Rosa Say's Blog: Managing with Aloha, page 3

Rapid Fire Learning: 65, I know

Preface: One of the ‘elders’ in our Ho‘ohana Community is an ‘Ike loa learning habit, a month-end practice we named Rapid Fire Learning (RFL). It starts as a private journaling practice, handwritten for self-reflection and can be much shorter, or longer, than what follows: I’ve opted to post an excerpt of my own RFL this month here on the blog to transcribe it more clearly, and to curate the sources of my learning.
Learn more about the process here: Rapid Fire Learning.

Because some things are meant to be, and LEARNING is one of them.



RFL for April, 2019




What have I learned, or re-learned with fresh attention and energies this month?

I’m not a selfie-taking kind of person, but I can be spirit-spilling one, especially when the months draw to a close and my RFL habit kicks in. So here is something I wrote in my journal on my birthday yesterday, the one where you get a zillion reminders in the months leading up to it that you’re eligible for Medicare and need to sign up…

65, I know.

65
That is all.
I prefer to think of 65 as a small number,
Though I understand it’s a lot. It has been a lot.
Yet it’s a lot which is over and done with.
‘Been there, done that’ stuff of all color and stripe,
Chapter read, book closed, book opened, chapter read again,
Because follow through still waited in the wings.
Circumstance,
Happenstance,
Deliberativeness,
Each attempted and accomplished (or just accepted as is.)
Some failures for sure, some tragedy, but I choose to focus;
A lot of small wins have added up in taller posture.
As Dr. K. taught me, “Kū, stand tall.”
Thus I’m looking forward to what’s in front of me, and
I’m jumping into what’s Next, what’s Good, and what’s Alonui, for
Thankfully, those are not done yet. They were never intended to be done.
Some things fall into a category of their own, and we learn to let them.
I jump in wholeheartedly, for sure, mana‘o thriving in lifelong learning.
I’ve six and a half decades of living behind me, and it pushes me, for
It has been a life learned of, leaned into, and decently lived,
Yet it’s certainly not over.
Far from over, more follow through queued in those wings.
One can still be “practical, useful and relevant.”
One can always “be Aloha.”
I know what made me hesitate in my past, and I know what held me back.
I know who said, “no, you can’t” and who said, “yes, of course you can.”
I know what lifted me up and encouraged me. I know why, I know who.
I know what ‘flow’ feels like, and I know when energy drains us and fills us, so
I know how to get it to suit me and serve me, so I may serve others.
I know of the measures and measurements which cause me to celebrate, and
I know of the ones which speak within, loud enough though I alone hear them,
To tell me: “Keep trying. Don’t stop, for this is not what ‘done’ is for you.”
I know when to speak up, converse, listen. I know when to broadcast and publish with intention.
I know to treasure conversation, for I’ve learned life is not a solo proposition.
Talking story helps us to “live out loud” kākou, together, bumps, bruises and all.
I know that ‘done’ looks like, sounds like, and feels like Ho‘ohana, like intention met.
I’m so grateful my life has taught me how to understand that, and look for it.
Whenever I’m not done, I’m still open.
Yet aging makes it so you’re seasoned, and not open and raw.
You’re open and ready, and
You’re certainly a whole lot braver than before.
Koa, courage, is my value 20, and Lokomaika‘i, generosity, is 21.
Life is good, and so are we… we “can always return to that place of our good.”
65 is still a small number, yet it’s abundant.
It holds a lot of good.
We’ve got to keep living that good, as long as we breathe.
So I will.

What have YOU learned, or re-learned with fresh attention and energies this month?

More on Rapid Fire Learning: The RFL Index.

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter:
Talking Story with the Ho‘ohana Community.

Preview of Managing with Aloha, Second Edition, released Summer 2016
Managing with Aloha, Bringing Hawai‘i’s Universal Values to the Art of Business

To Read, and to Love Reading again

To read, and to love reading again, is to ‘master our circumstances.’

It is 11:11am Thursday morning, a time when most of the workplace weary are dutifully at work. I, in contrast, and in the blessed good fortune of the self-employed, have just finished reading a 462-page of masterfully crafted fiction, having purposely setting aside the morning to do so.

In a word, I feel transformed. I guess I could say I’ve been working in a way, for it has been work on me.

“And your occupation?”

“It is not the business of gentlemen to have occupations.”

“Very well then. How do you spend your time?”

“Dining, discussing. Reading, reflecting. The usual rigamarole.”

I admit to having started my reading of this particular book as a 21st-century creature whose attentions have been whittled away and belittled by our recent technologically ‘advanced’ years, far too many of them to give in to an admission of counting them, wherein the digital has scorned the analog. Screens have taunted printed books, and dismissed them as “old school” or “tree-killers,” causing us to treat most books with little of the respect they are due.

And it’s not just books. We are bombarded with information, articles and broadcasts of numerous sort, such that we’ve become terrific skimmers, but poor understanders. We have far too little patience, and allowing our attentions to be shredded and shortened has cost us dearly.

These days, we think of leisurely reading, and especially the reading of fiction, as what we can fit into found time, such as when we prop a book on a kitchen counter while waiting for a pot of water to boil, or when we’ve no choice but to stand in a long line outside the D.M.V. to renew our driver’s license.

Not so. In reading Amor Towles’s A Gentleman in Moscow, I feel newly schooled for our time, gently reminded that reading, and reading comprehension, should be something we purposely make room for in our lives, giving it the time it so well deserves. When we do so, and actually schedule time for reading as an occupation of our better selves and more attuned senses, we will be all the better for it.

I started reading Towles’s book with the same just-learn-the-story dismissiveness with which I’d recently zipped through Min Jin Lee’s brick of a book Pachinko, finishing those 479 pages in just two days thanks to being trapped in airplane seats. Then, on page 292 or so, I decided I had to go back and start my reading of A Gentleman in Moscow all over again, reading slowly and more carefully. I decided I had been foolish up til then; if I was going to read this book at all, I had to read with more thoughtful intention, and with more willingness to have my senses invaded, captured and captivated.

I’ll quote the back cover of the paperback, to tell you what A Gentleman in Moscow is all about;

“When, in 1922, thirty-year-old Count Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, he is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel near the Kremlin. An indomitable man of erudition and wit, Rostov must now live in an attic room as some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history unfold. Unexpectedly, the Count’s reduced circumstances provide him entry into a world of emotional discovery as he forges friendships with the hotel’s denizens. But when fate puts the life of a young girl in his hands, he must draw on all his ingenuity to protect the future she deserves. Hailed for its humor, intrigue, and beautifully rendered scenes, this singular novel casts a spell as it relates the Count’s endeavor to become a man of purpose.”

Though via the unassuming spread of Costco’s flat-stacked book table, this book seems to have come to me at precisely the right time, given our Managing with Aloha 2019 theme of Alonui—full presence.

I had also been looking for a book that would teach me more about Russian history for some time now, but through the eyes of its citizenry rather than as told by historians: A few years ago, I had learned that my paternal grandmother’s parents had fled their Russian home in May of 1910, reaching Hawai‘i by way of a sad stop in Japan, where they were forced to bury another child who died at sea during the voyage. They changed their name, from what we don’t know, and my great grandfather was no Count Rostov; he would abandon his wife and 8 remaining children six years later; he is believed to have sailed to China.

Once I recommitted myself to properly respectful reading, A Gentleman in Moscow became thoroughly enjoyable, though the ‘research’ it afforded me began at that Bolshevik tribunal twelve years later. To be honest, I thought it a bit laborious during my initial reading, until I realized the problem was with me, and with when and how I read, and not with the book at all. As I started over I felt renewed, and handsomely rewarded for the time I freely and eagerly gave to it. I was not at all surprised at how much I missed the first time around.

One other unexpected delight for me, was a kind of kinship felt with those “denizens” of the Hotel Metropol given my 35-year career in the hotel business. From the very first hotel I’d worked at and without exception in all the others, I’d consistently been aware I was part of a community, unique to itself, yet varied in its multitude of possibilities and subtly crafted relationships, whether with our customers or with each other. I’ve discovered my fair share of implausible rooms, hidden closets and carved out spaces while prowling a hotel’s service corridors! It’s not a stretch in the least for me to imagine the Count confined there for so many years, and I daresay all managers in the hotel business feel the same way.

See the Metropol hotel, and sit in on a visit with Amor Towles, here, (for CBS This Morning).

Borrowing from the jacket above has made this long enough, and so while I could echo much of what is shared in other reviews here, I won’t do so, and will let my 4-star rating speak for itself.

I’ve joyfully given in to the temptation of using GoodReads to curate my own reading evolution, and felt compelled to use this particular review to note with great relief, that I can be a proper reader again. No more rushing, for the goodness of a book as wonderful as this one, is a supremely delightful experience.

“If a man [or woman] does not master his circumstances, then he is bound to be mastered by them.”

I will continue to work on mastering my reading.

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Talking Story with the Ho‘ohana Community.

Preview of Managing with Aloha, Second Edition, released Summer 2016

Managing with Aloha, Bringing Hawai‘i’s Universal Values to the Art of Business

Great Managers Remove the Pain Points

Sunny solutions

Hawai‘i is blessed with ample sunshine, and solar-powered energy can be abundantly harvested. However…

Anyone who lives in Hawai‘i knows that getting your electricity from one of the established electric companies here is outrageously expensive. After years of paying too much and weighing our options, my husband and I recently became Sunrun BrightBox customers; Sunrun markets a solar energy storage solution for homes that includes a photovoltaic solar system and battery, which they call BrightBox.

A primary decision with installing solar these days is own or lease, and we knew we definitely wanted to lease. The ‘con’ to leasing is that we won’t get the tax credit, however the ‘pro’ is that you don’t pay for the costly equipment, and just for your monthly (lowered) electrical bill. Other factors to consider, are how long you think you’ll be in your home, your tax bracket, and what your other options are when it comes to the money you’ve saved up—do you really want to sink it into heavy upfront costs for the tax savings you may get? You’ve got to work the numbers.

Archive Aloha: Conceptualize Your Financial Literacy.

Your financial numbers can carry a lot of weight in making big decisions like this one. Looking back on the entire experience however, I will now highly recommend Sunrun to everyone who asks me about them for another, critically important reason: They removed all the pain points, and replaced them with stellar customer service.

In my opinion, the true brilliance of the Sunrun Brightbox energy system business model, is that in providing their service, they’ve removed all the pain points you would have had if you’d opted to own your system (and grab that tax credit) instead.

Where we live, BIG pain points are dealing with our homeowner’s association, county permitting, necessary subcontractors in the installation process, virtually nonexistent maintenance support, and HELCO, the default monopoly here if you’re on the grid with your electricity. Sunrun handles all of that integration for their customers, and they’ve done so magnificently for us.

I will be paying Sunrun slightly more on a month-to-month basis than the lesser rate I would’ve paid HELCO if we’d opted to own our system, but the difference is manini as we say here—negligible enough to not matter. For here’s the thing: I’m happy to pay it, because I think Sunrun has earned it and then some. I willingly, enthusiastically support their business, wanting to remain one of their future-forward benefactors.

This is a lesson for all business models, and for all managers. To succeed magnificently, remove the pain points for those you serve.

Archive Aloha: The 10 Tenets of an ‘Ohana in Business.

Problem solving and Pain points

This is slightly different from problem solving, yet it’s remarkably different.

Sunrun didn’t actually solve the problem of having an electrical monopoly on an island, the how-to of harnessing the sun’s energy, or the challenge of storing excess solar power in a safe battery; those problems were already solved industry-wide. However, those solutions were still saddled with substantial pain points for consumers. What Sunrun did, was to solve the headaches associated with being a customer. They have proved, and have demonstrated within their customer service standards, that no customer needed to put up with those headaches any longer.

Becoming Sunrun customers did not happen quickly for us, because challenges still exist in the processes necessary where we live; the bureaucracy and mediocrity still exist. The only thing Sunrun asked us for upfront was patience during the time involved—they have managed all the moving parts, and endured the pain on our behalf. We have dealt with several of their staff, and without exception the customer service Sunrun has provided us with has truly been stellar …as a management coach, I would love to get a peek into their internal hiring and training practices.

Archive Aloha on RosaSay.com: Ho‘okipa, the Value of Complete Giving.

Pain points exist in every business.

They exist for all the stakeholders of a business, customers and employees alike.

As a starting point, I make these assumptions;

—Your business model should proactively solve your customers’ potential pain points.

—Your managers should proactively solve your employee pain points, and those which exist for any suppliers, vendors, and community stakeholders involved with your operations.

—Your leaders should be innovators in your chosen industry, so all pain points are eliminated once and for all.

If every business did this, the world would be a much better place.

Companies like Sunrun don’t happen by accident or happy coincidence: Great managers make them happen, and work to keep them healthy every single day.

Mahalo Sunrun, for leading the way. Call me whenever you want a reference.

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter:

Talking Story with the Ho‘ohana Community.

Preview of Managing with Aloha, Second Edition, released Summer 2016

Managing with Aloha, Bringing Hawai‘i’s Universal Values to the Art of Business

Rapid Fire Learning: Practical Managing with Mahalo

Preface: One of the ‘elders’ in our Ho‘ohana Community is an ‘Ike loa learning habit, a month-end practice we named Rapid Fire Learning (RFL). It starts as a private journaling practice, handwritten for self-reflection and much shorter than what follows: I’ve opted to post an excerpt of my own RFL this month here on the blog to transcribe it more clearly, and to curate the sources of my learning.

Learn more about the process here: Rapid Fire Learning.

Because some things are meant to be, and LEARNING is one of them.

RFL for February, 2019

What have I learned, or re-learned with fresh attention and energies this month?

I have followed our RFL process as usual, penning a list of 5 things I feel I learned in February—5 ways the month made an impression on me. They were brief yet easily remembered, and included the full scope of the month, like what an episode of lost business in severe weather taught me, and what I have decided to do about posting on Instagram going forward.

What I wanted to capture here on the blog however, is how I believe the value of Mahalo gets stamped into a manager’s management style —What will managers do, illustrating how Mahalo is truly a value which drives their behavior?

February was month 2 in our two-month value immersion on Mahalo, and this was my 10-minute brainstorm as those two months drew to a close:

How do managers demonstrate the value of Mahalo in the workplace, to consistently express that they are thankful for those they work with, and appreciate what they have to offer?

—They say “Thank you” often, and they say it sincerely, but not so often that it is ever offhandedly said, flippant or meaningless. They say it because they observe the workplace well, and take notice of positive advancements.

—They interview their people at least once per year, and not only upon hiring. They understand that people’s lives change, and that the environs of their lives as a whole will always determine the quality of their performance at work. Managers can be interested in others and informed on what matters to them without being nosy and while respecting boundaries.

—They build workplace relationships with the goal of creating co-working business partnerships. People are not treated purely as ‘labor.’ Managers who seek co-authorship are exceptional finders; they know they do not rule as answer givers ready with the next edict from above; they work with the heart of the seeker.

—They give them the gift of the Daily 5 Minutes. In doing so, they consistently demonstrate they are ready and able to listen well, and listen completely, with no other agenda of their own in mind beyond their sincere desire to hear what others have to say. D5M is never another meeting to them, it’s a good conversation.

—They follow-up on what they hear, and with a gentle wisdom born of experience, as expected of them as managers. They consider requests promises-to-keep, and they don’t avoid the hard stuff—they plunge in.

—They honor the common workplace expectation of giving staff an Annual Performance Review because they want to, and not because they have to. They want their people to stretch, set goals, and grow into their full capacity, and they want to coach them, celebrate their wins, and stand by their side.

—Beyond annual appraisals, they give staff performance feedback on a regular basis, so it is timely and relevant, rather than a forced memory. They use their feedback to coach and train, to open all circumstance up to the opportunity to ask more questions, and to prevent the forming of bad habits.

—They catch people doing something right, and verbally acknowledge it to recognize and encourage people, much more often than they catch people doing something wrong.

—When they do catch someone doing something wrong, they confront the behavior and correct it—they never hesitate, turn away, and pretend they weren’t aware of it. They never allow tacit approval to start a cancer in the workplace.

—They don’t have favorites. Everyone is their specialty. Unique. Each and every one.

—They’re obsessed with safety, in three ways: 1. They want the workplace to be a safe place to be in, and a place which offers safe tools to work with, nothing less is acceptable. 2. They want people to perform work well, and with optimal competence; thus they make it safe to ask for help. 3. They want people to feel they can always speak up, and not avoid difficult conversations.

—T.M.I. is not part of their m.o. They show their people they believe in them by telling them what’s important; they trust them (because of the relationship they have built), and they trust in their ability to make the best use of that information.

—They extend exciting invitations constantly. The invitation to be more curious. The invitation to question the status quo. The invitation to experiment. The invitation to team up and collaborate. The invitation to learn and explore alternatives and improvements. The invitation to be less serious and more playful.

Your call to action! The comments are open, and I’d love to have you add to my list!

What would you add to my tactical, practical Mahalo brainstorm?

What will you begin to do, more than you have up to now?

People who apply for jobs, love to tell their interviewers, “I’m a people person.” Managers who practice the value of Mahalo and groom it as their management style, really are.

“Treat people as if they were what they ought to be,

and you help them to become what they are capable of being.”

~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832),

German writer, scientist and philosopher

What have YOU learned, or re-learned with fresh attention and energies this month?

Archive Aloha to revisit on Mahalo: Chapter 16 of Managing with Aloha’s Second Edition.

More on Rapid Fire Learning: The RFL Index.

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter:

Talking Story with the Ho‘ohana Community.

Preview of Managing with Aloha, Second Edition, released Summer 2016

Managing with Aloha, Bringing Hawai‘i’s Universal Values to the Art of Business

Look up, Never down

Preface: This was a talk story which previously appeared in one of our community newsletters, (June, 2018) and I wanted to revisit it through the Alonui lens, our theme for 2019.

Affective Presence

Can you make others feel good simply by merit of your presence? You know you can—we have all had the experience of walking in a room on one of our particularly good days, and having the mood shift because we triggered the change. A more easily recalled memory for us, unfortunately, may be when it happened on one of our bad days.

Scientists have given that a name; they call it “affective presence.”

Read: The Personality Trait That Makes People Feel Comfortable Around You, The Atlantic. People with positive “affective presence” are easy to be around and oil the gears of social interactions.

This is crucial learning for managers.

We know that our emotions can be highly contagious. Turns out, our own ‘way of being’ gives our personality an emotional signature. One example of a person’s ‘way of being’ is their tendency to look up.

Things are looking up because we are!

Look up, never down.

“Look up, never down” was the short and sweet, highly effective way my father taught me and my siblings about Ha‘aha‘a, humility. He meant it both spiritually and humanly, teaching us to look to God with nourishing our spirit, because “there is always a higher power than yours alone,” and teaching us to treat everyone with dignity and respect (Aloha and Ho‘ohanohano) because “when you look up to them, they end up looking up to you.”

No one likes being looked down upon, and practically speaking, it just doesn’t work well in our human interactions. Lowliness is a concept I wish I could strike from our collective consciousness. The best partnerships start on equal footing, and are mutually engaging. Then, they accelerate and progress with synergy, or because of mentorship—which also must be mutually engaging and beneficial.

This is one of those areas in which we all tend to agree intellectually. Unfortunately, we don’t practice collaborative synergy that well or that instinctively; we have to deliberately work on it.

Working against us, is the control and direct tendency inherent in most organizational structure, where there is an assumed, albeit badly assumed, hierarchy to who’s in charge. People begin to feel they paid their dues for the privilege of whatever perch they occupy, and they display much more assertiveness as a mark of their confidence gained via tenure. It’s okay if it stops there, however not when that confidence tips into arrogance and condescension.

“I’m in charge” doesn’t mean “I’m better.”

Those in positions of power really aren’t better than anyone else; they just advanced earlier. Yes, they may have worked very hard and very well to get there, but so can everyone else (and so can you).

When we look up to people, we open ourselves to learning from them; we’ve talked about that quite a bit within much of Managing with Aloha, and in our humility immersions with Ha‘aha‘a. Looking up to others is imbued with positive expectancy; we expect to learn from them.

Archive Aloha to revisit: Sunday Mālama: We Learn Best From Other People

My dad’s key point, was that when we look up to people, they open themselves to being with us, and engaging with us eagerly, happily, and never regrettably, or because they have to—that’s what he meant by “and they’ll end up looking up to you.” Thankfully, he kept saying it to me with each managerial promotion I gained so I would get it completely, understanding that what worked really well for our family dynamics worked very well in the workplace too.

What my dad knew!

“Often, its just when you are getting tired of saying the same thing that the message starts to take hold. Keep repeating an important message until you start hearing it back from those you wanted to hear it back from…communicate, communicate, and then communicate some more.”

—author Bob Nelson

When we get new positions, we’re often counseled to be humble, and to “listen first, insert yourself later,” especially in regard to our decision-making (advice which can actually backfire). Actively practicing humility when engaging with others shouldn’t be so circumstantial and occasional—it’s not just for learning the ropes and getting introduced into workplaces. It should be an always kind of thing, and our habit as great managers.

Sure, looking down on others and being dismissive of their worth is overbearing, offensive, and just plain rude. However, if you’ve somehow justified that by letting your confidence and assertiveness dip into any condescension at all, you’re simply not managing very well. No one likes a know-it-all, and they hate it in managers.

“Affective presence” is going to be a valuable add-in with the coaching I do for managers on their management style. Time to revisit this: Management Style by Habit (May 2013).

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter:

Talking Story with the Ho‘ohana Community.

Preview of Managing with Aloha, Second Edition, released Summer 2016

Managing with Aloha, Bringing Hawai‘i’s Universal Values to the Art of Business

Mana‘o pu‘u wai: What the Heart Wants

Preface: This is an excerpt from today’s newsletter for Valentine’s Day. Let’s Talk Story—subscribe!

Aloha mai kākou, and Happy Valentines Day!

Let’s talk story about the heart in this month’s immersion, our Mahalo “Way of Living.”

“And love is also watching, waving, wondering if love remembers you,

and knowing in a happy instant, that love has lasted…and grown some, too.”

—Diane Adams from Love Is

7 Business Themes for 2019

We hope for courage in leadership, and we continue to seek nobility in management.

10 years ago, I wrote an article for the Honolulu Advertiser (now the Honolulu Star Advertiser) titled, The Top 7 Business Themes on my 2009 Wish List.

It’s 2019; have we made progress? Would those 7 business themes be different for us today?

Let’s go through them.

I’ll use quotation marks below to note the sentences I pulled from the 2009 article. The original is no longer accessible as Honolulu Advertiser archives since the paper was purchased for publication under a new masthead, however I did keep a copy of it on my Talking Story blog.

“I don’t feel I am that great at predicting trends, for we human beings are so unpredictable —and in many ways I like that we are! I think our gut-level impulsiveness has a direct correlation to our creativity. However, I can share what I hope will be the themes which emerge, and I am encouraged, for I think many of our business leaders are already talking about them.”

“These top my 2009 Wish List for Hawai‘i Business because they will simultaneously deliver two vital behaviors to us in the process of our pursuing them: Leadership courage, and management reconstruction.”

I certainly DO feel that these proactive behaviors remain critical objectives for us today: We are nowhere near where we need to be with leadership courage, particularly leadership with a moral compass, or with management reconstruction—what is the essential role of a manager, and what should the profession of management be about?

“Altogether, the theme I am encouraging within the coaching I currently do, is ‘out with the old and in with the new.’ My list would be the same for the private and public sectors, profits and non-profits, and for social entrepreneurship (itself a trend I hope continues to flourish).”

“7 initiatives are on my list:

1. Impatience for Change and New Ideas

2. Financial Literacy

3. The Entrepreneurial Mindset

4. Aloha asset creation via a Ho‘okipa obsession

5. The Role of the Manager reconstructed

6. Talking Story Grows Up

7. Training Becomes Learning Constant, NOT Budget Luxury.”

Let’s review these briefly. After spending time editing this post for you, my dear reader, I have a hunch these themes will resurface throughout my coaching practice as 2019 proceeds! To be completely honest, I often wondered, why did I stop talking about this? I need to make some noise! as I went through this. I have inserted links to articles I have written since then to track my own starts and stops; they may interest you as well, particularly if you are a new reader who had missed them when initially posted.

A key historical note for context: When I wrote the 2009 article, we were in the throes of the Great Recession (timeline), caused by the financial crisis of 2007-2008. Some say we may be at the doorstep of another recession now.

1. Impatience for Change and New Ideas

2009: “One of the first posts I had written for the Honolulu Advertiser was, Leaders Don’t Wait for Any Cycle, and it remains one of my hot buttons: Virtually every single business model in every industry must evolve and improve, and we cannot rest on our laurels. Long before this recession hit us for economic reasons, we were talking about the demographic ones, for the generational character of our workplace has shifted dramatically. The evidence of our need for new ideas and substantial change is blatantly clear; we know the old way isn’t working. Yet our sense of urgency and commitment to the action steps needed is not as clear, and our hesitation is driving me crazy. We need to get more impatient —and more courageous.”

“The good news? Everyone knows this, and resistance is at an all-time low (more on this silver lining with no. 3 below). So what in the world are our business leaders waiting for?”

2019: That last question holds key answers. I think we felt more freedom to change in 2009, and felt we had more liberties in speaking up. The divide between small business, big business, tech giants and monopolies has become a larger chasm, and change feels like a more formidable undertaking. We need to remember that we can focus first on our smaller circles of influence, and push out their edges one success at a time.

Archive Aloha: Readiness, Good Impatience, and Maintaining our Ignorance (2013).

The 3 Sins of Management — and the Cure for all 3 (2013).

Bring Constants and Change to Ho‘omau Agreement (2017).

2. Financial Literacy

2009: “The change we need to see happen in business requires our collective intelligence, and there best be NO leaders or managers who ever make ‘need to know basis’ judgments or valuations of anyone else in their organizational culture, especially when it comes to the financial literacy of a company’s business model. Let people judge for themselves when your sharing is ‘too much information’ for them; chances are they are far more intelligent than you give them credit for.”

“Further, they must be involved. Every stakeholder in every business needs to relearn everything financial, understanding how they directly impact each variable and each fixed cost (of which there are really very, very few). Money itself is not evil; on the contrary, it’s liberating. Ask anyone who doesn’t have it! Money is simply currency we need to be putting toward better use. The filter for this ‘better use’ is value-alignment, where we do what we believe to be good and right. (as in virtuous values.)”

2019: Financial Literacy has remained a hot button for  me. The objective is financial well being, yet I persist in calling our initiatives financial literacy because it carries the assumption we can learn whatever we need to—and we can! Financial literacy is not an innate talent or even a born-into it privilege; we can all learn the financial smarts which will help us survive in a self-sustained way first, and then thrive in a prosperous way.

Archive Aloha: Financial Literacy Revisited: You and Your Income (2019).

Conceptualize Your Financial Literacy (2017).

Money isn’t evil (2016).

We Earn Our Keep, Integrated (2013).

3. The Entrepreneurial Mindset

2009: “Connected to financial literacy and our evolutionary business models, business leaders and managers need to understand there is a cool silver lining due our current economic mess: Entitlement mentalities of the past few years are at an all-time low, or are gone.”

“We have never been in a better time to teach each other, with collective intelligence versus hierarchical dictation, to groom a new entrepreneurial mindset, where we ALL work for profit versus paycheck, and we ALL create the intellectual property we can continue to market successfully as we age and must self-sustain our increased lifespans. Retirement is an outdated concept; any Baby Boomer will tell you they are not expecting to retire —not ever. Even if they could afford to, they would be totally bored. What will you do when your body is too old to keep toiling, but your mind is still working better than it ever has before? The answer is in your entrepreneurial mindset. A business can have one too.”

2019: Good News! It is actually easier than ever before to go into business for yourself due to new tools now at your disposal, and the ease of hiring talented freelancers who can assist you. Paul Jarvis writes about this in his new book Company of One: Why Staying Small Is the Next Big Thing for Business. We discourage ourselves by saying the competition is too stiff now, even when that may not necessarily be so. The larger problem seems to be the basic paycheck-to-paycheck survival of the middle class, and helping ourselves to rise above it.

Archive Aloha: Business Thinking with Aloha (2010).

The Alaka‘i Benefactor: Sharing in the ‘Ohana in Business (2017).

Ho‘ohana: The Founder’s Mindset (2019).

4. Aloha asset creation via a Ho‘okipa obsession

2009: “It’s high time we stop paying lip service to the Aloha Spirit and get it back again. The only way I see that can happen is for us to return to our Sense of Place as a Hawaiian island chain of diverse yet connected communities which are Lōkahi [harmonious and unified]. This is a tall order to be sure, one requiring much Ha‘aha‘a [humility and open-mindedness] from many of us, but it is a societal order of civility and mutual respect we MUST work on.”

“We must live true to our values before we can work with them, manage with them, and lead with them. There are several values, inherent to our ancestry that I would love to see thrive and flourish again, and the one which comes to mind most for me is Ho‘okipa, for it is more than good customer service: It is a gracious, virtuous hospitality borne of Aloha as the unconditional acceptance of all others, and Lokomaika‘i, the generosity of good heart.”

2019: This is what my publisher had written on the front jacket flap of my book’s 1st Edition in 2004: “‘Values’ may be the most frequently spoken word in business today. Veteran executive Rosa Say boldly proposes that Hawaii is optimally suited to lead the world in modeling values-centered business, for we in Hawaii live with something good and right by its very nature: Aloha and all it embraces.” The question remains: Have we taken that leadership role or not? And why just business? Why not be values-centered in all we do?

There is no question, that Lōkahi, Ho‘okipa and Lokomaika‘i are values which can mentor us, and we need leaders and managers to champion them. Another value which quickly comes to mind, is Kākou, the value of inclusiveness. I also feel the need to talk about human morality more than I ever have before.

Archive Aloha: Ho‘okipa is a Game Changer in Service (2017).

A Story of Ho‘okipa, Time, and Attention (2017).

Let’s Talk Story with Kākou Invitation (2017).

5. The Role of the Manager Reconstructed

2009: “Managers matter, yet we still don’t quite understand why they matter and how. Managers still work and operate in that vast wasteland called “middle management” where they are babysitting the mediocrity tolerated in our organizations instead of being stewards of the smart, professional, and mission-based disciplines which make them healthier. I am afraid that until the role of the manager changes, nothing else will.”

“Marketing guru Seth Godin is enjoying some success right now with his latest book, Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us. In short, he seeks to elevate leadership —and I applaud his ideas in that regard. However, he does so at the expense of management, and he depreciates the worth of managers nearly every single time he mentions them. I understand the comparison he is trying to make, however please don’t buy in to that notion that we don’t need managers —he is dead wrong.”

2019: My opinion here has not changed, and it gets reinforced constantly in my coaching business: most business owners and leader-executives underestimate and undervalue the role of their managers. Simply said, they expect the wrong work from them. Managers need job descriptions which break the mold once and for all. Management as a profession is stagnant.

This is also something I have given quite a bit of thought to lately, when evaluating my own writing. Managing with Aloha is often touted by others as a self-improvement book with personal applications, and much of what I write reinforces that belief. It’s a good thing to be sure, however I’ve been thinking I want to return to writing articles that are purposely written for and about managers—please let me hear from you if you have any thoughts on this! Do you agree, or disagree?

Archive Aloha: “I’m a manager.” (2012).

Great Managers Start Great: An ALOHA Rite of Passage (2013).

Where VBM falls short in business, VCM intercepts, improves, and reinvents it (2016).

Better Person, Better Manager, Better Leader. Alaka‘i Batch 24 (2016).

6. Talking Story Grows Up

2009: “‘Talking story’ might be just as important to our Hawai‘i communities as is ‘sense of place’ and our cultural values of Aloha. We have a way of communicating with each other that is an exceptionally positive expectation, unspoken yet pervasive in our islands, and that expectation is this: Create a good relationship first, and do your business transaction second (even those ‘business of life’ transactions) and then that transaction will be good too.”

“When talking story grows up and really, truly comes to the workplace with us, we will enjoy another kind of evolution, one in the way we communicate with each other and create a larger verbal asset. Our ancestors had a great word for this: They called this ‘asset’ the mo‘ōlelo. Can you imagine how little we would know about our heritage today without it? What is the mo‘ōlelo we have stopped creating for Hawai‘i’s future generations?”

2019: My own championing of this one, was authoring my Talking Story blog from 2003 to July 2016. I retired it at the same time the 2nd Edition of my book was released, to consolidate my blogging here at ManagingWithAloha.com, and in our community email newsletter, Talking Story with the Ho‘ohana Community. What I hope to do with all my writing, is trigger a conversation that will lead to definitive action, and that’s up to each one of us individually.

Archive Aloha: Conversational Catch-up ~ with Aloha (2014).

Speak to your Intent (2016).

In Culture-building, Start with Communication (2016).

Make Follow-Through Your Superpower! (2018).

7. Training Becomes Learning Constant, NOT Budget Luxury

2009: “Business has a very annoying habit, one we fall into way, way too often: The moment money is tight, training gets cut from the budget in our first wave of belt-tightening. No need for me to go into why that is a very bad idea; we all know it, yet we do it anyway.”

“I think that shifting our vocabulary might help us break this habit once and for all. Equate ‘training’ with learning from now on (in fact, replace the word totally), for you certainly wouldn’t cut continuous learning from your budget, would you? Auwe, we’d be in really deep kim chee then!”

“In 2009, please set this goal: Learning will be inculcated into our organizational culture as a non-negotiable constant and sacred essential. And by the way, more seminars don’t constitute learning either; we’ll talk about ‘Ike loa (the Hawaiian value of learning) more as time goes by.”

2019: Well, a girl can still dream… Sadly, many of my co-conspirators in coaching and training shut down their businesses shortly after I wrote that, becoming casualties of the recession, but keeping us in business was never the goal. Outside trainers like me should be a luxury—you should only add us to the budget if your own in-house training is alive and well, or if you need the coaching and mentorship to achieve it. Personally, I shifted my focus during the recession, to coaching business owners on revamping their business models so they could stay in business. I am back to doing more operational workshops, and value-alignment is always my constant, however, the premier offering of Say Leadership Coaching today is our train-the-trainer program: I want your in-house champions to be your Managing with Aloha coaches long after I’m gone.

Archive Aloha: Your In-house Training: Do it! (2012).

The Sentence I Hear in Your Workplace Classroom (2012).

New to Management: A Learn-the-Ropes Checklist (2016).

The Alaka‘i Benefactor: Sharing in the ‘Ohana in Business (2017).

I may revise this list in a future post, but as of this writing I honestly cannot think of anything I would add or delete. Much as I still push for reconstruction of the role of management, and for better business models, my overarching theme is no longer ‘out with the old and in with the new,’ for I believe we need to remind ourselves of past wisdom and set our intent for change alongside the measured constants we value.

Archive Aloha: See the blog tag managing change for an index of suggestions.

Each of these 7 business themes can certainly benefit from our 2019 lens of ALONUI;

“With every value immersion we undertake this year as a Ho‘ohana Community, my first question will be, how can I be fully present within the goodness of this value?—How do I receive? My second question will be, how does this value make me interact with others, and communicate better?—How do I give?

There are so many benefits. With presence…” see the list, at Alonui.

Meanwhile… Let’s Talk Story: The comment boxes are open to you.

—What are the trends that YOU hope will emerge?

—What are the intentions YOU plan to set in motion early in 2019?

2009: “What I wish for most? That the big business we call Hawai‘i government is the first to lead the way in each of these areas. The willingness to discard their comfort zones, partisan alliances and incumbency mindset is THE leadership courage we need from them most.”

2019: Ditto, but not just for government, for business too.

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Talking Story with the Ho‘ohana Community.

Preview of Managing with Aloha, Second Edition, released Summer 2016

Managing with Aloha, Bringing Hawai‘i’s Universal Values to the Art of Business

Rapid Fire Learning: Guilt is a worthless emotion—or is it?

Preface: One of the ‘elders’ in our Ho‘ohana Community is an ‘Ike loa learning habit, a month-end practice we named Rapid Fire Learning (RFL). It starts as a private journaling practice, handwritten for self-reflection and much shorter than what follows: I’ve opted to post this month’s here on the blog to transcribe more, and to curate the sources of my learning.

Learn more about the process here: Rapid Fire Learning.

Because some things are meant to be, and LEARNING is one of them.

RFL for January, 2019

What have I learned, or re-learned with fresh attention and energies this month?

1. RE my productivity: In a Sunday Mālama this month, I talked about becoming a project juggler, where ‘more’ has helped me shift my idea-based work from a trickle to a stream. I’ve simultaneously realized there are other areas of my work where “Less is more” remains the better practice though. One example is the way I continuously try to streamline my ‘trusted system’ with Evernote to remain productive without any busywork in the documentation I curate. To satisfy my own ‘where else?’ curiosity about this, I’ve worked with a 2-column journal page this month which makes note of those “other areas” where Less is More still, versus where I’m Seeking More.

2. RE my resolve: My self-exile from social media (which started in December, 2018) has been very fruitful this month in regard to retraining my attention span with more study and concentration. Writing things out has been very helpful in this regard as well—I’m shredding more paper in my analog doodling and drafting, but the entire process has been an enjoyable one.

3. RE my video-watching: The time I’ve devoted this month to watching TED Talks and Do Lectures has been fabulous in its spin-off with idea generation, and I must continue to groom this habit. My energy track with this? I can watch and take notes in the evening hours, following up on those notes the next morning.

Posted this month: Ho‘ohana: The Founder’s Mindset on the Do Lecture given by David Hieatt.

4. RE Alonui and new vocabulary: I learned about the phrase “affective presence” and want to keep using it, to remain aware of it:

The Personality Trait That Makes People Feel Comfortable Around You. “People with positive ‘affective presence’ are easy to be around and oil the gears of social interactions.” We know that our emotions can be highly contagious. Turns out, our own ‘way of being’ gives our personality an emotional signature.

Another new word I learned, is the French flânerie: the art of being a dedicated observer;

The boulevardier, or flâneur, was a French 19th-century literary type who wandered Paris with no particular purpose other than to be on the scene. Although flâneurs didn’t necessarily do anything visible to the naked eye, besides hanging around in parks and cafes, they watched what was happening, taking in the bustle of others and so developing a deeper understanding of city life and their changing times. The writer Charles Baudelaire illuminated the flâneur and the art of flânerie in his 1863 essay “The Painter of Modern Life”

The crowd is his element, as the air is that of birds and water of fishes. His passion and his profession are to become one flesh with the crowd. For the perfect flâneur, for the passionate spectator, it is an immense joy to set up house in the heart of the multitude, amid the ebb and flow of movement, in the midst of the fugitive and the infinite. To be away from home and yet to feel oneself everywhere at home; to see the world, to be at the centre of the world, and yet to remain hidden from the world—impartial natures which the tongue can but clumsily define.

The 19th-century German philosopher Walter Benjamin likened the flâneur to an urban investigator, within the city but detached from events, the quintessential modern artist citizen.

— The best way to use social media is to act like a 19th-century Parisian, Ephrat Livni for Quartz

5. RE my self-talk: I’ve long told myself that guilt is a worthless emotion, and I’ve coached others on how to rise above guilt when it holds them back in some way. Reading Brené Brown’s Daring Greatly, How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead is getting me to reexamine guilt’s usefulness with courageously correcting bad behaviors when the real enemy is shame. She writes;

“We often use the terms embarrassment, guilt, humiliation, and shame interchangeably. It might seem overly picky to stress the importance of using the appropriate term to describe an experience or emotion; however, it is much more than semantics. [vocabulary is important!]

How we experience these different emotions comes down to self-talk. How do we talk to ourselves about what’s happening? The best place to start examining self-talk and untangling these four distinct emotions is with shame and guilt. The majority of shame researchers and clinicians agree that the difference between shame and guilt is best understood as the difference between “I am bad” and “I did something bad.”

Guilt = I did something bad.

Shame = I am bad.

When we apologize for something we’ve done, make amends, or change a behavior that doesn’t align with our values, guilt—not shame—is most often the driving force. We feel guilty when we hold up something we’ve done or failed to do against our values and find they don’t match up. It’s an uncomfortable feeling, but one that’s helpful. The psychological discomfort, something similar to cognitive dissonance, is what motivates meaningful change. Guilt is just as powerful as shame, but its influence is positive, while shame’s is destructive. In fact, in my research I found that shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we can change and do better.”

This is completely in alignment with Managing with Aloha’s core teaching that our values drive our behavior, and that a healthy self-esteem (which often stems from our self-talk first and foremost) is crucial to sharing our Aloha Spirit.

What have YOU learned, or re-learned with fresh attention and energies this month?

Archive Aloha to revisit on “Less is more”: On Batching: The Fewer the Better

Archive Aloha to revisit on self-talk: Lost in Internal Monologues

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Preview of Managing with Aloha, Second Edition, released Summer 2016

Managing with Aloha, Bringing Hawai‘i’s Universal Values to the Art of Business

Ho‘ohana: The Founder’s Mindset

In studying leaders and the values which drive them, I’ve found that there is a striking difference between founder owners, and most business executives: In short, it’s the passion and purpose which drives them—it’s their Ho‘ohana, their intention connection to worthwhile work.

With a founder owner, what drives them stems from a very clear WHY, and their passion and purpose usually drives the rest of the company to a much greater degree as well.

In my own work history, I’ve always felt blessed that I had the good fortune to work with both kinds of leaders, and could better understand the difference.

Archive Aloha to revisit: The Alaka‘i Benefactor: Sharing in the ‘Ohana in Business

Now there may be a downside, one being that the founder owner isn’t necessarily a savvy business person as well. That weakness can eventually plague an entire industry if a founder’s followers are too zealous in copying a flawed business model. That was my complaint in my very first Managing with Aloha manifesto; I talked about how much a broken business model can hurt everyone involved. That said, I will opt for working with founder owners every single time, for what you learn from them far outweighs the risk. I also believe that every person who enrolls in their mission and vision is there to help them, and the business, succeed.

Archive Aloha to revisit: Can everyone be a Partner?

Do yourself a favor, and sit with this Do Lecture for the next 25 minutes or so. Take notes. In it, David Hieatt, Co-founder of Hiut Denim Co, talks about why manufacturing is coming back home, and he gives us good insight into the mindset of a founder business owner:

David Hieatt | How Love, Luck And Ideas Got A Town Making Jeans Again from The Do Lectures on Vimeo.

These were my notes;

—I loved his story about his Dad; the notion of putting a signature on your work is something we talk about a lot in Managing with Aloha from a values perspective, yet to do so physically and tangibly as branding and the history tagging he speaks of, wow.

—The Why of a business is easy when it’s the wind in your sails.

—When a factory leaves a town the people often stay there, which means the skills are still there. Realizing this, Hieatt better understood his home town of Cardigan as an integral part of his Why: His Hiut Denim Co. makes jeans “and only jeans” purposefully, but the business finally came to be because his passion for doing so was connected to the town—sense of place!—and it could be done with “grand makers.”

—If you don’t love your product [or service], you shouldn’t be making it [or providing it.]

—You should be selling your product [or service] to the people who love it just as much as you do. Hieatt shares his awareness that his customers are “creatives.”—how would I describe Managing with Aloha customers?

—A company should always inspire you. This is the Why behind his yearbook, and it got me thinking about how the Hualalai marketing calendars which featured a Hawaiian value each month, were designed for our customers, yet inspired all of us as staff as well.

—New ideas will arise from your passion and your belief. Hieatt wants to sell products that last, believing that’s the best thing he can do for the environment—this is his environmental circle of influence. Thus, the idea of his history tag emerged, along with the wonderful processes which surround the idea and bring it to life.

—Back to Dad—wonderful storytelling—the day will come that you don’t get to finish your To Do list. So if you’re going to do anything as your work—i.e. if you’re going to Ho‘ohana;

Do something you love
Don’t work on other people’s dreams, work on your own
Do something so well you’ll always put your signature on it

—He is such a good example of the founder’s mindset! [and thus, this post I’m sharing with you.]

Founders are lifelong learners too.

The video, and Hiut Denim Co, are now 6 years old. I came to discover Hieatt a few years ago, followed him on Twitter, and subscribed to his newsletter and blog, and at some point I copied one of his tweets to keep on my laptop’s desktop so I could re-read it occasionally. I’ve often thought about taking some time to transcribe it for better readability for myself, and to share with you, so let’s cross this one off my To Do list!

Pull out the notes you took after watching the video, and add to them.

Practice your diagnosis skill as manager: After you read through this list of Hieatt’s beliefs, what would you say his personal values are? Which of his values made it into the value statement of his company?

Once you have your own answers written down, click in here: Our user manual—Hiut Denim Co.

The things the last 10 years have taught me, by David Hieatt:

1. If we can’t do the basics amazingly well, nothing else will matter.

2. Never try to be cool. Only try to be good.

3. Be honest. People trust you when you tell the truth.

4. Be brave with your ideas. And fight like a brave to make them happen.

5, Understand everything we do has some negative impact on the environment. But that shouldn’t stop us from trying to be as low impact as we can.

6. Hire people with passion and who care. We can’t put the fire in someone’s belly. Only they can do that.

7. Making this a fun place to work in shouldn’t be confused with being an easy place to work in. Trying to be better than the other guys is never easy.

8. If we make a promise, we have to keep that promise. If events prevent us from keeping that promise, be quick to tell the other person.

9. We all work for this company, but make sure that this company works for you.

10. Try stuff. Make mistakes. This is how we learn.

11. We are not a normal company. Our aim is to make people think as well as to buy.

12. A strong team will achieve much more than a team of strong individuals ever will.

13. We want to be great in what we do. Treat average as the enemy. Be tough on it.

14. Be positive. Believe in your ability to do amazing things.

15. Treat people with the same respect they pay you. Remember, flowers bloom in the sunshine.

16. Have fun. Like is over in a blink of an eye. Ask my dad.

17. It’s OK to disagree on stuff. That’s how great stuff happens.

18. We are using this business to try and change the things we care about. That doesn’t make us perfect. But it means we are doing something. Dick Dastardly had a point.

19. Wrong thinking is often right.

20. We have a point of view. Don’t expect everyone to agree with it.

21. Quality is many things, not just how well you make something.

22. Give something back. It doesn’t have to be money like the earth tax we do. It can be even more valuable. Your time.

23. Do is a powerful word. A good friend of mine told me that.

24. Make time for yourself. For your sports. For your family. Be home for bath time. Kids grow up real quick.

25. Play is good. Equally, work is good too.

26. Stay hungry. Wanting to improve is a never ending journey.

27. Find your love. And do it. Like they say, life is short.

For a more recent conversation with David Hieatt, click into his interview with creative coach Mark McGuinness (both podcast and transcript): Don’t Just Sell Something: Do Something! with David Hieatt.

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Preview of Managing with Aloha, Second Edition, released Summer 2016

Managing with Aloha, Bringing Hawai‘i’s Universal Values to the Art of Business

Financial Literacy Revisited: You and Your Income

I previously wrote about financial literacy here: Conceptualize Your Financial Literacy. That post was connected to the ‘Ohana in Business model. Let’s get personal in this one: Your financial literacy will lead to your financial well being.

Gut check: Empathy, understanding

The current U.S. government shutdown is certainly an exercise in empathy which seems to hit closer to home with every passing day. (As of this writing 01.22, we’re at day 32 of a shutdown which, in my opinion, should never have happened.)

If not among those furloughed, we ask ourselves, what if this happened to me, and I lost my job, for factors completely out of my direct control?

Livin’ the Dream with Green Stamps: A 1975 Catalog page from flashbak.com … Remember S&H Green Stamps? Pasting them in these booklets was one way my mom kept us busy as kids.

It has also become an exercise in understanding, for we better understand what our government actually does outside of Congress, the White House administration, and our U.S. military—their fingers reach far into much we take for granted. That bloc we normally lump into the category of “governmental agencies” is becoming more human, and more understood in regard to its influence on our social and economic constructs.

The shutdown has certainly illuminated how many people with a “good government job” wherein ‘good’ implies they’ll be among the few who can retire with a pension one day, live in a stressful paycheck-to-paycheck subsistence. They overly rely on juggling liabilities and their credit, and have zero in their emergency funds.

“Nearly half of Americans would have trouble finding $400 to pay for an emergency. I’m one of them.”

—Neal Gabler, The Secret Shame of Middle-Class Americans

Don’t let this happen to you.

When I dwell on that question, “what if this happened to me?” I get a new resolve to never let that happen. I don’t mean to imply that having a government job is an ill-conceived choice. I do mean that basic financial literacy today requires us all to diversify our income, and have multiple revenue streams.

“Serious entrepreneurs have 2 goals: Passive Income and Multiple Revenue Streams. The biggest difference between a job and a business is that a business keeps making money for you when you’re off the clock.”

—Kimanzi Constable

Constable, above, is directing his statement to entrepreneurs and business, but the fact of the matter is that he describes what must be basic financial literacy today—a literacy that will better assure our economic survival on a personal basis when we proactively take action on it.

To be financially sound, isn’t to be wealthy; it’s to remain comfortable and secure—well fed, well housed and safe, well engaged in living a good life—no matter the misfortune or economic downturns that may come our way.

I agree with Constable’s goals for everyone, and not just those in business: Cultivate passive income and create multiple revenue streams for yourself.

Passive income is where you get paid over and over again for work that you did once. My book is an example of my own passive income, though I’ve done more work to keep it updated, and keep it in publication.

To have multiple revenue streams does NOT mean you must have more than one job (i.e. if we define ‘job’ as the way you get a paycheck from another employer). In fact it’s smarter to get a 2nd job as your very last option, with your primary strategy being to work for yourself and on your own timetable; please don’t relinquish too much control over your life to others! My husband and I both cannot look forward to securing a pension one day given the lines of work we’ve chosen, so one of the things we did was save up for an income property that would be mortgage-free and require minimal maintenance costs.

I’ve shared just two personal examples. Spend some time researching the different kinds of passive income and multiple revenue streams there are, and you’ll find a number of possibilities for you. Some are short term, and you may wonder why you didn’t start sooner.

[For additional reading, Trent Hamm’s blog, The Simple Dollar is a great place to start.]

Master your life, by mastering how you live it.

“The master in the art of living

makes little distinction between his work and his play,

his labour and his leisure, his mind and his body,

his information and his recreation, his love and his religion.

He hardly knows which is which.

He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does,

leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing.

To him, he is always doing both.”

—François-René de Chateaubriand via Alastair Humphreys

In a recent newsletter, I shared the story of adventurer Alaistair Humphreys; how he taught himself to play the violin, and why, is truly inspiring. Watch this 26-minute video: How to Live Adventurously Every Day.

Our current value immersion with Mahalo is very useful in this regard.

Take another look at the section in my book’s chapter on Mahalo where I talk about “The good fortune of all managers” and how to “Take stock of what you have.” (pages 218-222 in the 2nd Edition). Now turn it into a personal exercise.

Evoke Mahalo to take stock of your talent, skills and strengths. Then, give more thought to how you can capitalize them, and turn them into more earning potential.

You do this, by asking yourself the right questions. It’s not “what other kind of job could I have?” for that question still keeps you dependent on what others will offer you. Instead, ask yourself questions like these, which point to your own assets, talents, knowledge and skill:

—what value can I offer to others?

—what do I have in abundance, that can be shared with others?

—what can I make, and sell?

—what’s easy for me, yet harder for others, and they’ll pay me to do it (or provide it) for them?
—how can I solve a problem for others? What solutions are relatively easy for me to offer?

—what are the ideas I have, that I’m not seeing others make progress with?

Think in terms of both products—be a maker, and services—be a provider.

If you need some stretch in your thinking, check out this list. Some of it made me shake my head, thinking  “this is so not me!” yet all while smiling to myself… the possibilities really are endless when we challenge ourselves to truly inventory the myriad of skills we possess as human beings!

Then go for it; give yourself a kick in the you-know-where if need be. There’s no ceiling on hustle. Build up your financial reserves before the day arrives where you find you desperately need them.

“Choose to do what demands the most and the best of you. If it was easy, it would have been done already.”

—Make: Magazine and Maker Faire founder Dale Dougherty on the best advice he has ever received.

Postscript: I’ve been keeping my eye on a series at The Atlantic called “How Money Works” and you may want to as well.

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Preview of Managing with Aloha, Second Edition, released Summer 2016

Managing with Aloha, Bringing Hawai‘i’s Universal Values to the Art of Business