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Welcome to the PAD Lifeletter where I authentically share monthly updates, stories, resources, and insights along my journey of “Pure Aloha Dreamalization”. Please subscribe using the button below (or at the top or bottom) to be added to the mailing list for these monthly letters (every fourth Saturday).

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Pure Aloha from Honolulu ☀️

“My 33rd year was a year of transformation like no other. May 34 be a year of living wisely by joyfully soaring as a butterfly in awesome flight basking in the sun.”

That’s a snippet from my journal as I “flew” into 34 on Wednesday. I celebrated my birthday by enjoying time with Katie and our family, walking to jump in the ocean, and immersing in quiet reflection. And of course, savoring and responding to many of your wonderful birthday wishes! Thank you for them all!

Later that afternoon, Katie and I completed a virtual hospital tour and childbirth class. It was the first time I’d ever seen even a video of the actual moment of birth. Wow. To know this momentous day of birth for us is about a month away, it brings so many emotions. Most of all, I am overwhelmed in gratitude and love for Katie and baby and for all who support making the miraculous happen.

Without further ado, let’s glide into the inaugural issue of the PAD Lifeletter!

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✨ Key updates

🏡 HOPA Together is launching!

• After nearly 15 years of building HOPA, a newly inspired iteration of HOPA is being born. HOPA Together is a platform and community that will share the essence of HOPA beyond the traditional four walls of a brick-and-mortar shop.
• In development for the past 15 months, HOPA Together’s first keystone product is “The HOPA Journal”, a physical journal that can guide anyone anywhere to discover and experience Pure Aloha through a unique journaling journey.
• Check out this brief teaser with a snippet from an amazing original song and video debuting soon!

🚶🏽 Wisdom Pilgrimage completed - a Pure Aloha dream… realized!

• I spent three days walking 52 miles along Route 11 on the Big Island of Hawai’i. ~100,000 steps in solitude, but not alone, in mindfulness and reverent silence upon Mother Earth. This walk was dedicated to my first child and all those of his/her generation. For photos along my adventure.
• The Pilgrimage has inspired a book “Wisdom is…” which I’ll be writing the manuscript for over the next few months while on paternity leave.
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Reminder: Please subscribe using the button at the top or bottom of this Lifeletter so that you can walk alongside me and join the mailing list for these monthly letters.
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📓 From my notebook

A powerful ritual to end and start each year, I’m fully opening up and sharing my personal Annual Review.

I made this 11-minute video to share more about my process and a summary of my 2021-2022 Annual Review. If you’re interested in getting a comprehensive download of what my life’s been up to inside and out, personally and professionally, there’s no better resource than this.

🗣 Talking story

In Hawai’i lingo, a good conversation between people is known as “talking story”. In this section, I will share stories of and with others on my journey.

I’d be hard pressed to think of someone more fitting to share about and to honor than Pono Shim here in this section of the inaugural issue. You may or may not know Pono, but you actually kind of do if you know me.

I met Pono at a potluck at Kaimana Beach in Waikiki in 2008. Since then, he’s taught me so much about the profoundness and power of ALOHA, servant leadership, and storytelling. Eleven years ago, he blessed the original House of Pure Aloha (HOPA) at its grand opening. After a brave fight with a rare form of cancer, he sadly transitioned from this realm on April 8, 2022. Here’s a link to Pono’s recent incredibly moving Celebration of Life.

After walking 52 miles on my Wisdom Pilgrimage, I arrived at my final destination of Nechung Dorje Drayang Ling—a Tibetan Buddhist temple and retreat. There I went into peaceful meditation and got to talk story with Pono. Our other-realmy conversation revealed to me the true continuity and interbeing of life. The things we exchanged were truly special, and one I may release as I feel appropriate.

Pono’s last wish was: share your story of ALOHA. I’m still finding and weaving my story together, and I look forward to sharing it when the moment arrives. Love you Pono!

🧰 PAD toolbox

In this section, I’ll highlight content and resources that I’ve found to be highly useful on my journey of Pure Aloha Dreamalizing.

At the start of the pandemic in 2020, I discovered Tiago Forte and joined his course “Building a Second Brain” (BASB). It was life-changing. After taking the cohort as a long-awaited "spiritual retreat", I expressed myself in this video message. The video itself is an example of "learning by doing" a foundational concept in BASB called "CODE": Capture, Organize, Distill, Express. It is many thanks to Tiago and his course, that I developed a personal knowledge management system, made lifelong friends, found my voice, and now am taking this plunge into writing and sharing it.

So my resource to highlight is Tiago’s exciting new book—”Building a Second Brain: A Proven Method to Organize Your Digital Life and Unlock Your Creative Potential”—available for pre-order and releasing next month.

I’m super excited to see the unfolding of the next stage of this incredible community and movement. As BASB moves from niche to mainstream with this book, I hope it indeed grants “access to the greatest economic and cultural forces of our time, the Internet” to millions of dreamers and doers, especially those most marginalized globally. And with a gracious nod to Reverend Matthew Fox, author of Creativity, may the divine creative potential of individuals and the collective be unleashed like never before towards creating a more compassionate and just world.

📷 Capture of the Month

Katie and I on a family walk immersed in nature at Foster Botanical Gardens, one of our favorite places and a future stroller ride away from our home in Honolulu. Here’s a heartfelt poem I wrote shortly after this photoshoot:

Life is a perfect miracle.
Life is a precious gift.
Life is a profound story.

Your heartbeat through speaker phone. Wow.
Those three things I knew
Now, I deeply feel as truth.

Under summer’s sun, on an island of Hawai’i
You’ll journey out of mom’s womb and into the Universe’s.
In a big bang of light, our eyes will finally collide
A spectacular moment for sure.
Yet just one of many more, grand and sublime
That the three of us will always share in this lifetime.

Your beginning
That voice you hear
Those feel good vibes you feel
It’s called ALOHA
And it’s forever.

-Your Daddy

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I really appreciate you reading this PAD Lifeletter. If ideas or stories resonated, I’d love you to share it with a friend or two or send me a message by email at bronson.chang@gmail.com.

Mahalo 🤙

Bronson

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