Managing with Aloha Coaching: We interrupt our normal programming... for Responsibility Coaching

... and for this commercial announcement.

Are you interested in Kuleana Coaching, something designed to get the responsibility you may feel is out-of-whack back into a semblance of order you can handle?

In my Day One Essay this month, I wrote, "responsibility is a value which "takes over my entire life quite easily, suppressing all my other values if I allow it to," and I know I am not unusual in this regard."

Boy, did that turn out to be true!

My email inbox was singing this weekend as we got started with our 5-Beat Rhythm with Kuleana Friday night, including two managers asking for a mini coaching program just for this value, just for this month. After a couple of short emails back and forth, a third person arrived at their aha! moment with the exercise, and wrote, "please send me a bill for this, or direct me to your Amazon wish list or something, for I'll feel better about continuing to email if you let me pay you."

I did appreciate that, and loved the suggestion, giving her the link to my Amazon wish list because I didn't feel it was enough on my end to charge her more for — so do keep those emails coming, for as I wrote in that same Day One essay, your messages help me to write more clearly for you too. I really, truly appreciate those of you who send me your thoughts about our values, writing that you don't expect a personal answer but would love to read something in the future about what I might think.

However the weekend got me thinking about how much a need there might be out there, and so yesterday I took some time to put together a mini Kuleana Coaching program that we can do via a one-time Paypal payment for those who may be interested. It focuses on you personally, and is not for your team, though it certainly may affect them, and the goal is that by the end of the month you will be able to say to yourself, "Yes! this is my Kuleana, the responsibility that is connected to my Ho‘ohana."

Your Ho‘ohana is your most passionate, worthwhile work, and the meaning of that aha! moment is clear if you have already worked with our 5-Beat Rhythm in past months, or just with Beat 1 this month, for one's sense of responsibility is a heavy-hitter. I was not that surprised about the past weekend, for our work on Kuleana value alignment has always helped my coaching clients substantially.

If you think you may be interested, I recommend you do the Beat 1 exercise before you make a decision on purchasing the coaching program: Going through those steps should answer the question as to if you need my help or not — that is exactly what happened for those who emailed me over the past weekend.

Also, I have some hesitation in doing this, because I do not want you to feel that sending me your emails starts off a sales pitch from me — truth be told, I am a rotten sales person and would feel more uncomfortable with that than you would... thank goodness for my business, and that my book does the heavy-lifting with any selling.

That's where the Beat 1 Exercise helps us both: If you just have a question while doing it, email me (please don't hesitate) and we'll make short work of it. If you email me the full result when you finish the exercise on your own the first time, my analysis will send me into coaching program mode and yes, you should expect to pay for that.

Here's the link to the coaching program page I set up: MWAC Companion Coaching.

I think you'll find it to be pretty straightforward and easy, because it is all about you (and your willingness to share you with me.) Let's get your personal sense of responsibility to work with you, and not against you. I love this value, but I do know how easily you can get trapped and mired down in it... don't carry the whole world on your shoulders, just your Kuleana.

Update: Whoa, you guys are quick! Got a couple more questions this morning that I can pretty much sum up this way: Instead of concentrating on my Ho'ohana specifically, can we just use the program to talk about the responsibilities I'm trying to deal with right now instead of shifting them? Or maybe just the Role of the Manager... or Brex?

Sure. Basically, however you answer the Beat 1 Rhythm questions will be the way we take it; your responses will be the springboard for my coaching responses. Coaching is about you and your goals, not mine. And you don't have to start the program today, though I do think it's more effective for you to work on at least a draft of the Beat 1 Rhythm I already posted here before I start to influence you too much with the articles I have coming up. As I wrote there, Beat 1 is a capture exercise where we are marking our starting line: Don't feel you have to start running the race! On the other spec page for the program I mentioned "added value" compared to the free template, but the Beat 1 Exercise has stayed the same, as there is a lot already there. Just do your draft digitally so you can copy-n-paste it to the coaching program we end up working with — an email draft would work fine.

This is a pilot program we are testing together, so please keep your messages coming! At this point I think I'll do this: I will use today for another look at the template revisions I did for this program so I can weave in some of the common Kuleana connections I want to point out to you based on the common threads I am sensing in your messages. I'll stop updating this message, and you will find any further news on the spec page itself, okay? I'll close the comments here, but keep them open there.

Mahalo for your encouragement! We are Kākou! Communicating and collaborating with the Language of We — very exciting!