The wonderful Rosa Say gives us some excellent advice this Spooky Season, read below to hear her words of wisdom!
Aloha mai kākou, and Boo!—Happy Halloween! Let’s talk story. This week, I’m focused on BEGINNINGS, and how well we do them as Alaka‘i Managers. November arrives tomorrow, and it’s a fortuitous time for us to be circling back to ALOHA as our value-driver and best influencer of the winter season. This Hāpu‘u pulu ‘i‘i is just like your Aloha Spirit, tightly curled and regal— and ready to uncoil its abundant promise. —What is the Aloha Spirit? It’s you!
Ho‘ohana Conversations
“The great thing about value immersion, is that you don’t lose yourself in it —by the very nature of the values’ ethos, what actually happens, is that you will find more of yourself.”
When you work within the practice of value alignment, aligning what you believe with what you actually do at work, the values you have chosen are sure to influence you. After all, values are behavior-drivers. Ka lā hiki ola for example (Chapter 19 in Managing with Aloha, “the dawning of a new day”): Within my own years of practice, Ka lā hiki ola has taught me to be rather obsessed about any and all beginnings as a strategic business focus. I talk about it in my newest essay for Ke Ola Magazine’s November/December 2019 issue, and I’m feeling very good about it as a way to prep us this winter in advance for the new year to come.
The essay is titled The Aloha Spirit in Business. <—that link will take you to my website for a sneak peak. On November 1st, you can look for the print edition in the November/December 2019 edition of Ke Ola Magazine at Hawaii Island newsstands, or visit my index at KeOlaMagazine.com.
Excerpt…This [focus on beginnings] is the real, in-the-trenches, every day way we bring the Aloha Spirit to business. We sweat the details, and we pull apart the myriad of systems, processes, and functions we’re embroiled with, to see them as the person-to-person relational interactions they can be, interactions which get people to feel the Aloha Spirit was what they’ve experienced.
The “stuff of business” needs to be thought of first and foremost, as interactions where the Aloha Spirit literally comes out to play. One’s Aloha Spirit is a natural people-pleaser. It helps people discover who they innately and humanly are both inside (‘ha’ by nature of their spirit and breath of life) and outside (‘alo’ and in presence, demeanor, and expressed interaction with others). —click for more… 4-5 minute read with the tangible examples of this framing
Postscript: This has been a busy October of workshops! Did you get homework? If you are a new subscriber, we prepped for this transition to our beginnings in these 2 previous newsletters: On Finishing Well, and The Good Receiver. Mahalo for joining us, and welcome to our Ho‘ohana Community!
Rapid Fire Learning is our month-end practice: Learn about it here, and skim the index of examples I have published.
Coming soon: Ho‘omaha for Say Leadership Coaching
…and for this weekly letter. A head’s up for you on my calendar scheduling: Every year, I temporarily shutter my business Say Leadership Coaching over the winter holidays to devote my full attention to ‘ohana, my family. You may already know it as my annual Ho‘omaha sabbatical: Ho‘omaha Makahiki Kākou <—2016 explainer. This year it will be a little bit longer: my Ho‘omaha sabbatical will run from Thanksgiving week through the end of January 2020. My last weekly letter to you in 2019 will be on November 21st, and they will return to your inbox on February 6th, 2020. (Your subscription remains active unless you unsubscribe.) These won’t be holidays-as-usual, as there are a couple of family projects I must devote my full attention to, and I will also be in ‘immersive edit mode’ on another book I’ve been drafting. I don’t want to say too much about it yet, for I know I need my Ho‘omaha time to clean it up and forge through with the better writing a full-blown book project requires. I love doing these weekly letters, but truth is the week-to-week deadline commitment can interrupt the momentum of the other writing I do for Ho‘ohana Publishing, especially when my business commitments ramp up, which is a good problem to have, as I love my work. Ho‘omaha takes all my ‘can’t write’ excuses away, yet family still comes first, so wish me smooth sailing as I write, edit, write, and edit so’ more. What’s planned for your holidays? I do hope you can ho‘omaha a bit as well.
“In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.” — William Blake
Let’s Take 5: Curated Reading Links
These are the recent reads-on-the-web related to better work by better humans which have got me thinking…
1. How to ask your mentors for help, Derek Sivers 2. How the “World’s Best Female Chef” Daniela Soto-Innes Is Changing Kitchen Culture, Here Magazine 3. Good managers have learned a LOT from good parenting, and I love these tips: 6 Ways to Raise Brave Boys, Outside 4. Robert Twigger notes, “We live in a one track world but anyone can become a polymath.” Master of many trades, Aeon. “Our age reveres the specialist but humans are natural polymaths, at our best when we turn our minds to many things.” 5. Who are the movers and shakers today? WIRED25: Stories of People Who Are Racing to Save Us, Wired features 25 Makers and Mavericks. “Humanity is facing thorny problems on all fronts. These folks are working to solve them—and trying to avoid the unintended consequences this time.”
Quote sticking with me lately:
“The difference between a beginning teacher and an experienced one is that the beginning teacher asks, ‘How am I doing?’ and the experienced teacher asks, ‘How are the children doing?’” ― Esme Raji Codell
Have a great week, we Ho‘ohana Kākou,
Rosa