Managing with Aloha Coaching

The Not-So-Secret Ambition of Being Indispensable, and 5 Trade-Ups

“Pick me.
Choose me.
Love me.”
—Meredith Grey to Derek Shepherd in Grey’s Anatomy

We all have a basic human desire: We want to be needed.

To be needed by other people is to feel important, to feel that our presence counts and is meaningful to others. Life was not meant to be a solo proposition; we are social animals who thrive when we are with more of our own, functioning well within their company, and being truly useful to them. We want to add value, and represent an essentialness.

Sounds good so far. You could even say it sounds like a very worthy goal.

King and sole protector
of his kingdom
[Photo credit: “Subu, the lion at Colchester Zoo” by sffubs found on Flickr]

At work however, we have another word for this that has some negative connotations to it: Indispensability.

There’s a commonly held belief that no one should be indispensable in any workplace, for if that is so, it’s a sign that the business itself isn’t self-sustaining: It is dependent, and subject to weakness. We think of it as a kind of symbiotic relationship: For there to be indispensability of some kind, there must be some connected dependability to make it so, and that can’t be good, right?

Something else will often happen as well; the person who is indispensable is often seen as out of balance, a workaholic who has no life. If it hadn’t been true before, after a prolonged period it becomes a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy; they have no life outside of work because they haven’t taken the time to create one!

Ha‘aha‘a, the value of humility can really help us with the sorting out of this unsettling state of affairs, for we tell ourselves a couple of things:

1. Be more Generous:
Make room for others to share in the credits of achieved successes. Be the champion of your team.

2. Delegate Better:
In the process, give others the opportunity to grow, and assume more responsibility. Step into the role of coach, and not star player.

3. Convert Busyness to Accomplishment:
Get things done, and then move on. Don’t dwell within what is over and done with; resist any urge to rest on your laurels.

4. Embrace Change:
Then model it; “be that change you wish to see in the world.” Be a trend-setter with a shining new example.

5. Learn to Lead:
Learn to inspire, shape and better develop ideas, and possibly create a new vision.

These are just five different ways we are trading up from ambition, that not-so-secret goal that we will speak of, instead of saying the more accurate words it is considered a no-no (and sign of weakness) to say out loud, “I’d like to be indispensable so that I can feel needed.”

Wanting to feel needed is very natural, very human. Look at that list of 5 trade-ups one more time: What Ha‘aha‘a does is help us be needed in more grown up ways, ways which are more acceptable in a workplace culture, but also better for our own individual growth. In “making room” for others to shine and be needed, we make room for ourselves to tackle other things: new learning, new relationships, new accomplishments. We create a positive expectancy of new possibilities.

We can sum it up with this sentence pairing we’d shared at the beginning of the month:

Ha‘aha‘a teaches us to groom our own character with humility in respect for others.
There is nothing noble in being superior to someone else; true nobility is in being superior to your previous self.

Have you ever found yourself in that sticky trap of indispensability? Many of us have! How did you get out of it, or convert your m.o.? What was your breakthrough in trading up, or did you decide to just walk away? How can we learn from your story?

From the archives:

• Palena ‘ole: Discover your 4-Fold Capacity
• Balance? What balance? (On the value of Pono)
• Do you have a Stop Doing List? (on the value of Pono)
• Are you a high maintenance manager? (On the value of Ho‘ohanohano)

In Search of the Ultimate Freedom

I am a long-time journaler, talking to myself with pen in hand, and chronicling my thinking over time within the written word. I am very much aware that my writing is one way I compensate for a weakness I seem to have with memory.

MY MANA‘O ~ ~ ~ If you are new to MWAC, Sunday Mālama is when we mix it up here. I may offer an extreme tangent to our current value of the month (for April: Mellow Maintenance Mālama), or write about something completely different. My very first Sunday Mālama was this one: A Beginning and this click gives you the full index to page through. I call Sunday Mālama my mana‘o meaning that it shares a deeper view of my thoughts, beliefs, and convictions with you, my Ho‘ohana Community. Thus, Sunday Mālama is also an invitation to share your mana‘o if you wish to.

That said, I don’t look back at my past journaling very much, in fact I can be very nonchalant about shredding old volumes of my morning pages without an ounce of regret;

...when I'm done with something I have written, I am truly done with it. There is this feeling of completeness that happens when the jaws of my shredder become part of the process. The writing has been terrific: It did what it was supposed to do for me. And yes, I loved it... I write, and I am in love with writing, because writing helps me think, reason, and decide. It helps me make sense of things, and bring them to more clarity. Once I do, I can get on with life and move on to the next thing I’d like to think about, reason through, and decide upon or even better, create...

I write to capture things, but only until I can use them in some way. I do write in frustration or anger sometimes, allowing myself the peaceful okay-ness of being an imperfect human being, and that is when I love my shredder most, for those are certainly words that I don’t want left around for anyone else to see. I don’t want to see them again either, for they are just emotion spilling to make room inside for better thoughts, and my shredder helps me remember that there is a whole lot more in life that deserves my attention instead.

From Talking Story, February 2008:
You know you love writing when you don’t have to keep it.

The journaling itself is a process, and I find I don’t need the documentation for very much after the fact at all. One reason may be that a lot of my self-reflective writing has to do with goal-setting, and if I am truly working on those goals much will change (if I’m not, I don’t need the written reminder to help beat me up over it). Hopefully I’ll grow, making my earlier journal entries irrelevant and outdated; hopefully I will get a clean page in front of me, ready to write a new chapter.

There is one goal I know I need not look up in retrospect, for it is very vivid in what limited memory I do have; it has been somehow associated with my goals from as far back as I can remember. At this point in my life, I am quite positive I have written this word in my journals hundreds of times.

The word is freedom.

I cannot recall when or why freedom first became such an obsession for me, however I am quite sure that at the time it would have been a rather small word. When I was younger, I could not possibly have known how hugely the quest for freedom would manifest itself in my life. I could not possibly have known that my quest for freedom wouldn’t even begin until I had logged a significant amount of years in a search for it first, a search for how I would ultimately define it.

Looking back, it was surely a case of ignorance being bliss. I have never known oppression, and I have never had my most basic freedoms taken away from me; I have always been a citizen of a “free country.” I’ve never been in jail, in quarantine, or even in detention of any kind (airport wandering due to flight delays don’t count.) When I compare my good fortune with the circumstance of many in the rest of the world, the freedoms I have searched for seem so petty; freedom from inhibition, freedom from another’s agenda, and freedom from old habits. The biggie usually has had something to do with financial freedoms, and freedom from that vicious circle wherein the more you make, the more you spend and owe.

Today, I am fully aware that I am still searching for what freedom, ultimate freedom, will mean for me. I am fully aware that within my freedom quest, the constant throughout the years has been my aching for a complete freedom from responsibility, seemingly impossible when Kuleana may be one of the strongest value drivers I have: How can someone possibly break free from a value which has shaped their very identity?

I have also thought of Freedom as a virtue, and in many ways I still do:

Freedom. Something we take for granted much too much. Think of all the ways you are unshackled and free to make your choices, and it becomes clear that most of us know no other way to live. Within virtue, we set our hearts free.

From A new December Tradition: Twelve Aloha Virtues.

Ha‘aha‘a can get you to think quite differently

Then just this past week, Amy Palko stopped me in my tracks with a quote she shared in response to my shout-out for more wisdom on humility. Amy offered this one by William Temple, once the Archbishop of Canterbury:

“Humility does not mean thinking less of yourself than of other people, nor does it mean having a low opinion of your own gifts.

It means freedom from thinking about yourself at all.”

Well, that certainly is not a freedom I have understood that well yet! (Case in point this Sunday Mālama essay, and yet I continue writing it…)

In my life’s beginnings, freedom simply meant the freedom of complete self-indulgence, something we all have as infants, not then realizing how good we have it! We lose this freedom quickly, eagerly trading it for a growing consciousness of the other people in our lives, and completely unaware that we will soon miss this freedom terribly.  When you are young, you feel like your life is run by other people; notably your family, your teachers and neighbors, and even the preacher you listen to every Sunday who you are quite sure wouldn’t even recognize you if away from the pew you sat in week after week as part of his congregation. This desire to be free from adults (and free from my younger siblings) was a freedom I eventually succumbed to redefining as freedom of choice, ruefully accepting that didn’t necessarily mean of my choice.

When I was fifteen I got my first part-time job to help my parents with our mounting bills, and I got my earliest lessons in financial freedom from my dad. It made perfect sense to me then, that lesson number one in money management went like this: Only half of my paycheck (and none of my tips) went into my bank account (withdrawals thereafter forbidden until I graduated from college), and the rest went to that of the family. Kuleana, and my personal sense of responsibility had already moved in: Now it would really get comfortable, settle in and never move out again.

In 2003 I had what I consider to be a huge, life-changing financial freedom milestone; freedom from an employer, and from the concept that you work for a paycheck until you can ‘afford’ the luxury of working on your own dreams and not someone else’s. Becoming self-employed meant way more to me than the sensibility of working for profit (versus paycheck) and working with intellectual property that was yours free and clear; self-employment meant that I could start to claim the value of Ho‘ohana with full authenticity. Ho‘ohana had been a value I articulated for myself since my study of Hawai‘i’s values began, but I knew I wasn’t close to personally achieving it yet.

So was that my ultimate freedom?

At the time. But like so many other things, once you get them you start looking for the next thing… and so yeah, I’m still in this search for what my newest ultimate freedom will be. What I have come to realize however, is that the search has segued from exasperating and exhausting, to intoxicating and exhilarating.

By all accounts, anyone else would look at my life now and hold me up as a great example of someone who has achieved all the freedoms she could possibly hope for. To want for more freedom seems spoiled and whiny— and I even think so; I’d be the first to agree with that! But this is not an exercise in being a “should-er” or more angelic and noble; freedom-marching is about self-actualization, and using every single faculty you have to use as a way of saying Mahalo, thank you for the largesse of this wonder called my life. I may not fully deserve the gift, but I will do all I can to live in a way that’s a constant effort of becoming worthy of it.

Oh dear. Reading back over this it seems I have turned my back and said “No.” to William Temple… I suppose “freedom from thinking about yourself at all” is just not a freedom I’m ready to tackle.

What about you?

What is the freedom you pursue these days? Can you tell us about it? That will truly help me be less self-absorbed about this... I could graduate to what William Temple describes one day; it will surely be a worthy pursuit.

[Photo Credits: "Be seeing you" by Olivander, "Palestinian kids- Beit Jala" by FREEPAL, and "Free falling / Weightless" by Georgie Sharp, all on Flickr.]

Listening Alone Does Not Equate to the Humility of Ha‘aha‘a

My coaching business generally falls into two distinct areas; consultation (teaching and training in MWA and its business/culture modeling) and coaching (mentoring in response to the specific challenges that managers are having, and coaching them through it).

The most frequent subjects which come up in the second arena, the responsiveness coaching I do, can be summed up as helping managers to work with people they don’t understand, whether that person is an employee, a peer or boss, a vendor or customer. Managers will usually start our conversation with something like, “How do I deal with someone who…” because they feel they have tried everything they can think of, and are still feeling thwarted and are frustrated: They are searching for an answer which eludes them, and not because they aren’t trying hard as they can.

As I listen to the situation they describe to me I am listening for clues that tell me

a) what value drivers the employee brings to the situation or to their day-to-day working relationship

b) what value drivers the manager deems most important, (and prefers to have in their day-to-day working relationship) and then

c) where the disconnect is between those two things, (and between them as proud individuals) so we can reconcile it.

Communication breakdowns often loom large as the probable causes in these disconnects. A sentence I will often hear at some point is “I know they hear me and understand me, but they don’t listen to me.”

We managers revere listening: It has repeatedly been drummed in our heads that listening is the grown-up sage to the stubborn youngster called hearing. However there are good listeners and not-so-good listeners, and how we normally define that difference is this way: To a manager’s way of thinking, A good listener takes the desired action we want. A not-so-good listener doesn’t.

What we define as “good listening” is very relevant to what we personally want to happen, and someone else needs to be the one doing it.

Now here’s something important to understand: We aren’t looking for listening alone. We actually get the listening in both those situations, and something else is missing. What we are hoping for and not getting, is Ha‘aha‘a, the value of humility. It’s the whipped cream and cherry on top.

Consider some of these things we have already said this month about humility:

“Humility is exhibiting strength and confidence in the process of adding value to others.” —Tim Milburn

“When I aspire to be humble, I realize I have a lot to learn.”—Stephanie

“Humility is what makes us grow and helps us truly help others.”—Brad Shorr

“Humility is the ability to submit to daily growth and learning and maintaining a healthy sense of humor about it all.” —Karen Swim

There are such gems in the sharing of our Ho‘ohana Community here, aren’t there?

Listening is just the beginning. What humility adds to the process is the acceptance of what we have heard, and the willingness to use our new learning about it.

Once I am able to coach a manager toward asking for those two things (because they cannot force them), and doing that asking when they themselves are aspiring to be humble, accepting of another’s challenges, and willing to work with them in meeting those challenges, those once-difficult, once-frustrating situations become golden opportunities.

Weekend Learning Project

I know that many of you who are managers catch up with me over the weekend when you raise your heads up from the day-to-day. Here is how we can use this coaching reflection:

1. Nānā i ke kumu (look for the source):
Revisit and reconsider any situation at work where you have been frustrated because you felt that listening was present but it fell short somehow.

2. ‘Ike loa (seek new learning):
Think about how you might need to coach another (or self-coach) in a) open-minded acceptance and b) the willingness to take new and different action.

3. Ho‘ohiki (make a promise to yourself):
Resolve and commit to solving your listening or communication by integrating specific actions into the coming week’s Strong Week Plan, i.e. make this process part of your Weekly Review.

4. Ha‘aha‘a (be humble):
Use humility as your value-driver through-out this process.

5. Kākou (be “we-minded”):
When another person is involved, be willing to ask, not just tell with new directions! Enroll them in your goal to improve honestly. Do not inadvertently try to manipulate them by doing this alone: Openly ask them to learn with you.

Let us know how this works for you! For remember, we Ho‘ohana together!
~ Rosa

Yummy photo of “Cookies and cream with a cherry on top” by fd on Flickr.

“Ah, there you are” said the halo

A Fiver on humility:

Be aware that a halo has to fall only a few inches to be a noose.
—Dan McKinnon

Always remember there are two types of people in this world.
Those who come into a room and say, “Well, here I am!”
And those who come in and say, “Ah, there you are!”
—Frederick L. Collins


day 347:light on Flickr by estherase

Whatever you may be sure of, be sure of this: that you are dreadfully like other people.
—James Russell Lowell

Humility is like underwear—essential, but indecent if it shows.
—Helen Nielson

Don’t be humble. You’re not that great.
—Golda Meir

And I love that the women are the ones with a sense of humor (though Golda Meir may have been dead serious)!

Do you have a favorite Ha‘aha‘a quote to share with us?

Looking to the Source of our Hawaiian Values

MY MANA‘O ~ ~ ~ If you are new to MWAC, Sunday Mālama is when we mix it up here. I may offer an extreme tangent to our current value of the month (for April: Mellow Maintenance Mālama), or write about something completely different. My very first Sunday Mālama was this one: A Beginning and this click gives you the full index to page through. I call Sunday Mālama my mana‘o meaning that it shares a deeper view of my thoughts, beliefs, and convictions with you, my Ho‘ohana Community. Thus, Sunday Mālama is also an invitation to share your mana‘o if you wish to.

A question arrived in my email yesterday morning, for which a short answer just wasn’t possible, for it is a question of Nānā i ke kumu, itself a value, meaning “look to the source.”

I am also very aware that I do not have a great answer for this question, and certainly not a complete one. Yet I am going to try my best here, for I think the query makes for good Sunday Mālama reflection for us, and I could use your help!

The question sent also could not have been asked of me at a better time, for as I am reminded of by this month’s value, Ha‘aha‘a, it is a question I must be very humble about answering. It is a question which makes me feel somewhat small and unworthy, and presumptuous even in my trying. The answer is one I can easily think about, and there are answers I believe to be true, but I cannot say they are answers I would claim to know.

The question was from a gentleman who does not live in Hawai‘i, who is making his way through the reading of my book, Managing with Aloha. Michael wrote,

“Rosa, can you tell me anything about the history of how Hawaiian values developed?”

Oh my. Could there be a bigger question?

I was born and raised in Hawai‘i, and have lived here my entire life save for just short of two of my teenage years in the Philippine islands. Ironically that puts me at somewhat of a disadvantage, for I have been immersed in local values from as far back as my memory goes, and in many ways must work with diligent focus to be scholarly or historically correct with them: Local living in Hawai‘i is not necessarily Hawaiian.

When people ask for such references, that is, the scholarly or historically correct ones, I will normally point them to Dr. George Kanahele’s book Kū Kanaka, Stand Tall. Yet even Dr. Kanahele was careful to add his humble subtitle, A Search for Hawaiian Values.

Many in Hawai‘i today, me included, will tell you that we may still be searching.

I was one who started my own ‘better informed search’ with Dr. Kanahele four decades ago, and living within the shifts of more recent years has been utterly fascinating —and the subject of a good number of debates.

I think of values as universal and as timeless as principles, virtues, and planetary laws; it is unimaginable to me that anyone but the Lord God Himself could claim authorship of these things. To say that values are Hawaiian, or European, or Asian, or of any other ethnicity, is just to say that we have shaped their interpretation with our place-connected contexts and ancestrally shared beliefs. Therefore, in answering Michael’s question, the best I can hope to do, is share what I believe have been strong influences in the shaping of the values that we call “Hawaiian” today. (Another tidbit: ‘Hawaiian’ is a western word, and not one of the ancient language.)

To be most accurate, it would be best to divide our answer in certain time periods, for the Hawai‘i of old before Captain Cook arrived is quite remarkably different from the Hawai‘i of today, and different from plantation Hawai‘i prior to World War II and our Statehood in 1959. (A good timeline-in-brief can be seen here.) However I am not using a chronological time-line to keep this as an article, and not an entire white paper or book draft!

So I will list a few things as I would first tend to include them (i.e. as I have been taught and have learned), and perhaps those of you reading who are also of our Hawai‘i nei could help me and add your feelings as well? Let us think of this as an essay of exploration in progress!

Finding 8: Coincidence or Makawalu Opportunity?

There is another reason Michael’s question seemed to be so opportune: This past Thursday and Friday I attended a tourism conference on O‘ahu sponsored by the Native Hawaiian Hospitality Association (NaHHA) called Hō ‘ā ka Lamakū, Keep the Torch Burning.

NaHHA was founded in 1997 by Dr. George Kanahele, PhD, and Kenneth Brown, a renowned leader in Hawai‘i business and health systems, formerly state senator and chair of the Queen’s Health Systems. As native Hawaiians, both these gentlemen had serious concerns about the direction of tourism and its impact on our local communities. In particular, they were concerned about the misuse and lack of respect for Hawaiian culture, values, and traditions. NaHHA’s mission to protect and perpetuate these assets today is accomplished through consultation and training, developing and implementing effective communication tools, conducting research, and providing project support.

My plan this weekend was to debrief with some of the learning I was able to gain at the conference, and this has been a wonderful way to begin doing so. To my past learning from Dr. Kanahele and others, I add some very current wisdom shared at the conference by Kumu Tommy Kaulukukui, Kumu Ramsay Taum, Kumu Peter Kamamo Apo, Dr. Pualani Kanaka‘ole Kanahele, professional photographer Dewitt Jones, Andrew Te Whaiti, James Koshiba of Kanu Hawai‘i and others. The conference was one of intensive learning, and our Sunday Mālama today turned out to be an unexpected opportunity to seize my Kuleana (responsibility) with teaching what I continue to learn.

Makawalu is a new Hawaiian word for me, just learned on Friday: Maka is the word for eyes, and walu is eight, thus makawalu means to look for eight ways or facets of thinking. It stems from a belief that our intelligence is infinite: For each of the eight perspectives one might come up with, another eight will be possible (making 64), and on, and on, and on to infinite possibility.

When I had written my first draft for this, it my list of first thoughts came to walu, eight, not by design, but just by arrival of thinking... just as the voyagers who first came to Hawai‘i would initially give us names for eight of her largest islands...

Humility in the Workplace

Preface: This was an article I had originally written in September of 2006 for Lifehack.org. I have newly edited it for our value study this month on MWAC on Ha‘aha‘a, the Hawaiian value of Humility. Our Day One Essay kicking off the month was Ha‘aha‘a means Humility Laughing.

‘Humility’ is a widely understood word. It’s not one of those words people will pause to look up the meaning for. Generally, people love the thought of humility. It’s one of those ‘good’ values we strive for; one we admire. Yes, most people feel they know what it means to be humble.

Demonstrating it however, is a whole other matter.

For instance, a person distracted by their Blackberry or cell phone, unable to focus on the conversation you are having with them face to face, is so filled with self-importance, they cannot possibly claim to be humble. Humility is the lack of self-importance, is it not?

The person who impatiently shakes their head as you explain a new idea you are presenting to them, finally breaking in to say, “We’ve tried that here before, and it just doesn’t work,” cannot claim to be humble. Humility is being open-minded, and realizing that no matter how long you’ve been around, you couldn’t possibly have experienced everything there is to experience, right?

Then there’s the person who just got a promotion, and the first purchase order they write is for new business cards, despite the fact that the have a box left of the old ones with the same mailing address, email address, and phone numbers. Never mind that they mostly attach v-cards electronically these days, and that’s why the old box lasted so long.

In new product development, there’s a discussion going on about complaints customers have with existing products, and someone says, “Well, they wouldn’t have that problem if they followed the instructions in the first place.” That can’t possibly be humility, when we stop listening to what our customers are asking for, and assume they just don’t ‘get it,’ right?

If some of our common behaviors in workplaces are an indication, we don’t understand humility very much at all.

Those who are humble, feel the rest of us are pretty interesting. Those with humility have a genuine desire to discover what other people can offer. They are intrigued by how others think, and how others feel differently from them.

We can be confident, and we can be self-assured; humility does not call for us to be meek, or consider ourselves lower in stature. We do not require less of ourselves, and we take our role and our responsibilities seriously. However what humility does, is create a sort of receptacle of acceptance in us, so we are open to being filled with the knowledge and opinions of others. Humility is a kind of hunger for more abundance. The greater our humility, the greater our fascination with the world around us, and the more we learn.

To have inner drive, to want to be successful is a good thing. I do believe that part of humility is believing in those possibilities which presently may be larger than life for you.

However humility also speaks to the demeanor and attitude we must have as we seek our success, so that our inner drive and desires are in balance with our composure, and our conduct with those who interact with us. After all, they could factor into being a big part of the success we eventually will enjoy.

One of the best definitions I have ever heard for humility came from one of my employees when I was still in corporate management. Short and sweet, it’s one I have never forgotten. He was talking about a new supervisor we’d recently hired into the department, explaining how she listened to everyone on staff in such a great way. Like they mattered. Like everything they did and said mattered. He had said she seemed very humble to him because as she demonstrated it, “Humility is an act of courtesy.”

I like that.

We were not put on this earth alone. Frankly, others have to live with us, and our own practice of open-minded, fill-me-up humility can make it a much more interesting and pleasant experience for all of us.

Patty gave us a great example in her comment:

My office is full of hard-working people who run around like chickens with their heads cut off. They move frantically but effectively from one task to another. But given the pace, we sometimes mess things up. And, of course, it happens in a public way. The best part: the whole office comes together in support of that person, and, after the fact when the mistake is fixed (usually, in record time), we have a few good jokes at our staff meeting about it, and we all laugh together. It reminds us that we're human, and that our work is important but not at the expense and harm of good people.

Optimist that I am, I believe there are a ton more great examples of humility practiced every day in our workplaces. Will you tell us about one in yours too?

I am Confident in Being Me...

...Even when I look like you.

Thank you for sharing that...

I am confident in being me and looking like you too.

Yes, this is quite nice.

Happy Ha‘aha‘a Humility :)

Photos found on Flickr by Roberto F. He called them “That’s love :)”

New MWAC White Paper: The Role of the Manager Reconstructed

Aloha dear readers,

Making this available only here and just for you to say mahalo!

thank you so much for reading...
thank you for talking story with me here via your comments...
and thank you for subscribing to Managing with Aloha Coaching!

A new white paper for The Role of the Manager Reconstructed, downloadable as a free PDF you can print and share.

I have just newly edited it from the article I had previously written here about the Role of the Manager, to attach it as an addendum in the classes I do locally on the Managing with Aloha curriculum. Thought you might like to use it as a reference too, or as a discussion starter for your own workplace reconstruction the Managing with Aloha way :)

“This is your mission, and should you choose to accept it...”

Managing with Aloha is not a Mission Impossible at all! Highly do-able!

All I need is you... all WE need is you. Here is our WE: What I have learned from the People we collectively call “our employees”

I hope you join the movement to Reconstruct the Role of the Manager with me, for we Ho‘ohana together!
—Rosa

What can a Humble Wave do for you?

MY MANA‘O ~ ~ ~ If you are new to MWAC, Sunday Mālama is when we mix it up here. I may offer an extreme tangent to our current value of the month (for April: Mellow Maintenance Mālama), or write about something completely different. My very first Sunday Mālama was this one: A Beginning and this click gives you the full index to page through. I call Sunday Mālama my mana‘o meaning that it shares a deeper view of my thoughts, beliefs, and convictions with you, my Ho‘ohana Community. Thus, Sunday Mālama is also an invitation to share your mana‘o if you wish to.

It is amazing how a simple, humble wave of our hand in acknowledgment of another human being can make such a huge difference.

red earth V - self portrait by BotheredByBees on Flickr

I have turned into a waver ever since I worked at Hualalai Resort and we decided that waving would be part of our value culture. It started back in 1996 from the moment I was employed there (the resort was still under construction then), and the habit now feels like it is set in stone with me.

I wave at people I know, and people I don’t.

I wave at people the moment I sense I may catch their eye; I no longer look down or away.

I wave to trigger some magic connection to my face so I will smile within the same fraction of that moment I wave.

I wave to feel open, connected to hope, and expectant of our humanity.

I wave to feel safe. When I take my exercise runs and arrive at intersections, I don’t take another step forward unless I have waved to an approaching or stopped driver and am sure they have seen me. (They wave back, or at the very least will nod— good thing to teach your kids.)

When I travel, the culturally correct way to wave as a friendly and welcoming gesture is one of the first things I am careful to ask about, for there is simply no stopping my hands anymore, there is only the careful training of them.

Once, in asking that question, I had an older gentleman explain to me how to reach my hands out to animals in the right way, so I that I’d never get bitten, and so I would know if they’d allow me to pet them or not.

Good information to know.

Then: Waving and the value of Ho‘okipa

Though easy to gain entrance onto the resort, and one which includes a Four Seasons hotel, Hualalai is essentially a gated residential community of multi-million dollar homes. While I could work there and eventually became a corner-office exec there, it is highly unlikely that I will ever be able to afford living there.

Calvin’s Mamaki Tree

I stood at the ocean’s edge with a large group of people. We had come together to say aloha and a hui hou (until we meet again) to a gentleman whose life had ended much too soon.

Those of us there had worked with Calvin at two different workplaces for a succession of four different owners. Throughout all that change, we were the same; we were his ‘ohana, adopted work family. I was among a smaller group within the whole who had not seen many of the others for several years, and many more never at all: Still, the new-to-me faces were as comfortable and family-familiar as the others I did know, for the days of Calvin’s life strung us together in lōkahi ke ‘ike, a harmony of shared knowing. Conversation flowed easily as we waited for the service to begin. Hugs were freely given, and voices joyful, with the ocean’s brisk breezes doing their part to keep us respectfully quiet in comparison to the sounds of her bigger majesty.

Mamaki is native to no other place in the world but Hawai‘i, and is best known for its refreshing herbal tea and medicinal uses. Leaves can be eaten raw or cooked, and the mamaki bark was used by the Hawaiians of old to make Kapa (cloth).
[Photo credit: “Forest & Kim Starr (USGS)” via Wikimedia Commons copyright free]

After his “real” family was introduced to us, Kahu Billy Mitchell started the talk story of our gathering by saying what we all seemed to know about Calvin; “I have to be honest here gang; Calvin could really irritate me. He was just too smart, and had an answer for everything.” We all smiled or chuckled with a memory of our own.

For me it was how Calvin would stop me on one of the pathways at Hualalai as he did his spraying, confident that whatever that moment, my being able to learn from him about his pesticides was crucially important and connected to every other order of important business I might have for the resort while wearing my VP’s suit. Somehow, Calvin always connected everything in his analogy to his plants. Somehow, he was always right.

There was more speaking, more memories shared, and then Max explained about a hundred seedlings he had brought for us to take home, one by anyone with space to plant them, for they would indeed become trees. He explained the difference between four different types, each for a different climate and elevation, each with a story of how the Hawaiians had used them and honored them. These were facts we were all certain Calvin would have known of too— and then some. It would be a legacy that Calvin would have wanted, to simply have trees that will continue to grow with his belief that they are good for us.

I was awestruck in that moment.

“To just have trees continue to grow.”

Legacy enough for a man who within all his justifiably proud knowledge had remained as humble as a man can get. Though man can sometimes help, trees grow because of God and because of Mother Nature, and because of the life stored within them. Ultimately that is what Calvin really knew, and he was fine with that. Calvin lived serving them all; God, Mother Nature, and that plant, and through them, all of us.

Calvin lived within a degree of humility that I may never be able to achieve. I know that about myself, and have to learn to be okay with the greater ego I have. I am every bit of that author who imagines her book will live forever in another bookstore, in a home-town library alcove, or at the very least in my great, great grandchildren’s attic, but hopefully in the heart of every reader that opens it. 

I am quite sure that Calvin on the other hand, is perfectly fine with the legacy of trees growing because of God, because of Mother Nature, and not because of him. His name is not etched in each tree’s bark the way mine is embossed on each book’s cover. He may be looking down from the heavens feeling he could have lived longer quite happily among us, but not with an ounce of regret for any legacy not left behind.

This afternoon, I planted the mamaki tree seedling I brought home, perfect for the mountain elevation at which I live. It will grow tall, sure and strong, it will give back to me as Calvin knew, giving my family healthy mamaki tea, thriving in the beauty of its dark red veined leaves, and I will know that it is Calvin’s legacy. I will know.

~ Rosa

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Humility is our value study for May. Read more about Ha‘aha‘a, the Hawaiian value of humility in my Day One Essay: Ha‘aha‘a means Humility Laughing.