Finalizing your Ho‘ohana Statement into Workable Form

Let’s quickly review what we have accomplished this month:

1. We learned about Ho‘ohana as the value of intentional work. (Day 1 Essay)
2. We answered the question, Why Bother? (Tues. Coaching Essay 1)
3. We equipped ourselves with a new Language of Intention aimed at increasing our learning retention with Ho‘ohana, thereby helping us apply this value to our lives immediately, and with optimal usefulness and relevance. Key within our Language of Intention were new definitions for ‘work’ and for ‘job.’ (Tues. Coaching Essay 2)
4. You have defined your predominant values, so you will always have them top of mind as your ethical-for-me filters with whatever work you aim to accomplish. (Tues. Coaching Essay 3)
5. Last week, we applied your newly designed value-alignment to two areas that likely affect you pervasively; your responsibilities (Kuleana) and your self-care (Mālama). (Tues. Coaching Essay 4)

I had told you that weaving the value of Ho‘ohana into your life may be intense, but it can deliver joy and contentment as well. If you have stayed with me through-out this process, doing the work I have asked of you, you should already be experiencing this!

You also have a few pages of notes from this month’s readiness exercises. Today, we tie them altogether in a final draft that you can call your current Ho‘ohana Statement. The goal is for you to have a workable form that you can consistently refer to and have guide you.

iMobio found on Flickr by podcom.

What does a Ho‘ohana Statement look like?

Have you done different goal or mission statements in the past? The best form for your Ho‘ohana Statement is one you know you will work best with, one you are most likely to keep in front of you like a lump of clay just begging you to give it better shape and form until it becomes the work of art it can be.

When has that happened for you with the best outcome?

Over the years my own Ho‘ohana Statement has been a paragraph, a list, a mind-map taped to my bathroom mirror, a photo collage on my computer desk-top, a monthly calendar of value associations, a train-the-trainer certification curriculum outline, an mp3 on my iPod, and most extensively as an entire book —as Managing with Aloha.

You have seen a form of the Ho‘ohana Statement I had back in 2004; it appears as the last paragraph on page 32 of my book, Managing with Aloha:

“I love to teach, and in particular I love coaching managers. I love the science of business and the democracy of free enterprise, where ultimately the customer rules. I love reading, I love the written word and I love the study of how language can influence relationships between people. I love the new global possibilities of networking. I love the notion that we can choose our own destiny and create it. I get passionate about all these things, and by indulging my passions I gave life to Managing with Aloha.”

In short, it is a statement of less than a hundred words that describes the kind of work I love to do —not ‘like,’ LOVE. This is the work which brings me joy, contentment, and personal fulfillment. This is the work I do with intention. This is the work I devote the vast majority of my attentions to. This is the work I believe can shape a legacy for me at the same time it gives me clarity in my day to day living. This is the work I thrive within and take care of myself with. This is the work I have a ton of fun with. Oh! And this is the work which pays my bills and buys gifts for the people I love.

Reading these words myself now, nearly five full years since I wrote them, they surprise me a bit, in that I wouldn’t change them very much, if at all. The basic WHAT of my Ho‘ohana is the same; my Ho‘ohana in the way I write it today illustrates how the jobs that are within my Ho‘ohana-inspired work differ though; in other words, my HOW has changed. To use the language of intention we’ve had this month, my INTENTION is very much the same, but I find I am aching to deliberately shift where my ATTENTION has been.

In my Day One Essay I had made you a promise:

“I’m going to do it too. I tweak my Ho‘ohana statement on an on-going basis, however this month I am challenging myself with a major BHAG-quality (big hairy audacious goal) Ho‘ohana reinvention.”

I worked through the exercises I asked you to do too. This is what I came up with as my Ho‘ohana Statement for today:

My Ho‘ohana intention remains constant: I love that we can choose our own destiny and create it. I love helping people do so within their work, and with their values. From this moment forward however, I will shift my Ho‘ohana attentions, enlarging them from Managing with Aloha in the workplace to the optimistic expectancy of Living with Aloha in personal, Ho‘ohana-inspired work. I love helping people break free from the “yeah-but” shackles of their day to day living, so they clearly see the freedom they CAN have by immersing themselves in new learning and bigger thinking.

Still less than a hundred words for me, but encompassing some major changes. Among my changes, this is the BHAG: I will say goodbye to Say Leadership Coaching and hello to a major reinvention of Ho‘ohana Publishing. I have grown a great deal over the last five years, and I know I have more growing to do; I am shedding my old self-limiting contexts and ushering in a new one.

I will share more of my specific plans as they unfold over the next few months. For now, let’s get your Ho‘ohana Statement written!

Essay, not multiple choice!

What you must first do is settle on a form for your own Ho‘ohana Statement: What do you KNOW you WILL work with? Keep our new definition of work – YOUR work in mind. As I’d written in my Day One Essay; work is personal, so is this.

My recommendation is that you self-talk yourself through this by writing something out. As I did, aim for a paragraph of less than 100 words so that you are forced to be concise, direct, and yet still use words that open up possibilities. When you read the one I came up with this month, it asks a lot of questions. You might be thinking, “What do you mean Rosa, exactly what are you going to do, and how are you going to pull it off? When? How are you going to start?” and those are exactly the questions I want to challenge myself with every single time I read it. However I know what I intend, and what my shorthand means —for now at least, my Ho‘ohana Statement is for me and only me.

That said however, I want my Ho‘ohana Statement to bug me with just the right amount of discontent, where I ask myself, “So where are you? How much progress have you made? What’s next? What in the world are you waiting for?”

Collect all your notes from the exercises we have done over the last two weeks worth of “drafts.” More accurately, I could have called them your inputs, the stuff that will grease the wheel of your self-attuned, spirit-generated and value-released thinking. Read through everything, then sit with some quiet and write out your own paragraph as Step 1.

Step 2 is your personal formatting – YOU styled

Step 2 is where you take your paragraph and put it in whatever form you can promise me (and guarantee yourself) that you will work with: When you think about your own most productive habits, how do you achieve your goals best? Your Ho‘ohana is THE best possible goal of your life.

At this moment, my new Ho‘ohana Statement is copied in large font on my laptop desktop, for that is where I will see it most, but it is also where I will leave it alone for a while and let it be. I am a writer and an incessant planner: If I keep my Ho‘ohana on a Word doc I will tweak it endlessly until it looks nothing like the original and I will sink into the depths of analysis paralysis – I know that about myself! What I AM working with (and relentlessly tweaking) is an Action Plan Outline and Project Management Timeline.

Personally, I also work my Ho‘ohana alone, fully in love with and immersed in my own thinking. I handle my people connections in other parts of my action processes. Some of you might work your Ho‘ohana best with a partner or in a team – again, you know YOU. Go with what you know about those times you are truly at your best. Be the person you like being; keep your Ho‘ohana work happy and joyful.

And that my Ho‘ohana Community (the phrase means more now, doesn’t it? :) brings us to the end of September.

Your Ho‘ohana is your future

I’d like to repeat something from my Day One Essay, for the news of the day makes it more relevant than ever before:

“I believe that self-entrepreneurship of some kind one day down the pike (or to be more accurate, self-financing), is the new inevitability of our generation: In today’s economy, scores of people are finding they’ve been good working citizens and contributors to society their entire lives with very little to show for it. Their retirement dream never came true. They played the game of life following all the rules: What went wrong?

In short, what went wrong is that they followed someone else’s Ho‘ohana instead of authoring their own, something everyone will eventually have to do (and just as the leaders among you authored your self-leadership growth plan in August.)

The good news is this: It is never too late. Really.”

We are in a recession. Today’s news is depressing; it’s scary. The question is, would you rather succumb to commiserating with others on the doom and gloom, or would you rather look ahead, and very realistically do something about it? If you have done our exercises this month, and now have your new Ho‘ohana Statement in front of you, you know this:

Your Ho‘ohana is your future.

Tomorrow: Brand New Month, Brand New Value Study

One of the decisions I have made with my new Ho‘ohana is that MWAC will continue as a very niched focus: I am not interested in building a large but half-interested web-surfing readership here. As it says up top: “You’ve read the book, now what’s next?”

I intend to continue this site as an extended reading guide for Managing with Aloha, and as a self-paced, self-coaching resource. Now that you have your Ho‘ohana Statement, and now that we both speak the same Language of Intention, you will find that I refer to both often as we continue.

This is our new beginning, yours and mine, and our Ho‘ohana is our future.

Tomorrow we will begin with our value for the month of October, Nānā i ke kumu, the Hawaiian value of source and truth. We will make the connections to your Ho‘ohana; we will Ho‘omau —continue.

See you in the morning, when we will Ho‘ohana together, Kākou.

~Rosa

Comments

[John Keoni Monte]

Aloha to All...After putting in a 16 hour day (all inclusive) I had that certain 'tug' on my sleeve that then whispered in my ear "hey brah, check e-mail". And so, when I did I found the 'special announcement' from Rosa. After reading it in entirety, I chose to hop on for a moment to share some thought...I have worked in mainstream media since 1988, mostly for VIACOM labels and currently with Clear Channel Radio - San Diego. As a on-air anchor and Producer, I handle thought forms and pulse of markets Nationwide...what Rosa is sharing with each one of us...is exactly that - a message for EACH ONE OF US...she is addressing that inner part of us that knows, not the outside reactionary, emotional, monkey chatter brain human being; of which I count myself a part of also. My post tonight is not to add to, because Rosa has encapsulated it perfectly and it has the target I mentioned...therefore, no mess! What I would ask everyone reading this, is to re-read, maybe even a few times, what Rosa has stated tonight. It may very well be, or end up, the most important identifier, qualifier, and catalyst to THE future. A future WE ALL SHARE. Like my beloved Hawaiian ancestors - pre-contact, pre-paao, pre-anything...they knew that each day, in every way, depended on them moment to moment. And those moments at the end of the day determined the next day for the entire Ohana, village, community, et al. Rosa is setting the mark...this is true, genuine leadership...but she does so not to be our leader...but to inspire the leader in each of us. We all share the responsibility of life...we all have a thread in the World Web of Life...together, the web stays strong, ongoing, evolving...but if we allow 'separation' of any kind or form, then that separation will un-balance everything that everyone who came before us worked so hard for, so that we could have it today. It is us, who must carry it on, and on, and on. Our turn to wear down the path, and shine some light for the next generation to follow. No government, no Wall Street, no Senate, will do this for us...We must stand up, understand, join together, kokua and do so in the best Aloha Spirit we can put forth...sharing breath, in truth, and love. And, tomorrow's another day...Mahalo for that!
Aloha Nui Loa - Monte

[Roselia]

I have some catching up to do, but I have begun my Ho'ohana work. Mahalo.
The market doesn't scare me...people do at times when they panic. People first, then money (as Suze would say). We can always make more money. Good people are not replaceable.

[Rosa Say]

Mahalo John and Roselia, so good to hear from you both. Such is the strength we possess within the Ho‘ohana Community, this confidence I hear from each of you. It is sweet music :)