Luscious, Liberating, Luminous Lustrum Learning

I could not resist that title. This will be a post that is easy for me to find with search when it slips into the archives ”“ as long as I can remember this word I have just learned:

Lustrum refers to a period of five years.

Literary Lustrum Luminaries

2004 was a year that several writers now in our Ho‘ohana Community began their Citizen Publishing on the web as bloggers.

While there were earlier blogging platforms, the first versions of both TypePad and WordPress were released in 2003 and specifically marketed to those of us who were less than tech-savvy, and we gobbled them up.

Five (and six) years later, I think we still look for “user-friendly” as our favorite platform feature, but that’s another post” when I read these last few sentences out loud, blogging and gobbling do seem to go together, and lustrum sounds like part of a five-course meal… sorry, I digress.

So 2009 is a fifth blogging anniversary that many of us share, and I find that my earlier resolve to read more books and less blogs this year has melted away because the blogs are where the action is in relationships that have become very meaningful to me.

There’s the pure fun of it too, and also the design inventiveness which goes with all these very creative people-turned-publishers thinking about how they should mark such a momentous occasion ”“ going the distance with a full five years of blogging is a significant achievement. As you know by now, I love to write, but I needed my hiatus of a few weeks now and then to ho‘omau [persist, and cause the good within to be long-lasting] for once you have a blog it seems the site owns you, and not the other way around.

Interestingly enough, my favorite line in the very first blog post I wrote on August 23, 2004 mentions ho‘omau too:

“”this is my new Ho‘omau coaching story on persistence and what happens when you don’t quit ”“ never count yourself out! Don’t listen to the background noise of observers who aren’t as engaged as you are: instead, listen to the voice in your own head urging you on.”
—Summer Heroes

Luscious Lustrum Learning

The luminous Lisa Haneberg is one of those HCers celebrating her lustrum with me right now during the month of August. (That word does take some getting used to, doesn’t it.)

Lisa IS luminous: She is a woman I have boundless admiration and Aloha for, and I’ll be honest: When I first read her blog Management Craft I was a little intimidated yet also felt compelled to compete with her. I could immediately see that Lisa was smart and sassy. Here we would be, two management coaches going head to head —no question about it; it would be fun for both of us.

It has been fun. Truth is, we agree on a lot, and I find it hard to disagree with her even if I try to! We probably did compete a little bit in the very beginning, but we mostly learn from each other. We also became very good friends. In those early months where I sought to blend Talking Story with Managing with Aloha, Lisa was one of the very brave souls who said (in very gentle and diplomatic words, for I paraphrase here) “Rosa I love you, but you are losing me in this Hawaiian stuff, speak English.” If I did manage to make that breakthrough here, thank Lisa!

This is how Lisa is celebrating throughout August:

A few weeks ago, I sent an email to several other bloggers/podcasters who have been online pals for several of those five years. I asked them one question: what have you learned – that you most value – in the last five years? Throughout this month, I will be sharing their thoughts, beginning with Phil Gerbyshak, who I saw last week while in Milwaukee.

But before I get to Phil’s thought pearls, I will answer the question myself… Continue reading at Management Craft.

Liberating Lustrum Learning

Lisa asked me to participate, and I’m up at her Management Craft today with my buddy Dwayne Melancon. This is what I wrote, with a few more links inserted here for those of you who might be recalling a few of my references there.

I have learned of the “why” and “how” I need to grow —constantly.

A bit of context: I share this 5-year August anniversary with you Lisa. What an incredible 5 years it has been, for it marks 5 years for both Talking Story (which I now refer to as my ‘crucible blog’) and Managing with Aloha, the book which launched me into an entrepreneurial mindset and self-employment after a 30-year corporate career.

I have few regrets, for it was a great ride, however being a corporate exec is a full immersion deal: It swallows you up because you are working on someone else’s dreams versus your own, even though you may do so willingly at the time, buying in as completely as I did — I was quite happy to milk that place and time for what I’d learn, and I did enroll in other leaders’ visions.

I’ve always been someone who writes to sort things out — to think better — and so discovering blogging in 2004 was extremely liberating and useful. I’d just completed my book and was in getting published mode narcissistically sure it would be the only book I’d ever have in me. The question sounds naïve and very silly to me now, but back then I could not imagine what to do next since I was so fully preoccupied with finishing up a true BHAG: Although I had a ton of next action steps lined up, I asked myself, “Then what? Will this be it?”

How thrilling to discover what huge capacity we all possess to learn, and to grow. I thought of myself as an organizer and operator before, but now I know those are just a couple of my strengths. Today I think of myself as a culture activator and inventor. I absolutely adore project work and think of new projects constantly. I feel I bloom in pilot projects with value-aligned visions which allow for unspecified outcomes (“Begin with the End in Mind?” Only sometimes, and no longer a requirement). My sense of place, so defining an element in Managing with Aloha, has busted out and taken flight: I love working on stuff collaboratively, virtually and globally.

So to sum up, I’ve learned how I learn, why I learn, and how that combination keeps me growing and thriving so I can be a bigger person, and serve others better as a result.

Mahalo nui loa Lisa, thank you so much for being part of it all, for you have been, and I fully intend to keep you close! Management Craft, and the mana‘o (belief and conviction) you intentionally bring to it, has nurtured me.

Five related posts from the archives:

1. Summer Heroes: This was the first blog post I ever wrote, on August 23, 2004.
2. “What’s in it for me?” is a Self-Leadership Question: There are those both in and out of corporate life still seeking to be in charge of their own life, and create their own destiny. Surely that isn’t you!
3. Leadership is Why and When: Answering those “Why?” and “Why not now?” questions can be so helpful!
4. Our RFL Recall: Are you Remembering or Learning? Do you ever wonder if you get caught between those two things? I think it is fairly common.
5. How do you Learn? Really, how? Learning truly begins to serve us well only after we personally connect to it in ways we value as exceptionally useful to us. And if we aren’t going to learn, we aren’t going to grow.