Let’s get on with it! Ho‘olaule‘a prizes :)

I promised you a Ho‘olaule‘a this month, because we’ve got some celebrating to do. Now that all the burning issues are behind us, Let’s get on with it!

We have Ho‘olaule‘a prizes!

To win a prize, all you have to do is read Talking Story this month and celebrate along with us, wishing a happy year One to Talking Story, and a happy happy year Two to Say Leadership Coaching. Then we’ll see if you can answer some questions.

Mark this date: On Wednesday, August 31st I’ll be posting a very short trivia quiz at exactly 7:00am Hawaii Pacific Time. The first people to email me with the correct answers will win the prize of their choice.

Easy. No tricky Hawaiian words to decipher, promise.

The Prize Line-up

Personally, I think all of these prizes are equally wonderful (yes, I am biased and I admit it) so first to win will have their first choice, then second, then third etc. until our prizes are all claimed. We have 9 aloha-full, fantabulous prizes:

3 copies of our book of the month, The Start-up Garden, generously offered by Tom Ehrenfeld, my infamous Ho‘olaule‘a co-conspirator. I’m sure Tom will autograph them for you!

3 copies of my book, Managing with Aloha. Have you read how Adrian has applied it?

3 one-hour coaching sessions with the head coach of Say Leadership Coaching. That would be me :) You can keep this for yourself, or give it to another manager who is your direct report (your boss can hire me) … I won’t tell.

I’m saving the all-expenses paid trip for two to Hawaii for a future anniversary celebration folks, there’s got to be some build-up over the years”
(If you want to support the cause, look for the link on this page that says, “Buy it now!”)

If Kona Coffee goes on sale this month I’ll throw in a few bags of those too, how’s that?

So what kind of questions?

I do love questions. You’ve heard me say it before: Great managers ask good questions. All the time.

However they don’t trick people. They ask questions for all the right reasons. To get feedback. To encourage participation. To stimulate new ideas. To promote collaboration and inclusiveness. To learn. To learn to listen.

And to have fun! You will see that I’m really going to make this easy for you, for all month long I’m going to post the questions so you have more time to find the answers, and to have some fun with them. The thing is, until the 31st comes, you won’t know which of the questions I’ll actually be asking you.

Oh come on now. We’re all movers and shakers, mavericks and change insurgents, aren’t we? Can’t just have a lucky number deal, there’s got to be some effort involved!

The one-year old is crying for some attention first (all of big-sibling two, SLC has a bit more patience, just a bit”) so here is some Talking Story trivia for you;

What was the title of the very first post I ever wrote for Talking Story?
I’ll help you find it:

• From this page, go to the Archives in the left column, and click on December 2004.
• The first post on the page you arrive at has my Top 24 posts of 2004; it’s called Holiday Hiatus: our Ho‘omaha. (You may want to remember this step for any time of excruciating boredom in which you feel like reading my old posts.)
• Within this Holiday Hiatus listing, scroll down to August.
• Pick the link that you would guess is probably about Lance Armstrong, Paul Hamm, and Michael Phelps.
• You found it: That was my first Talking Story post ever, posted on August 21, 2004. Not one trackback, or one comment, but I didn’t let that discourage me!

You’ll see I just jumped right in with no preamble or introduction; just started writing about what was in my head.

I even had the audacity to include it as one of my Top 24 of 2004! Well I was truthful, it actually was in my Top 24 since I’d only been blogging for 132 days in that year…

And here we are almost a full year later. This is post number 364. Just adding in the features this month with Tom, and we’ll have more than a post a day in Talking Story’s first year! Over twice as many trackbacks and comments. And a multitude more who have subscribed as part of our Ho‘ohana Community.

Thank you so much for getting us to today.

Wait, don’t go away just yet. Two-year olds aren’t that patient. Go back to that Holiday Hiatus post, and in the second sentence you’ll learn that there is one time of year I have committed to always closing Say Leadership Coaching so we all can go on vacation. That would probably make a pretty good trivia question too, don’t you think?

Related posts:

Our August Ho‘ohana is Ho‘olaule‘a; Celebration!

Tom Ehrenfeld and The Startup Garden