You may have noticed a slow down in my blog posting here. My family likes to tease me about my silences, happy to share their past experiences in living through them with me, for they knowingly point out that, “When mom goes quiet we all begin to lay in wait. She’s thinking too much… something has to give, and will bust through at some point of no return. So wait for it, but expect it and be ready!”
In your case, dear readers, I prefer to think of this, my current quieting, as Ho‘ohiki, keeping my promises, for I have been investing my time in the work it will take to do so.
To the right, in our Talking Story sidebar, I’ve had a statement posted, one which says, “Our next Ruzuku Challenge (my virtual coaching) will be scheduled in summer 2010: Watch this space for the announcement!” — that’s the promise I’m working on.
The Ho‘ohana game changing I’ve personally done in 2010 has been liberating for me, and I’ve relished having this time newly available as its consequence; time I can devote to this new project within my SLC curriculum with a highly intentional ‘Imi ola focus. My Ruzuku Challenge for you will be directly connected to Managing with Aloha, and I believe it will serve you well whether you have read the book yet or not. If you have been working with my Smashword’s books, you will find the course to be a good parallel and complement. My intent is to have all of our Talking Story and Managing with Aloha connections blend well, and this Ruzuku Challenge will also be a great starter course for those brand new to our Ho‘ohana Community.
And community is a key: We are so good together! The basic expectation to have with a Ruzuku Challenge from me, is that you receive MWA coaching within a group learning environment that is virtual, private to the sign-up group, and limited to the number of people I am confident I can be highly responsive to as your teacher and coach. Ruzuku is our web-based venue: Those who participated in our past Ruzuku alpha tests will tell you that their interaction with each other was just as enjoyable and rewarding as any new learning they received from me.
I don’t have an exact launch date yet, and am still working on a few things, such as course duration and pricing, however here is what I can tell you about my next Ruzuku Challenge so far:
Peaks and Values
1. The course will be called Peaks and Values and will help you “Verb-activate your life with the Aloha energies that come from your values.”
2. As the book reads, Managing with Aloha focuses on the workplace environment, and the responsibility of the managers within the working culture they create and foster. In comparison, Peaks and Values will have an individual, and personal focus.
3. You need not be a manager to participate: This will be a course aimed at your personal MWA journey of value alignment. If you have struggled to articulate your own Ho‘ohana (intentional work) in a balanced way, this is the course you’ve waited for!
4. By “balanced way” I mean a realistic, whole life way. Life isn’t only about work, is it. Our metaphor and visual for this course is KÅ«lia i ka nu‘u, the Hawaiian value of excellence and achievement, and the course will be structured to cover the 4 Peaks mentioned in that chapter of my book: Living, Working, Managing and Leading — all with Aloha.
5. I am still calling the course a Ruzuku ‘Challenge’ because we will challenge each other to up our game, and pursue KÅ«lia i ka nu‘u excellence. Our focus will be on the 4 Peaks as these specific verbs and whole-life activities:
- Living — Live Life to the fullest: Feel complete
- Working — Work to be Engaged and Accomplished: Feel strong
- Managing — Manage to feel you’re “all together” sane, and happy: Feel contentment
- Leading — Lead to Learn, initiate and invent, grow or create your Legacy: Strive to thrive
6. This is essentially a course about better goal-setting. Goals are important because they drive us to be purposeful (as opposed to feeling aimless or confused). When the course ends, you will not have fully achieved the 4 Peak summits (of feeling complete, feeling strong, feeling contentment, and striving to thrive as above), but you will be on your way: You will feel a greater confidence with the goals you have set because you are aiming in the right direction; ‘right’ in that it is value-aligned for you.
7. From what I’ve been hearing, I think the timing will be good for many of us. This mid-year point heralded by the ‘lazy days’ of summer bring two things: A necessary break, where we give ourselves permission to breathe, and relax a bit, but also a bracing for the rest of the year to come. We take stock, ask ourselves where we are with those New Year resolutions we’d set (even if silently to our inner critic of one) and then propel ourselves forward. With this next Ruzuku challenge we can propel ourselves forward together, and within the support of our Ho‘ohana Community.
So I hope this intrigues you. I am pushing for the beginning of August, so save some project time for me, would you?
One more important point:
8. I am designing this course to be completely self-contained: What that means, is that you need not have read Managing with Aloha as a prerequisite to accepting this challenge. This will be a time we can invite others to be our partners in learning without asking them to read a single blog post, or my 266-page book first as introduction. So start to think about who you would invite. Who would be an excellent goal-setting accountability partner for you?
July is fairly young. You can still influence my planning and preparation for the course, so let me hear from you:
How does this sound so far?
Let’s talk story, shall we?