Talking Story

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Hau‘oli la hanau to Dwayne ‘Joe Cool’ Melancon

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I did a birthday post for our friend Dwayne last year too, and before I started to write this, I read it once again only to find that I was thinking about starting this one in the same way! Such is the strong consistency of Dwayne’s impact on my life:

Didja know that today is Joe D.Cool’s birthday?

There are certain birthdays that deserve all my attention; they are
my feelin’ the gratitude days. Today is my gratitude day for Dwayne; Hau‘oli la hanau my friend.

Dwayne is one of my spirit spillers;


Dwayne Melancon at Genuine Curiosity (Feed)

There could be no better pairing of a man with the name of his
blog. Dwayne is the thoughtfully intelligent adult who has magically
kept the genuine curiosity we only think children can have. I do not
hear from Dwayne as often as others, yet when I do he has amazingly
chosen the perfect time, where connecting with him makes me feel
healthy again. I have a dream of sitting in an audience to hear Dwayne speak one day”
—Sunday Mālama: Spirit Spilling

Dwayne just gave me one of those “perfect times” again in the past week… One way we count our blessings is in our vital friendships. When you do, their birthdays are actually your gifts!

Sometimes I think Dwayne is psychic, for I will see a message arrive from him in one of the places we communicate at the most perfect-for-me times. But I do know better: Having that kind of connection with someone happens because

a) they know you. They have intentionally worked at knowing you.

b) they are thoughtful and generous. Not only do they know you, they remember you.

c) they act. They don't just think about doing things for you, or about you; they do them.

That kind of knowing, remembering, and doing, is the best kind of caring in the whole world. And lucky, lucky girl that I am, Dwayne is that kind of vital friend for me.

Here is the most recent example.

Dwayne reviewed The Red Rubber Ball at Work by Kevin Carroll for ALAWB09 on JJL this past month. His first choice was another book (and don’t worry, I can safely guarantee you that one will show up on his blog one of these days soon – he is book reviewer extraordinaire) but he quickly gave in to me asking for this one because I was so interested in it.

Then, we had this conversation about it (and yes, I am forcing you to click over for the complete story and full effect… Dave jumped in too.)

Not even a week later…

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My friends are among the biggest JOYS of my life. Just got a surprise in the mail~ Aloha copy of The Red Rubber Ball at Work!
~ my delighted tweet on Twitter

Was I surprised? Wonderfully so, but was I really surprised? No, not at all, for this was classic Dwayne, knowing, remembering and doing as he does so, so well, and with Aloha.

DwayneMelancon
Happy Birthday Dwayne. My life got so much better when I met you. You are smart and playful (the cover of Mr. Carroll’s book could have been designed with you in mind, textured ball in that briefcase!) and the best gifts you have given me over the years are the ones I hold not in my hands, but in my soul.

Postscript: Yes, there is a bit of a history to my Joe D.Cool nickname for Dwayne. If you like, you can follow this trail: Didja know that today is Joe D.Cool’s birthday?

About my Talking Story Birthday Celebrations: I would love to do these public Birthday Alohas for everyone in our Ho‘ohana Community, but if I did there might not be time and space for anything else here on Talking Story! (Intriguing thought for another blog one day though” seeing how strongly I agree with Keith Ferrazzi about the importance of celebrating birthdays.)

So who do I choose, and how do I choose? I choose vital friends yes, but mostly I choose the leaders who I believe you can learn from too. They are also the brave and generous citizen publishers of the web, so that you can follow and converse with them.

I encourage you to follow the links I offer and meet them: Leaders are those who inspire us to be better than we are, and they walk their talk as naturally as they breathe.

You never know…

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‘Ike loa is the Hawai’ian value of learning and, as Rosa tells us in Managing With Aloha, knowledge is food for the mind, heart and soul.  Unfortunately, sometimes we all act like stubborn children who refuse to eat the food that’s put in front of us.

Lockers_2 As I watch my kids start in this new school year, I can’t help but wonder which of the things they’ll learn this year will become important to them when they’re older.  Like most kids, the older they get, the more they gripe about various aspects of school (like how they can’t understand why they have to learn some of the things they’re taught because they’ll never need to use it again in their lives).

I must admit they are a lot like me.  Oh sure, I’ve always had a thirst for learning.  I remember when I was about six years old I started reading the Encyclopedia at my grandparents house.  I soon became a fountain of random trivia on things like trains, Amazon wildlife, and all sorts of things that had no practical application in my life.  But I loved it.

In contrast, there were a whole bunch of subjects in school that I really felt were a huge waste of time.  For example: Typing.  When I was in 10th grade, I was required to take typing in high school and I couldn’t see any reason I should be learning to type.  After all, what was I going to do?  I wanted to work in broadcasting-why would I ever need to type?

But, of course, Typing was a required course so I suffered through it and did enough to get a passing grade.

Now, I type every day of my life – and I have for over 20 years, starting right about the time I quit being a full-time radio announcer and took my first job at a small software company.  Looking back, I’m so glad that I was forced to take typing when I was in 10th grade (especially when I see some of my colleagues who are destined to hunt and peck their way through mountains of e-mail).

Thank you, Mrs. Jones, you really made a difference – sorry I was such a pain.

As we move through our lives, we are exposed to numerous opportunities to learn new and different things.  Make the most of those opportunities and feed your mind, heart, and soul every chance you get — you never know what your next typing class might be.

Related items:

Ashamed of our naked skins

Incompetence is wonderful

Where do you invest your 10%?

Everything happens for a reason

Dwayne Melancon is the author of Genuine Curiosity and is always on the lookout for new things to learn.

Refuse to be defined by your daypart

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Rosa asked me to share a story about my experiences with learning.

Once upon a time, I was a reasonably successful professional radio announcer in Baton Rouge.  In the radio business, the day is sliced up into “dayparts” and you always start in crummy dayparts (like midnight to 6am on Sunday morning) and move to more desirable dayparts as you move up the ladder.

One day, one of my previous bosses killed himself in a gruesome way because he was moved from a top-ranked daypart to a less prestigious one (morning drive to mid-days).  It was about that time I decided it might be time to look for other career options – I didn’t relish being defined by my daypart.

I didn’t know what I wanted to do and considered all kinds of other options (garbage man, advertising, and a whole range of other things were on the list). 

One February afternoon, my roommate came home and told me the software company he worked for was looking for a technical support person.  He explained that a technical support person would be responsible for handling telephone calls from software users and helping them solve problems.  I’d always enjoyed puzzles and problem-solving so I decided that might be fun.  He called and set up an interview with the founder of the company the next afternoon.

A few minutes later, I realized I didn’t know anything about DOS (the operating system in use at that time).  I asked my roommate if he had anything I could study, and he gave me a copy of Microsoft’s MS-DOS manual and Peter Norton’s book “Inside The IBM PC.”  I stayed up all night cramming on these books and trying out what I learned on my other roommate’s IBM XT computer.

The next day, I went to the interview and, miraculously, I got the job.  There I was, a naive young kid starting his first job in the computer industry!

20 years later, I still work in the software industry and I love it. 

This type of stepping into the unknown has become a bit of a habit with me.  Every 18 months or so, it seems,  I end up taking on a new opportunity which requires me to learn very new skills (I’ve done and managed such things as customer support, quality assurance, marketing, software programming, product and program management, IT operations, web publishing, IT audit, process consulting, and, most recently, business development).  Some of these career changes have been things I’ve asked for; while some of them have been imposed. 

Stepping into the unknown is always scary, but I’ve learned the most valuable things in the situations where I’ve pushed through the fear and taken the chance ”“ sort of a “burning platform” approach.  In some cases, I realized I’d made the wrong choice (thanks, dot-com hype) but I moved on and looked for the next challenge.

JFK said, “We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not only because they are easy, but because they are hard””  We’re at our best when we make the hard choices. 

Make a few hard choices and seek the challenges in the unknown. Refuse to be defined by your daypart.

Postcript by Rosa: You can always find Dwayne Melancon, our Guest Author today, within the right-column listing of our Ho‘ohana Online Community. Dwayne is the author of Genuine Curiosity, and his ho‘ohana is that he is “Always on the lookout for new things to learn,” just as he has shared in this wonderful story!