My talk-story today is very Ho‘ohana-directed for those of you working through my MWA value of the month program with me. If you aren’t you can skip this, or you can feel free to read quickly through this to get a sense of what I do each month in that regard (since Talking Story does amble in some different directions at times, like this past weekend.)

Value your Month, Value your Life is the tagline on Managing with Aloha Coaching (MWAC). In short, the value-aligned life is what I feel you can achieve when you adopt a value of the month self-coaching regimen, whether you choose to do so with me (and the Managing with Aloha values) or on your own — you choose your own values and your own interpretation of them, but tag-team the organizational structure I use so you can be aligned with the temperaments of our Ho‘ohana Community. We are good people to be around, those positive-influence people your parents would be pleased you’ve become friends with :)

September 2008: 15 days down, 15 to go.

Let’s take a quick September 2008 Ho‘ohana inventory: Where are we?

Within my Day One Essay I essentially presented three goals for the month:

1. Learn about Ho‘ohana as a value, and in doing so, redefine the word “work” for yourself as the first step to making the work you do your own.

To do this, understand where your “job” fits into the picture ”“ in some regards they are one and the same, and in others, the jobs you do are part of other concerns that just are part of the business we call life.

By now, you should have completed this part, with a new language of intention articulated in the process.

2. In the Tuesday coaching which still remains this month, we are going to write a first-draft Ho‘ohana statement of intention for you —a “working” draft!

The Tuesday Coaching Essay I have queued up for MWAC tomorrow begins this part; we will be taking a look at your personal value-alignment. The post title to look for: Writing a Ho‘ohana Draft part 1: Your Intention and Your Personal Values. (Update: posted here.)

3. Third (and where we’d actually started), I asked you to define Koho Wahi Ho‘ohana; asking you, “What is your chosen place in the Ho‘ohana Community?” and suggesting you enlist someone’s partnership in taking the Ho‘ohana journey together so you can support each other, work my Value of the Month/Tuesday Coaching program with your workplace team, or engage on MWAC in the comment boxes there.

Koho Wahi Ho‘ohana in practice!

A couple of you have gone even further, and I must take a moment to say mahalo nui to Stacy Brice and Chris Bailey in particular, for taking this month’s Ho‘ohana coaching to their own online communities and publishing platforms; thank you Stacy and Chris!

By Stacy: Why bother with worthwhile work?

By Chris: September Is A Perfect Month To Talk About Work, and Why Job Fit Is Important To Your Confidence.

At MWAC we have heard from Bas, Toni, Sharon, Angela, and Roselia. Mahalo nui loa for sharing your voices there! Your generosity with commenting feeds into my own energies in a big way.

While I sincerely appreciate the private emails that come in as well, those of you who will share your comments publicly with the community doubly, triply have my gratitude, for our energies as a peer-coached community make an exponential difference.

How? Read The 20 Benefits of Peer to Peer Coaching (and the MWA Way of doing it)

Ho‘ohana with the Intention ~ Attention Mantra

As usual, we have kept in alignment with the month’s value on Joyful Jubilant Learning as well. The theme there is slightly different (it is about learning from Citizen Publishing on the Web) however there is a sub-theme there that is a Ho‘ohana direct hit:

We each have a two-fold decision to make about our personal use of the web: ATTENTION. To who, what, where, and when do I give the most valuable gift I can give someone publishing online for me? INTENTION. Why do I bother in the first place? What’s in it for me? What will be the outcome that I am intentionally pursuing?

The conversation at JJL has been rich in this regard, with general agreement that “Attention and intention are a powerful combination.” (Greg Balanko-Dickson)

Yet life can bombard us with so much: Attention and intention is a struggle for all of us.

Generally I think that indulging our innate sense of curiosity is a great thing, as is putting ourselves “out there” as we pursue degrees of separation, broadening our horizons and adding color and diversity to our lives with other interests, some which at first can seem quite off-the-wall and divergent.

Somewhat impulsively (I admit it was not originally planned this way this month!) I have imposed a 90-day experiment on myself, aimed at limiting my online consumption of inputs. I suppose I am realizing that my intentions are my reality check on my attentions ”“ or that they need to be a bit more than they have been!

However just a few days into it (my 90-day experiment), I must tell you: It is working!!!

So my last word for Day 15 and our mid-month point is this: Think deeply about your intention with every effort you make – that is the Ho‘ohana direct hit I refer to. Think of every effort you make as part of the work you do in that new definition we had come up with at MWAC:

WORK —what I intend to do for me, myself and I. When I “work on something” I am working on something useful or important to me in some way. I work for my purpose, a purpose that is clear to me. I work on-purpose, no more “going through the motions,” no more “paying my dues” or “earning my stripes,” and no more “biding my time.” Even when I work within a job I feel stuck with (for the time being as a transitional time) I am learning as much as I can, learning which is connected with the experience, skills, or knowledge I will use in the future. More at: Our Ho‘ohana Language of Intention: Are we talking about the same thing?

We Ho‘ohana together. I will be over at MWAC tomorrow with my next Tuesday Coaching Essay. See you there.
~Rosa