Mothershipping… Drinking my own Koolaid
The mothership is helping me chart my progression. This is one of the reasons why I blog.
Feel free to ignore this one if you like, for it’s a playlist of sorts and all about me wading my way through a decision, and milking it for all it’s worth with intellectual honesty… will my decision walk my talk?
May 2009: Life Imitates Art
My biggest learning in May was that more offline time is essential if I am to make progress on my mission-critical projects. I love my online communities, but they can too easily consume all my attentions (versus directed attention at the right time)…Making room for projects and pilots is not more work for me; it is deliberate intention on the RIGHT work. Experimentation is crucial within my own Ho‘ohana and project work is very useful to me in that it fuels my creative process.
December 2009: Take 5 in 2010: A Game-Changing Ho‘ohana
My overall strategy for 2010 became clear to me early on: Less will be more. This I know, and am quite sure of: Fewer choices which are well attended to can flourish better; they can bloom. When they bloom, I can be healthier along with them, for I’m the one choosing them, and attending to them.
December 2009: For 2010, with Aloha
Aloha is an all or nothing kind of thing: You have to go ‘all in.’ There must be alignment between Aloha and all your other values. There must be alignment between Aloha and your verbs — all the actions you take, whatever they are. As a result there will be another ‘V’ — Verve. Vitality. Vigor. There will be the energy for everything else you wish to achieve.
December 2009: Reduce your Leadership to a Part-time Gig in 2010
I am realizing just how much that 30-70 Rule will help me make my chosen initiatives happen. I have my leadership ideas creating the energy I want and the energy I need, and I am quite excited about them, yet I realize that I truly do not need to be stirring the pot any more than that…In 2010, dare to call yourself a manager, and be a great manager instead of a “leader.” I am not saying to stop leading, not at all. I am saying to put leadership in better perspective as another thing that great managers do, and do well. Do it better than most self-proclaimed leaders do.
January 2010: Commitment, Character, and Culture
People aren’t apt to commit to a business where uncertainty rules each day: They aren’t sure what will happen next, and which values are revered —and financed by a sustainable business model.
January 2010: Once a JJLer, always a JJLer!
As I sit here writing to you, I am sure this change was meant to be, as sure as I can be: It is the “healthy” part I refer to in my post title. There are those times you know, “it’s time.” You may not completely understand why, or be able to explain it well, but you know.
February 2010: You’ll Be the Company you Keep
Did you learn the wisdom of the admonition as you got older? Are you choosing well, when choosing the company you keep, whether they be friendships, networking liaisons, community associations or workplace teams? We know we cannot be all things to all people; we cannot possibly act on all our attentions with Ho‘ohana intention. This “what’s next?” intention is where our deliberate choosiness comes into play. Who will we align our actions with, for beyond Aloha, they share in other values currently within our Ho‘ohana’s intentional and disciplined focus? Your “doing” of everything puts up a kind of mirror of what you believe is worthy of your efforts. Otherwise, why bother? Conversely, if your actions are very badly chosen, and seem a disconnect from your normally demonstrated values, you will cause people to wonder if you have changed course with your convictions, if you are currently paying attention as you should, or if you are trying hard enough. They might wonder if you’ve given up on something, or if you even care enough to make better choices. The release from obligation or an ill-chosen job is a gift when given with the strengthening love of Aloha: Work gives meaning to our lives. It influences our self-worth and the way we perceive our place under the sun. Being great at what you do isn’t just something you do for the organization you work for, it’s a gift you give yourself.
February 2010: Feeling Good Isn’t the Same as Feeling Strong
Leadership is riddled with “should-ing” expectations: Everyone has some kind of an opinion about what leaders should do and should not do. Even if we only consider the positive expectations, and what others want from leaders, we can separate those wants into two classifications: 1. There’s acceptable behavior according to social norms (e.g. decorum, civility, ethics, community responsibility), and 2. There’s accomplished behavior, where leadership ventures above and beyond, and enters that stratum of success, volunteerism, social entrepreneurship and giving to mankind. One you admire —it’s good. However the other inspires you —as the strength it truly is. Acceptable behavior delivers maintenance-level energy to a work culture, whereas accomplished behavior delivers the higher-level energy which makes that work culture vibrant and dynamic: Within a workplace, it is the high energy of accomplished behavior which delivers true performance excitement and growth… What are you applying yourself to?
March 2010: We buy, and work, with our hearts
You buy, and work with your heart too.
April 2010: Creating Jobs? Let’s start with the Job Maker
When you’re the job maker there can be no excuses, can there.
April 2010: Model Me This
The true goodness of using any model will be in the details that you are most passionate about. You will work on what you want to work on because it lights up your business life. You will ignore the rest, and that’s actually a good thing. Great business stories don’t happen because of models, they happen because of the part of the model you worked on the most, devoting all your dreaming and doing energies to it.
May 2010: Speaking. I LOVE it. That’s why I charge for it
I want to keep loving it. All of it completely. The whole experience. Speaking for an audience is joyful, and an incredible honor, and I want to keep it that way…It can’t be coincidence that all my less-than-pleasant stories happen when I have done a presentation without charging for it: People simply do not value free nearly much as they value paying for something.
May 2010: What are you leading?
What’s the charge you’re leading, and why do you bother? I think that redefining our leadership whys is one of those silver linings in the dark clouds of these recessionary times. It is easier to make mantras again, and rise up out of our past routines because we know we must — those past routines hadn’t worked as well as they should, and everyone knows it… So what are you leading, still committed to it, and still very passionate about it? For many, the answer is, “I’m leading my own life in an entirely new way.” And that is a fabulous answer, an ‘Imi ola answer! It certainly appeals to me…
Endings create voids which are the spaces in your life for new possibilities.
