Managing with Aloha Coaching: A letter to my Managing with Aloha Coaching subscribers

Aloha everyone, and Happy New Year!

You may be wondering why my Day One essay for January still has not been posted.

I sent out the first issue of Ho‘ohana ‘Ōlelo (my monthly e-letter) this morning, and within it I made a very important announcement: I will not be continuing my publishing of Managing with Aloha Coaching in 2009 to make way for my two BHAGs this year. Yep, time to get back in gear with Big Hairy Audacious Goals.

There is a bit more in the preface of Ho‘ohana ‘Ōlelo for the benefit of those who primarily keep in touch with me that way versus on the web, but here is the excerpt which explains it for those of you who do not have that subscription as well.

In many ways this was a very hard decision for me to make, for I so love this site! However I do feel that it IS a good decision, and the best possible one out of the options I considered. I do NOT want to leave you high and dry without a“Value your Month, Value your Life” plan of your own, however MWAC was always intended to be a self-coaching guideline, and if you have been working the site as opposed to simply reading it, all but the newest subscribers will be ready to now model the program and create a plan of their own.

(Skip down to the next major heading “What I left out” if you do subscribe and have already read this.)

From Ho‘ohana ‘Ōlelo:

Rough as it has been, 2008 was a good teacher, dealing out some tough love in the teaching.

Are we listening? Are we learning? I do not believe that we in business, and in life, can continue the way we have been operating if we are to thrive again, and prosper in ways which will be good for us as soon as possible. I do believe we can change, and I do believe our change can be for the better.

In recent weeks I have asked you not to rely on any cycle, and to make room for a better vitality. I need to practice what I preach too, and I feel I need to lead. So the first thing I will do in my yearly planning, is a stripping away of the non-essentials which can be masquerading as worthy Ho'ohana work, when in fact, they are sneaking in some auto-pilot, some laziness or complacency so that mediocrity can find its foothold and get comfortable. I make more room for the good stuff.

In years past it's been a no-brainer. My value of the month program would never, ever be the casualty, for Managing with Aloha is about managing by values, and is mission more than book: Even my beloved Talking Story came on the chopping block. Well, we've now had five years of "Value your Month, Value your Life" and it's time to move on. I will not be writing a value of the month program for the Ho'ohana Community in 2009.

Don't stop eating just because I stop spoon-feeding

I still believe in the greatness of a value of the month program, still recommend every workplace adopt it, then truly live and work it, but I must move on in my leading, both self-leading and idea-leading. If I don't, I will let you down and let myself down.

"Value your Month, Value your Life" has taken up an awful lot of room on my calendar and in my days, and for me personally, it has to go. I will never ever stop my own living that way, and I have already assigned myself a value to work on in each month of 2009 as I have done with you these last five years, but as of 2009 the Managing with Aloha Coaching container for it as a community program will remain available to you as archives, but will not be newly updated.

So what am I making room for?

I am making room for much more realistic progress with accomplishing these two important goals well before year's end, both of which are not brand new, but got shelved when 2008 began teaching me, and I began listening:

I will be writing my second book.

I will be launching a third business entity named Writing with Aloha.

What about SLC and Ho'ohana Publishing?
They continue, but they will shift.

This letter has been long enough, and I will tell you more as we go forward. That will be another change you will see from me.

This, our Ho'ohana 'Ōlelo newsletter you have subscribed for, will continue, but it will not be on the same Day One recurring pattern each month. I will instead be writing to you when I have new developments to share, or when I do wish to better communicate with you than I have been. In one way, we all have a love-hate relationship with email, however I sense we are all more dependent on email these days -it's become another no-brainer of sorts, and I simply feel it is more effective for us both.

I anticipate you will hear from me more than you have been, not less. My messages can be shorter. That is my intention: To be more timely and responsive (versus pressed for time as I prepare value-based coaching essays for a coming month as it has been). I also want to do more project work versus program maintenance so that there is room for the new idea generation that better leadership is all about.

I am excited about 2009, and I hope you are too.
I also pray this is not a let down for you, and that you will keep your subscription going to see where my new calendar plan will take us.

Between our emails, please continue to join me online at Talking Story (it's back!) and at Joyful Jubilant Learning (JJL Day One Essay for January).

If you need some help with setting your own personal value of the month plan in motion, visit my most recent article for Say "Alaka'i" at The Honolulu Advertiser blog I am now writing (essentially, Say "Alaka'i" is the first pilot project of Writing with Aloha): Hau'oli Makahiki Hou: Hawaiian Values for 2009

While it was written for our Hawai'i newspaper in tone, you know I do not write solely as a Hawai'i-based reporter or journalist, and what you will find there would be the universal structure of "Value your Month, Value your Life" were it to continue. As I explain in the article linked above,

"...choose [which] values you
a) ethically believe in at gut-level,
b) feel will engender the behavior you want to happen for your business, and
c) are fully prepared to champion with constancy.
What you will then discover, is that those values do an incredible amount of the work for you."

Here is a Talking Story link to the same article if you prefer it.

All of which can free you up too, to work on the best year you have ever had. Let's keep doing that together.

What I Left Out

What I forgot to say, but it probably applies more to you who read me here anyway, empathizing with my webby ways, is that my letter today triggers a LOT of publishing updates I must do online, most of what must still be done. For instance, I must quickly update my Ho‘ohana ‘Ōlelo page too so new subscribers aren’t misled.

As I work through my 2009 goals, my Talking Story blog will be the best place you can find me, and know for sure what I am up to.

Mahalo nui for your patience, and please know that if things still look confusing elsewhere the decisions and writing here at Talking Story will trump them all, okay?

Please consider replacing your MWAC subscription with that one!

To unsubscribe from this one, go to the very bottom of this email, and click that link which reads, “To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.”
To subscribe to Talking Story, which I also use as the most up-to-date aggregator of ALL my writing on management, leadership, and the values of Aloha, click on this next link for the FeedBurner email subscription similar to this one you’ve had here at MWAC:
Subscribe to Talking Story with Say Leadership Coaching by Email

Thank you so much for reading Managing with Aloha Coaching these past seventeen months! I look forward to continuing our conversations at Talking Story. If you need my help in any other way, please write me.

With my aloha, for we will Ho‘ohana together, Kākou.