and effortlessly that we barely notice how long we've been there.

2.) The activities we perform at our Center give us energy and we never grow tired of them.

3.) Our Center is the summation of the very best gifts we have to offer to the world.

For me, my Center is found in writing and yoga. I've been writing daily for three and a half years, and intermittently as far back into my childhood as I can remember. I've had a steady yoga practice for 10 years. Time has flown! These activities give me boundless energy and let me show my most joyful face to the world.

And so, I am taking James Hubbell's: in 2010, I will go to my Center and reflect what is there. By the time 2010 is singing its swan song, I'll find a way to make writing and yoga the Center of my life. I'll find a way to earn my living through them. The 'fierce urgency of now' is calling me far too clearly to spend my life any other way.

My Year of Hopefulness - Your One Wild and Precious Life

Long a mainstay of college admissions processes and orientations, I recently heard about the poem The Summer Day by Mary Oliver. (I've pasted it at the bottom of this post.) My sister, Weez, tells me that it is my great hope in life to be employed as a professional student. She's right.

I am a sucker for places that make us dream big, that push us beyond our limits, that stretch our imaginations and minds in ways that we never thought possible. I am a forever student, very much at home in the classroom wherever that classroom happens to be, whether I am up front teaching or happily seated in the front row soaking up all that glorious information like a sponge. So of course the big questions are my very favorites, and Mary Oliver hits on what may be my favorite question yet: "What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" Isn't that gorgeous? Makes me want to print it out 1,000 times and plaster it all over my neighborhood.

This week I have had new options unfolding for me every day. Just when I think I am set upon a course of action, some other wonderful possibility falls into my path to consider. I think I'm being tested (which is fine by me since students love tests.) I think I'm being shown a way to focus on exactly what field in life gets me most excited, education, and then also being offered a myriad of distractions that are testing my passion for it. Mary Oliver's question is like a beacon in the haze. What if we looked at every option that's thrown our way, what if we considered every road before us with this lens. What if we made choices by asking "is this what you want to do with your one wild and precious life (knowing that our lives are so short)?"

The very thought of this takes my breathe away. Our lives are so short. We have such little time here, making every day a wild and precious thing. So here is my answer to Mary Oliver, no matter how many days I have left:

To write courageously and passionately so that it stirs the hearts and imaginations of others

To give children every where the chances that I had to improve my own lot in life through education, dedication, and very hard work

To lift others up as I rise

To generate more kindness, compassion, and generosity in the world

To take these two wild and precious hands and build things that have value and meaning, for me and for many others

To travel far and wide, to experience other cultures, to see new scenery, to meet as many citizens of the world as possible

And, yes, every day I want to be both a teacher and a student

The Summer Day

by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

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

My Year of Hopefulness - Take Up the Torch

“Life is no brief candle, it’s a torch. I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on.” ~ George Bernard Shaw

I saw this quote by George Bernard Shaw on Twitter over the weekend. Someone sent it to me after reading my blog posts about my trip to Costa Rica and my plans for the future. Thinking of life as a torch, something we can and should wield as a powerful instrument to light up the world around us, reinforced my belief that if we are just subsisting and not doing our life’s work every day, then a change is necessary, sooner rather than later. As my mom often says, “we will not pass this way again. So make this pass count as much as you can.”

Yesterday a friend of mine was telling me about a conversation he recently had with his dad. His father told him that his job was my friend’s life’s work. My friend objected and then his dad asked him a few questions:

“Son, where do you spend the most hours of your day?”

“At work.”

“What do you think about for the most number of hours per day?”

“Work.”

“Then your job is your life’s work. How do you feel about that? Is it fulfilling?”

“No. I don’t get any fulfillment from it. It’s just a job,” my friend answered.

“Sounds like you better change it. You don’t want your life’s work to be just a job.”

These are harsh words that could have been said with a kinder voice, though the point is crystal clear. Where and with whom we spend most of our time is our life’s work. I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about where my energy and time is spent, and what that’s accomplishing. I spend a lot of my time volunteering, and a lot of that volunteering is done in the field of education. I come alive in a classroom of any kind whether I’m the student or the teacher, and classrooms can be found throughout our communities. It’s that learning environment that is so invigorating, that gives me the most hope for our future.

And so, in the words of my friend’s father, I am about to set to work on making a change to make that time in education my life’s work. When I think about how much good can be done there, how much I have to offer in that setting, I realize that my torch is growing brighter.

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

My Year of Hopefulness - Personal Statements

Today I began writing my personal statement for my PhD application to Columbia. I have been thinking about it for a week. Usually writing comes very easy to me. It's something I love and a skill I work on every day. The words usually come faster than I can type them. Several times I have sat down to write this personal statement and starred at a blank page for a long time, closing my laptop with nothing to show for my time.

What is it that's getting to me? Why is it that putting fingers to keys to write this personal statement is so tough? I can talk about why I want to get my PhD; I know my dissertation topic and I know what I want to do post-PhD. So why is this personal statement giving me writer's block?

In one to two pages I have to explain who I am and what I'm most passionate about to people who barely know me. Every word counts. Because of the critical importance of this piece I was editing before I even started writing. I let my quest for perfection get in the way of telling the truth, plain and simple.

While I need perfection before I click the 'submit' button, I was forgetting that the first draft, along with the second, third, and thirtieth can be far less than perfect. A final piece that shines from beginning to end is composed of bits and pieces of glimmer from the many drafts that come before it.

Life's the same way. Love's the same way. Careers are the same way. We usually don't get things perfectly correct the first time around. It takes a lot of trial, and error, and trial again. It takes the courage to fail, to follow a dream as far as it will take us. And many times our dreams dead end and we have to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and start all over again. Life, love, and careers take many drafts, and in each new experience we gain a little piece of magic, a little piece of awareness that will get us a bit closer to our own version of perfect. The trick is to never call it quits until we get exactly what we want.

My Year of Hopefulness - Safety in Change

"It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power." ~ Alan Cohen

My friend, Rob, and I were talking about safety a few weeks ago. Rob talked to me about how we've conned ourselves into believing that a company, a job, can give us some feeling of security and stability when really it's a house of cards. I've seen it happen to so many of my friends - they are cranking along in their jobs, exhibiting exceptional performance and results, and then the pink slip. Rob's advice on my news of moving on: "You've done the hard part: making the choice to step outside the box that hems one in, and keeps one from dreaming bigger dreams...know you are supported from many quadrants. More as it goes..."

I emailed some friends about my impending jump off the cliff. I told them that it feels great to have made this decision, though my friend, Eric, in his characteristic empathy sensed that I'm scared. And then in his continuing characteristic empathy, he responded : "Don't worry, Christa - I already hit rock bottom underneath that cliff - so I'll be there to catch you!" Not at all surprising since Eric honestly saved my life as I muddled through my MBA. My friend Laura simply responded "I am 150000% behind you." My friend, Allan, said "You are very brave and thoughtful." These are the very messages I needed today to lift me up.

When I think about finding security and stability, I'm reminded that it's in our friends and family and in the chance we take on our own abilities that we can find a haven. The safest route for me is not to stand on that cliff hoping that it doesn't crumble beneath me; it's to jump, knowing that friends like Rob, Eric. Laura, and so many others are there to catch me if I need catching. They are the ones I can place my faith and trust in.

My friend, Jamie, finished up his last day at his job today. We went for a celebratory dinner, yummy cheap Thai food around the corner from my apartment at Sura. We toasted to our new adventures, to our choice to be free and to build the lives we want to live. And while there is still that underlying ripple of fear of the unknown, fear of what's next, there is also a tremendous sense of excitement, of realizing that we are on the edge of becoming more ourselves.

I was reminded all day today, through so many different channels, that in September I came very close to never getting a tomorrow. I stood on West 96th Street, watching smoke billow out of my building, realizing I was living a life of great comfort and little meaning. That great "what if" hangs over my head every day, and rather than being plagued by it, I am so grateful for it. What if I hadn't made it out of that building? What if that was the end? Could I have looked back on September 4th and said, "yes, I'm so glad that I was living that life?" No - not at all. In that moment, change became not an option, but an inevitability, and it's been driving me forward, upward, and onward toward a life lived with greater meaning, greater purpose, every day since.

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

My Year of Hopefulness - Climb Up A Ways

One of the first Broadway shows I worked on was Cabaret at Studio 54. I would sit in the back of the theatre night after night and watch that story unfold, every show more beautiful than the show before. One of my favorite lines is from Herr Schultz (played by Ron Rifkin) to Fräulein Schneider (played by Blair Brown). Herr Schultz is trying to convince Fräulein Schneider to enter into a relationship with him, despite the fact that he is Jewish and the world is looking a little bleak for people of his heritage. He tells her that the apples at the base of tree are easy to pick up, though the fruit at the top of tree, if she is willing to climb up a ways, is so much sweeter. I worked on that show almost 11 years ago, and still I think of that line and how applicable it is to our lives every day.

I feel comfortable admitting in this blog post that very soon I will be moving on to a new position in my career. I've had an honest conversation with my boss and explained my intentions. I hope she understands. At the end of the day, the future of her team that she's laid out is just not what gets me going. I completely understand that she's in charge of the team and has every right to change the direction of the bus. My obligation is to decide whether or not to whole-heartedly get on the bus. I've decided to actively look for a new bus, and there are some stupendous options on the horizon.

Some people think I'm a little crazy for making this move. I've done a lot of good work in my position; I've built solid relationships that would serve me so well and get me promoted quickly. If only I could put my head down, keep my mouth shut, and phone it in just the way that I've been scripted, I'd be just fine. I could coast right through to the end of this recession no matter how long it lasts.

Those who know me a bit better just smile and nod when I say I'm looking for new opportunities that get me up out of bed in the morning. They know I'm not built for coasting. Yes, coasting is much easier in that it requires no exertion on my part. The trouble is that for me coasting is just an unbearable existence. Putting the pedal to the metal and 'trying to get up that great big hill of hope' is more my style. Herr Schultz was right: The vistas up there are so much wider and more open and beautiful. Fräulein Schneider didn't know what she was missing.

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

Examiner.com: Interview with Lorin Rokoff and Laura Paterson, Founders of Hot Blondies Bakery

I learned about Hot Blondies Bakery through Crain’s. They were the headline business in a feature article about online bakeries. A friend of mine from business school is considering a similar avenue so I opened up the Crain’s article to have a peek at what these ladies were up to. Laura's and Lorin's story of making the leap from stable jobs to entrepreneurship was inspiring so I hopped over to their site. Their market positioning and branding is unique and fun – I like the edge they take with their baking and they clearly have the business savvy to match their sumptuous baked goods!

Find the interview here.

My Year of Hopefulness - Kant, Darwin, and Child

I never thought I'd be able to draw a common connection between Immanuel Kant, Charles Darwin, and Julia Child. In the context of gearing up for my second act, I've been coming across a remarkable number the stories about people who came to their calling and made their significant contributions to the world later on in life. Perhaps it's true that we find what we're looking for, and I've been looking for inspirations for my act 2. In this quest, the stories of Kant, Darwin, and Child bear repeating.

Immanuel Kant is recognized as one of the greatest philosophical minds, creating such constructs as the categorical imperative and transcendental idealism. I learned about Kant's works through Michael Sandel's on-line class, Justice. Kant received his first paying job at age 31. He was a university lecturer paid on commission based upon how many students attended his class. He published his first work at age 51 after a decade of near silence and introversion. Odd, yes. Worth the wait, absolutely. His first published work, Critique of Pure Reason, was the beginning of an entirely new branch of philosophy now known as Kantianism. Of course his brilliance did not sprout overnight - it took 50 years of training to condition his mind to be able to think clearly enough to write such a complex piece of work.

Like Kant, Charles Darwin wrote his seminal work, The Origin of Species, in his early 50's. This work revolutionized life sciences by putting forward the ideas of evolution, natural selection, and survival of the fittest. He spent many years as a student, as did Kant, and he followed his own interests rather than cow-towing to the desires of others to plan his life. His father wanted him to be a medical doctor, even though Darwin always had an inclination to be a naturalist. Eventually his will won out and he got to build the life he wanted, albeit a little later than he probably would have liked.

I get a lot of inspiration from food, and it's impossible to over-emphasize the contribution of Julia Child to the culinary field. Following the pattern of Kant and Darwin, Child published her best known book Mastering the Art of French Cooking, in her early 50's. She didn't even entertain making a career in cooking until she was awarded admission into Le Cordon Bleu, the famed French cooking school, at age 36. She freely admitted that she had been looking for a career all her life; she had several other careers as a copywriter and as a government worker before falling in love with cooking. Once she discovered that love, she never looked back and by her own hands, literally, changed the world of food forever.

These stories give me a lot of hope for the futures of people who follow different paths early on in life, who pursue their every interest with wild abandon and passion. I know some people who have known exactly what they wanted to do since age 5. I used to date a man who at age 5 decided he wanted to be an attorney. Today, he does exactly what he always wanted do. He probably always will. I'll admit that I hate him a little bit for knowing what he wanted so early in life. Or at least I did hate him until I heard the stories of Kant, Darwin, and Child.

For some of us, our calling just doesn't find us that way. We have to follow lots of different paths to find our way home. We're in good company with Kant, Darwin, and Child. The only important thing is to not give up until we can finally find our true selves, until we fully realize our own great contribution to humanity. In the long-run, tenacity pays off.

My Year of Hopefulness - Climbing

"The single largest pool of untapped resource in this world is human good intentions that never translate into action." ~ Cindy Gallop

This morning I had breakfast with one of my business school professors. From the beginning of my time at Darden, he was a champion of mine and was someone that I spent many hours learning from. He has been and I hope will continue to be a great mentor of mine. I wanted to meet with him to talk about my plans for my own continuing education. He helped me to realize that in my plans, I am thinking too small. I am selling myself short.

He asked me what programs I was considering. "Christa, where you are is a function of where you've been. You must go to the best program that will accept you. Start with the number one program in the country first, go talk to them, see if it's a match for you and if it is, fight for your admission into that program. This is the time to push yourself further than you ever dreamed possible."

I was a little shell-shocked. I hadn't considered the number one program at all, for a variety of reasons. On my way home, I kept closing my eyes and shaking my head a bit, considering the enormity of the task before me. My professor asked me to start from a place of the biggest, brightest, most beautiful dream where I can do the most good, and let that guide my application process. "A little change is not enough, Christa," he said. "You are capable of more."

When I got home and opened up my email, I found the quote from Cindy Gallop. I have good intentions, and by entering some of the programs I have been considering, I could bring some of them to life. My professor is asking me to reach up a bit higher on the tree of programs, where the sun shines brightest, where the fruit of hard labor is realized in its fullest form. If I intend to bring my intentions to life in the best way possible with the greatest amount of abundance, I don't do myself any favors by dreaming small dreams.

On the subway down to meet my professor this morning, I was thinking about the idea of life being lived in 3 acts. Let's assume I can live to the ripe old age of 100. At 33, I am just about to close my first act of life. In doing so, my professor's advice is the perfect transition into act 2.

Here I am, a small town girl who worked hard to achieve some pretty decent accomplishments, endured some difficult hardships, and in the process found the line of work I was meant to do. In beginning to plan out that work, I had some ideas of how it could be achieved, and then a great mentor stepped in right at the end of act 1 with a surprise twist that would spur me to achieve much more in act 2 than my own script had originally set out to do. And so the plot shifts, the stakes heighten, and the excitement begins to build.

My Year of Hopefulness - What We Love

"Let the beauty of what you love be what you do." ~ Rumi

So often we spend our time wondering what we should do with our lives that will make us successful, useful, and financially stable. What will bring us the greatest amount of happiness is always secondary to these other considerations when we think of our careers. We think "what can I do as a career so that it will give me the freedom to pursue what I really love down the road or after hours." Today I thought a lot about how much more good we could actually do in the world if we approach our careers from a place of love first and everything else - success, money, utility - second.

This is especially on my mind today because another group of people I know lost their jobs. The news completely blind-sided all of us. It's with a heavy heart that I went about my business today, wondering how I'd feel if I were in their shoes. How would I react? What would I say? Would I view the news as a great opportunity or an unfortunate circumstance? And then the question that caused me the greatest discomfort - who's to say it won't be me tomorrow? "Down the road" could very well be right now.

This idea of impermanence keeps running through my mind. In my new apartment building, there was a fire on the 10th floor on the other side of the building. When I heard the news, I panicked for a moment. Last night I kept waking up because I could not get images of black smoke out of my mind. That awful scent seems stuck in my nose. I remember too clearly rounding the corners of those stairs in my old building, clinging to the railing, crouching and scrambling and praying, as I was passing by apartments that were burning just on the other side of those walls. I remember how lucky I was that I left that building when I did. A few more minutes and it would have all unfolded very differently.

This little fire on the 10th floor of my new building was successfully extinguished before causing too much trouble, though it's as if the Universe is flashing a great big reminder at me just as I'm getting comfortable in my new surroundings. "Remember the important things in life aren't things. You cannot afford complacence." I wanted to reply, "Yes, thank you Universe, I hear you. I'm working on a new plan for my life right now and I'm getting all the details ironed out. Now could you please stop playing with fire in my presence? And by the way, it's rude and cruel to be so threatening."

All joking aside, I'm trying hard to live every moment of my life from a place of love, love for my self, and my community, and the people I care about. I want to take Rumi's idea one step further and let the beauty of what I love be not just what I do, but also who I am. It's easy to put on disguises; it's easy to tell ourselves this is who I am at work or school or with this person or that person or when I'm alone. What I'm striving for is to be one kind of person all the time, to make "down the road" today, to make my after-hours activities my every hour's activities. In short, I'm striving for authenticity. And it seems to me that the surest way to authenticity begins with always with knowing what and who we love.

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

My latest post on Examiner: Interview with Phyllis Neill, Founder of WeMentor Social Media Marketing

Meet Phyllis Neill. Phyllis and I met almost a year ago via Twitter and we’ve been social media pals ever since. After running her own business and working a full-time day job for nearly a year, she has taken the entrepreneurial plunge. Her business is WeMentor Social Media Marketing - http://www.wementorsmm.com/. She develops social media strategies for businesses.

Previously, I featured Phyllis in this column with her business SheMentor, a service that focused on executive coaching for women. Phyllis spoke with me recently about her new business, balancing a day job and a start-up, and her company’s change in focus. My thanks to her for sharing her insights and advice.

To read the full interview with Phyllis, click here.

My Year of Hopefulness - Use Design to Change Fist Stick Knife Gun

Over the past few weeks I have had a series of fortunate coincidences. I know the universe is always talking to us, that we are always in receipt of messages that connect us and bind us together, that point toward the way we are supposed to take. In my heart I know this, though given my surprisingly thick skull, those messages some times have difficulty reaching my brain. That surprisingly thick skull of mine often has to be clobbered over the head several times in order to "get it".

The series of some of the fortunate events has unfolded as follows:
1.) A few weeks ago I had my very rough draft of Innovation Station, an after-school program, accepted by Citizen Schools, an outstanding organization that exists to help average folks like me put together a curriculum we're passionate about to teach in public middle schools.

2.) Just about the same time that Citizen Schools accepted my proposal, my former boss, Bob, sent me an invitation to attend an event on design thinking hosted by the Rotman School of Management. Tim Brown, CEO of Ideo and one of the featured speakers at the event, just released his first book called Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation. It is a powerful "blueprint for creative leaders" in a variety of sectors. Hmmm....sounds like a brilliant jumping off point for an after-school program about innovation, doesn't it? (I'm attending the Rotman School event and writing about it for Examiner and for TJCC; I hope to meet Tim and get his take on Innovation Station.)

3.) This week I have come across dozens of articles about the renewed focus on after-school programs, both from a funding and legislative perspective. Here are some examples: Home Alone, Peering at the Future, The Uneducated American, Paterson Proposes Cuts to Close Deficit.

4.) Last week, my friend, Wayne, took me to the annual meeting for Children's Health Fund, an organization that got its start at a grassroots level in one tiny area of Harlem and has grown to an international organization with the mission to advocate and assure healthcare for every child, everywhere. I want to do the same thing for education and their model and messaging is such an inspiration. They work with Harlem Children's Zone, an organization started by Geoffrey Canada that is a holistic system of education, social-service and community-building programs aimed at helping the children and families in a 97-block area of Central Harlem.

5.) About a month ago, my friend, Dan, told me about a podcast that featured Geoffrey Canada. I just picked up his book Fist Stick Knife Gun: A Personal History of Violence in America. I can't put it down and I think I just found my calling. I googled Harlem Children's Zone tonight and discovered that the two schools where I will be teaching for Citizen Schools are in the same area as the Harlem Children's Zone.

6.) My friend, Amanda Steinberg, and her company, Soapbxx, designed the Harlem Children's Zone website.

7.) The PhD program I've been looking at within The New School was recently highlighted by Bruce Nussbaum, a journalist whom I greatly admire. He writes about design and innovation. He is a professor at Parsons, one of the other schools within The New School. He has been writing a lot about design thinking, social entrepreneurship, and Tim Brown's book. He believes that Design Thinking can transform systems like healthcare and education. So do I. So do a growing number of people. This is about to get very exciting.

As I was getting off the subway tonight and heading home I had the distinct feeling that there is no turning back for me now. I finally get what the universe is trying to tell me. I will not be able to sit still knowing that what I have to offer in the way of business, product development, an appreciation for design, and a passion for education as a tool to build a solid future, so clearly matches an unmet need in the world. This is the mash-up of work I was meant to do.

This journey was a long one. My life's work has been in front of me all along, since I was a kid facing a lot of the struggles that too many kids face. I just didn't know that it should or could be the work of my life. It took me the better part of 33 years to figure out what I was meant to do with my time here. And now that I know, the fear has dissipated completely. The anxiety about my future evaporated and has been replaced by only excitement and a feeling of purpose. Goethe would tell us that there is magic in commitment. He was right. I know that now.

I had lots of wrong turns, lots of dead-ends, and lots of disappointments. Nothing ever felt right, though I had a ton of fun in the exploration process. I wouldn't change any of it. I'm just grateful and glad that I won't have to die with the music still in me, as John Lennon lamented about so many people. Finally, finally, finally I know I'm on the cusp of my life's work. It's stretched out before me like a beautiful winding road, and it's time for me to hop aboard and get going. In those poignant, truthful words of Theodore Geisel, my mountain is waiting.

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

My Year of Hopefulness - Standing on the Hinge

"Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way." ~ Victor Frankl

I just finished the book Here If You Need Me, a brilliant memoir by Kate Braestrup. Kate is a writer who became a minster shortly after her husband's death. Being a minister wasn't her dream; it was her late husband's dream and because he didn't get the chance to achieve that, she offered up her own vocation for him. She is the chaplain to the game wardens of Maine, the group of brave public servants who conduct searches for people who are lost in the deep Maine woods, the person who falls through the ice, the hiker who ventures too far for too long. Their work can be dangerous and frequently ends with a tragic discovery. They need a good chaplain and they have a superb one in Kate.

The book is a fast, inspiring read. Of all the anecdotes that stand out in my mind, the most vivid in my mind is her description of her job as standing on the hinge of life. Kate is the one who waits with the families as the game wardens search for their loved ones that are lost or missing. She counsels the wardens after tragic circumstances are discovered. She stands with them in these uncomfortable, difficult moments that will come to define their lives. These are the moments that define their befores and afters.

All through the book I kept thinking about this metaphor, this hinge of life. I kept thinking about how many hinges I've been on lately. These moments that define my own befores and afters. Each one presents an opportunity for choice - we get to choose our attitude, our way forward, our outlook, and the learnings we take away from each experience.

September 2009 could have left a very deep scar on my heart. Instead, I had to make it a time of great learning and exploration. I had to make those days count by allowing them to teach me what's truly important to me. They became a time of great commitment for me. Instead of being wracked by fear, I realized that I had nothing to fear because I knew I would be fine no matter what happened from here on out. I survived the perfect storm.

September was one big hinge for me and gave me the chance to recognize quite literally that the important things in life aren't things. It taught me that I want very deep, meaningful relationships to be the core of my life. I set myself on a course to eventually write full-time. New York most certainly became my long-time home. On October 1st, I knew with certainty what I wanted from my life with a clarity I've never had before. And it feels great.

Hinges are difficult. They are filled with great expectations and great hesitancy. They are points of no turning back. Unless we're people like Kate, we only get a few opportunities to stand at the hinge of our own lives. Life doesn't offer up learnings and choices of that type of poignancy every day. And thank goodness because they can be incredibly stressful times. Though when we get the chance to stand at the edge of our lives and decide in a very profound way who we are and who we mean to be, it's an opportunity we should approach with a grateful and open heart. After all, we will not be able to pass this way again.

My Year of Hopefulness - Marking time

Today is my one year anniversary at my job. Where did the time go? Oh right - into about 25 projects that I've worked on since I started! When I consider everything I've learned - about the company, the job, the industry, myself, it seems impossible that all of that could have been compressed into one year.

One year ago today, I attended a new hire orientation. A series of company leaders came into the room to speak with us and one of them said something that really stuck with me. He asked us to go up the elevator to our desks every morning with one simple question always at the top of our minds: what am I going to do to help someone live an extraordinary life today? I took that to heart, and I can say with complete honesty that I've started every day that way. It's been a tumultuous year for this country - that elevator question helped me hang on during the most challenging times to help me not only survive, but thrive. And it helped me help others do the same.

So now I begin year two, every bit as hopeful and curious as I was at the start of year one. The unintended, and happy, consequence of helping others to live an extraordinary life is that it makes our own lives extraordinary in the process. I hadn't consciously realized that until today when I looked around my office to see all the positive change that's taking place right before our eyes. And I played a part. A small one, but certainly a part. And for that I am extremely grateful. We really do get what we give.

The photo above can be found here.

NY Business Strategies Examiner - Interview with Lissa Rankin, Founder of Owning Pink

Meet Lissa Rankin, an artist, writer, gynecologist, mother, and all around bundle of positive energy. I met Lissa on Twitter, and once I read her brief bio I knew that I had to feature her in this column.

Lissa has made it her mission in life to help others get their mojo back, and particularly to empower women to do whatever and be whoever they want to be. To foster this mission, she created the company Owning Pink, a place where women can connect and support one another in their pursuits. Owning Pink offers classes, workshops, and mentoring to further these connections.

A courageous, empathic, inspirational role model, Lissa is exactly the kind of person this world needs more of.

For the full interview with Lissa, click here.

My Year of Hopefulness - Finishing what you've started

"Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task." ~ William James

I have a hard time letting things go. I have to watch movies straight through to the end, no matter how bad they are. I have to finish every book I start. Nothing causes me to lose sleep more than tasks hanging around for me to finish tomorrow; hence my tremendous lack of sleep in a partially packed apartment. Why is it so troublesome to let things lie around undone?

It could be that I've read too many stories about people who didn't quite get to see their dreams realized. It could be that I've read that quote from John Lennon "Most people die with the music still in them" once too often. I don't want to look back and be so far away from something I started that it's too difficult to pick it up again.

We get to these points in our lives where we must go left or right and it's very hard to double back once we've made a choice. Not impossible, but certainly difficult. I'm there now. A lot of my friends are there now. Maybe this is the dilemma we find in our 30's. We are making choices now that impact every other choice down the line. We're deciding who we're going to become, how we're going to make use of our talents, how the world around us is going to be different because we passed this way instead of that way.

And while I have a natural instinct of which way to go at this fork in the road, the choice in my heart is a tough one. It's got some risks baked into it. It's not the safe route. Some times I think the choice in my heart isn't even the sane route to take. Then again, when has making the sane, safe choice ever lead me to complete fulfillment?

Today I went to a baby shower for my friend, Alex. One of her college friends made a critical choice to leave behind the business world and pursue her PhD in art history, thanks to Alex's encouragement. She loved art history early on in college and had given up her dream to work in that field to take the safe business route. Before it was too late, she went back to what she loved.

Every one of her professors told her this choice was ridiculous, that she was truly wasting her life in art history, that she'd never get a job. One of them actually told her that a degree in art history and a quarter wouldn't even get her a cup of coffee. Now she works in New York and helps corporations and nonprofits build their private art collections. Turns out that a degree in art history has earned her much more than a cup of coffee. It helped her earn a happy life. The rewards of finishing what she started and following her heart.

My Year of Hopefulness - Lots of ideas

"The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas." ~ Linus Pauling, American scientist

It's a romantic ideal that in a flash of insight we finally come up with a brilliant idea to overcome some challenge. Truth is it takes us time to wrestle a problem to the ground. Lots of ideas have to be considered, tried, tested, and tweaked to get us to an elegant solution.

While Linus Pauling was referencing his own work in science, his quote applies to many areas. Where we live, where we work, and who we spend our time with can take some trial and error before we strike just the right place and people. This is my third try at living in New York, and I think I got it right this time. There have been a lot of ups and downs over the 10 years since I first moved here. Finally, I found a way to make this place home.

Pauling's quote also holds up in entrepreneurship, too. I've now been doing interviews with a variety of entrepreneurs for five months and I've asked each of them for advice to others who are considering starting a business. All of them have said to give it a shot, recognizing that it takes a couple of years to really get a business off the ground. We might need to kick around a number of different ideas for businesses before we hit upon one that makes our hearts sing, that makes us want to dive in with everything we've got to make it work.

Having lots of ideas requires patience and persistence. We have to be willing to try and try again, and again and again. We need to be patient with ourselves and believe in the slow steady process that leads to true insight and learning. Flashes of quick genius happen once in a while. What is a much more of a sure bet is that if we keep trying new ideas, one will certainly rise to the top.

The photo above is Linus Pauling holding a molecular model. It can be found at: http://osulibrary.orst.edu/specialcollections/coll/pauling/pauling-qv09-198xi.050.jpg

NY Business Strategies Examiner - Interview with Amanda Steinberg, Founder of DailyWorth

“No one is going to fix financial inequity for women. We have to recognize our own self-worth, ask for higher salaries, invest more aggressively, and build our own wealth.” ~ Amanda Steinberg, DailyWorth Founder

For my interview with Amanda, please visit: http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-2901-NY-Business-Strategies-Examiner~y2009m7d15-Interview-with-Amanda-Steinberg-Founder-of-DailyWorth