Smashwords

Value Your Month to Value Your Life

January 12, 2011 by Rosa Say

Now shipping!

This is what you, and blogging here within our Talking Story community can Ho‘o — make happen…

Now published on Smashwords: Synopsis ~
This ebook will teach you about Value Mapping, a learning/doing process within the Managing with Aloha philosophy of worthwhile work. In building values-based habits you develop a way of belief-aligned living wherein good begets good, beginning with the inherent truths which already reside within you.

YOU know how this happened…

Started by declaring 2011 the Year of Better Habits.
Then you sent me a question about the Value Your Month to Value Your Life program I’d done before.
Answering that question spun off into a collection of 5 more posts.

Then I started thinking.

I’m always encouraging all of you to finish well.
I should lead by setting a good example.

So I dumped those 5 value alignment posts into a new document, cleaned them up with healthy doses of additional information, and wrote a brand new 7,505 ebook (about 18 pages as a PDF). Here’s what it includes:

Table of Contents:
Prologue: Our Values Vocabulary
Introduction: The Managing with Aloha Story
Chapter 1 – At the Heart of the Matter: Our Values
Chapter 2 – Where did our values come from?
Chapter 3 – Value Immersion and Value Steering
Chapter 4 – The Logistics of Value Immersion
Chapter 5 – Your Projects with Value Steering
Chapter 6 – The Logistics of Value Steering
Chapter 7 – Take a Stand and Learn More
Addendum: 19 Values for Value Mapping

It’s selling on Smashwords for $4.99. If you have a Kindle I’m especially loving how it turned out in that format, however you’ll have to get it from Smashwords for now (very easy… how-to here. Be sure you open the documents folder in your Kindle).

January 14 Update: For those who prefer grabbing it from Amazon.com, Value Your Month to Value Your Life has is now available on Kindle, and listed with the rest of my kindling :)

One more thing: Thank you so much for pushing me to be better as you do.
I think you’ll especially like what I’ve added in that 19-value addendum: Each MWA value has application suggestions for either value immersion, value steering, or both.

Yeah… my Year of Better Habits? Already is.

What shall we do next?

Imagine having a Thought Kit

May 3, 2010 by Rosa Say

Last week I encouraged you to Embrace your Systems Thinker. Well, when it comes to THINKING there is so much more nurturing of it we all can do!

“What did you learn today Ralph?
Did you learn what to believe or did you learn how to think?”
— The questions Nathra Nader posed to his then ten-year-old son, Ralph Nader
when he came home from school
From The Tradition of Education and Argument, The Seventeen Traditions

The thinking I’ve been doing lately is about kit creating. It’s thinking, and writing which has spun off into a brand new book!
(If the photo doesn’t pop up for you in your reader, please click in to see it!)

Publisher’s Synopsis:

Become a Business Thinker.

Re-imagine work, and gain better control of your life as you do so, even if you never decide to go into business for yourself. Adopting and adapting a business mindset opens up your options, helping you feel confident, connected and in-the-know. This book presents the business thinker’s possibility for a new working attitude with a values-based bonus: the coaching of the Managing with Aloha movement.

Purchasing Options:

Business Thinking with Aloha is now available on Smashwords, within their Premium Catalog: I hope you’ll take the time to check it out, for you can sample 40% of the book for free there, and then choose from eight different reading options, including Kindle.

A note for Kindle owners: Business Thinking with Aloha is also available in the Amazon Kindle Store, however the sample size may be shorter. You can find instructions at this link on purchasing Kindle downloads from Smashwords.

A note for Business Thinkers: Smashwords does have an affiliate program you can check out too! Become an affiliate.

Why Ship So Soon?

I know this seems to come rather quickly on the heels of Become an Alaka‘i Manager in 5 Weeks, yet very naturally so from my perspective. My reasons for publishing the two books align: Both offer Take 5 coaching programs. Both have strong connection to the evolution of Managing with Aloha in response to the challenges we face in today’s economic climate.

Business Thinking with Aloha (BTWA) is written for the person who has not read either Managing with Aloha or its new how-to guide for Alaka‘i Managers, and who may also be meeting me for the very first time.

As you know dear readers, I write quite a bit, and for a variety of different audiences. Out of everything I have written, this is the mini book I wrote with both of my children in mind (they’re young adults now, ages 26 and 23), and because I felt compelled to be part of the solution for our workforce challenges. I’ve asked them to read this, and share it with their friends and contemporaries, because I want them to have a healthy relationship with work; they’ll be tackling a lot of it! I want them to be inquisitive young adults who seek to shape their world in the best possible way, loving life as they do so, and fully cognizant of how powerful they are with creating their own destiny. Life needn’t just happen to them; they can navigate their choices skillfully and design it.

So can you. As I wrote BTWA I also thought of it as a way I could help the Alaka‘i Manager who would like to give their employees a gift as suggested reading, i.e. something in full alignment and support of what that manager is seeking to learn in their own self-development: I asked myself, “As a manager grows, what lighter, but parallel path can their staff start with?” and Become a Business Thinker became a possible answer.

If you are already into the reading and application of Become an Alaka‘i Manager in 5 Weeks, I suggest you finish that one first. You will then find that BTWA works great as a follow-up which takes you deeper into the 9 Key Concepts, and where Become had ended — and you’ll likely be the person who gains the most benefit from it. Consider BTWA number 4 to this posting: The 1-2-3 journey of Alaka‘i Managers.

Business Thinking with Aloha is a shorter book (it’s about a fourth the reading time of MWA). I think it offers fabulous utility, an ever-present goal of my work, and I hope you will agree. Go on, grab your sampling today and take a look!

The 1-2-3 journey of Alaka‘i Managers

April 16, 2010 by Rosa Say

I’m not going to be shy about this, for I’m hearing wonderful early reports from others who were among the first to download my new ebook for you, and Hau‘oli‘oli Kākou ~ I am jumping for joy!

Download your free copy on Smashwords:
You have 10 different formats to choose from there, including a printable PDF

It’s only been a week since the ebook’s release, and I’ve been delighted to hear that many people who had already read Managing with Aloha are doing so a second time, but differently — they are using the annotation method described in the first week of the program:

Take 1: You will first read the book cover to cover, taking notes in a learning method and self-coaching framework I will describe to you. Everything begins with Aloha, and we’ll get comfortable with this value in an actionable way, allowing its goodness to inspire us! Know that you have everything it takes, for in short, Aloha is you living from the inside out, and “Living with Aloha” is dwelling in the self-awareness of your own ability and capacity.

Best of all, you need not do this alone, even if you are the only manager in your company who is aware of this choice you have, to manage and lead with the incredible abundance of Aloha. You can learn with us, the your Ho‘ohana Community.

Now that we have this new ebook coaching format to help us, the 1-2-3 journey for emerging Alaka‘i Managers has become:

Read Managing with Aloha (Buy it in print on Amazon.com ~ It’s now on Kindle too) and commit to applying it in the workplace.
If you feel you have a calling for management, get started with reconstructing the Role of the Manager with us via the self-coaching program in the how-to ebook: Become an Alaka‘i Managers in 5 weeks!
Continue to be a lifelong learner with the rest of us right here on Talking Story, using the learning construct of the 9 Key Concepts. Speak up as this blogging format allows you to!

Be a manager who is part of a movement, and be heard.

Hana hou! I am so excited with the progress we are making, and I hope you are too.

Mahalo nui loa to those who have been emailing me of their impressions as they work through the beginning of the ebook: Your feedback is helping me tremendously as I evaluate some ideas for our next project together, so please keep it coming!

Ready? Become an Alaka‘i Manager in 5 Weeks!

April 9, 2010 by Rosa Say

The coaching ebook I have promised you is done! (and it’s free.)

Our Ho‘ohana mission on job creation has yet another new spark. Help me keep the embers glowing brightly will you? Let’s start a raging bonfire for our Managing with Aloha movement!

Become an Alaka‘i Manager in 5 Weeks is now available on Smashwords

We’d set our sights on publishing this week, and we did it. However this is not for me: It’s for the Alaka‘i Manager who is within YOU.

Click anywhere on this ebook jacket, or take this link to the Smashwords page.

If you aren’t yet familiar with Smashwords, you’re in for a new treat in reading too: You’ll see that you have 10 reading formats to choose from, including a Kindle version, and the PDF best for printing — Become an Alaka‘i Manager in 5 Weeks came in at 37 pages long printed. The links which make the Table of Contents clickable will work in the e-reading of the PDF as well. When you choose the first option for Online Reading on Smashwords (HTML) take a look at the choices you have with display preferences in the left side column to read it your way; very cool.

UPDATE:
Become an Alaka‘i Manager in 5 Weeks is due to be released by these ebook retailers as follows:

April 12: By Sony and Kobo
April 14: By Apple (iPad and iTunes)
April 16: By Barnes & Noble (Nook)
These dates have constantly changed — get it now on Smashwords!

They each may decide to offer at $0.99 (Good news! The ebook will remain FREE :) so keep in mind that you can still get it today (and for free) via Smashwords. If you have a Kindle, there are instructions on the USB-loading here (and I did it that way)… not sure if it works for these other readers.

Please help me spread the word, would you?

If you tell another manager about this, and they have never heard of me or Managing with Aloha, sending them to my profile page on Smashwords might be easier, and the ebook appears there too: Rosa on Smashwords.

If you’re just now joining us here on Talking Story, and are interested in the process of these things (i.e. How a Ho‘ohana intention can unfold :-) here is the backstory. Proof positive to what a blog theme can do for us too…

The other reason I offer up the progression which follows, is to demonstrate what can happen when you finish the 5-week progression that Become an Alaka‘i Manager will take you through. At the end of the ebook I encourage the reader to join us here on Talking Story for their continuous learning using the 9 Key Concepts, and this has been our learning journey from last December until now.

We decided to include “Jobs Reinvented and Delivered for Best Livelihood” as one of our Take 5 initiatives for 2010 back in December: Take 5 in 2010: A Game-Changing Ho‘ohana.
I honestly had no idea how we would tackle job reinvention, and so we started the year with Aloha as our value theme, simply trusting in it to ground us as we usually do. This is a good post to recap all of January: Values are the Bedrock of Hard Reality.
In February, we stuck with Aloha as our theme, and added in learning more about Key Concept 7: Strengths Management, with this kick-off: February’s Strengthening. We know it as Love.
Ho‘ohana became our second value theme for 2010 on March 15th, and we knew: When better to tackle the part about jobs in our Take 5 game-changing? For Ho‘ohana is all about work, right? Right! The Alaka‘i Manager as Job Maker.
We did start broadly, reviewing concepts such as Energy and Gainful Employment, and making our connection back to the work we’d just done in February with strengths: Job Creation Employs Strengths, Then People.
Then some synergy in another of my projects created that spark I mentioned in the beginning! Managing with Aloha now on Kindle!
I broke the news about the ebook I was writing here: About Managing with Aloha: Has it intrigued but overwhelmed you? and as I explain there, “I see this free release as a freeing for all of us.”
Last, before downloading the ebook itself, this post will give you an Overview of the 5-week progression the ebook presents, and it takes us back to reflect on the Take 5 initiative which started our journey to begin with: Creating Jobs? Let’s start with the Job Maker.

We’ve chosen to get involved with job creation in 2010: What initiative will you seize once you’ve been newly equipped and energized with Become an Alaka‘i Manager in 5 Weeks — ?

Where do we go from here?

Well, this process has given me all kinds of ideas, and I hope it’s done that for you too. Capture your ideas — write them down!

As for Talking Story, I’ll hold off on jumping to another theme: I think we’ll take it slow and easy during the 5 weeks to come so we can all work with the ebook for now. How does that sound?

We Ho‘ohana together, Kākou, and we become Alaka‘i Managers who serve workplaces everywhere, in Aloha :-)