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Category / Wisdom
20 October 2023

Thinking Partner sessions – all you need to know

by Michelle Howie
You might have seen my new offering to book a Thinking Partner session. I've described it like this,  "This is an hour of space to listen to yourself, think quietly and get an occasional nudge from a trusted guide. You're looking at a 60 minute meeting with Michelle. You're here because you have things to think through. Michelle will listen, sit quietly and witness while you do your thinking. You can ask her to coach you more actively, you can chew her ear off for 60 minutes straight with no words edged in at all! This session is all yours, so you own it." If you want to know more about what that includes, how it works and whether it fits your needs, well read on.CONTINUE READING
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Category:Conversation, Honesty, Thought/thinking, Uncategorised, Wisdom
25 January 2022

Will the real modern learner please stand up?

by Michelle Howie
Careers expos are interesting events. I attended one in 2021 and whilst I don’t think it was an optimal experience for all the teens milling around, I sure had a life-changing experience at the age of 41. As I browsed the stands, I ended up talking to a man from NZMA, a New Zealand vocational training provider, part of the Australasian UP Education group. He told me about a three-step model they use to onboard new students. He also said, which was the life-changing part, the model had radically altered the way their organisation talked internally about student support and connecting back to their core purpose. The model goes like this: 1. Learn to learn, 2. Learn to earn, 3. Learn more to earn more. Simple, well-worded, inarguable, timeless.CONTINUE READING
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Category:Business, Conversation, Learning, Relationships, Wisdom
9 September 2021

Virtual leadership – feasible or fantasy?

by Michelle Howie
In a week’s time I will be meeting a new group of leaders, ready to start another Next Gen leadership programme. Next Gen is available to members of TUANZ (the association for the users of digital technology and connectivity) and my role is to facilitate the learning and insights. Lucky me! It’s such an enjoyable contract role, one of my faves. I’ve been fortunate to work with TUANZ and the Next Gen programme since 2017. We’ve taken over 70 leaders through the programme – and we’ve always run it as an online offering. Yes, all the sessions are held via video.CONTINUE READING
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Category:Business, Conversation, Honesty, Leadership, Learning, Life, Wisdom
18 May 2021

Love tastes like space: a short story

by Michelle Howie
He pushes me to answer, wants to hear my voice wrap meaning around his fragile idea. Wants words to act like glue and bandage. I don’t respond, not ready yet, so he pushes me again. “What is love? Put it in your own words, come on. You’re the book worm, you’ve read enough to have an idea. We’re in love, aren’t we” (a statement), “…so how would you define it?” The room does a cool trick where it goes small and big at the same time. Dizzy.CONTINUE READING
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Category:Honesty, Love, Relationships, Thought/thinking, Wisdom
9 April 2021

Sugar Baby, short fiction published by Flash Frontier

by Michelle Howie
“Her outfit is so sweet!” Everyone always says so. It must be true. Some comfort to Jen that she is able to dress her baby well. So little else is going well. But clothes, headbands and tiny socks are sweet as. Sweet outfit. Can you taste the icing sugar on Jamie-Kay playsuits? Does the delicate ribbon disappear on the tongue like an edible garnish? Is the soft pink mitten just the colour of a sugared almond, or can you crack off one tiny finger and smash through to the nutty core? “Flat white?” Jen jumps. The waitress gives her an odd look, then turns to the prize in the pushchair after the cup hits the table. Jen is left staring at her bent back, stranded on the couch where mums sit, separated from her baby but not that worried.CONTINUE READING
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Category:Conversation, Learning, Relationships, Wisdom, Woman
13 October 2020

The Power of Rediscovery

by Michelle Howie
Few of us realise how smart we already are. As babies, we learnt to walk and talk. We did this naturally. We figured out balance, coordination, communication and relationships with very little formal teaching. Those that love us marvelled at this intelligence, we were cheered on and celebrated for the smart little beings that we were. At some stage in our development, adults inserted themselves into the process and suddenly our learning was handed over to teachers who claimed to know more than we did. The intelligence that had been developing quite naturally was now no longer to be trusted, it seemed. It’s a bizarre concept to see written in print.CONTINUE READING
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Category:Learning, Wisdom
3 May 2018

Thoughts That Don’t Stick

by Michelle Howie
I woke up at 5am with great big thoughts. This happened on Friday 5 July 2019.  The date and the time are very clear to me, because the thoughts were so big and so vivid that I felt sure it would be one of those unforgettable moments in my life. So much certainty, in that moment. These were big thoughts. At the time of writing this, I am four days ‘post-moment' and things look different now. Sorry for the buzz-kill, this is not a particularly exciting blog about a momentous insight and how life changed forever at 5am on 5 July. This is a pretty ordinary blog about what happened to my thoughts between 5 July and 9CONTINUE READING
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Category:Resilience, Thought/thinking, Wisdom
3 May 2018

Why I Give

by Michelle Howie
When the business began to keep me consistently busy I made a commitment to donate annually to charity. Last December I made my first donation – a humble $50 to Brainwave Aotearoa Trust. Here’s the post. This decision falls out of some introspective work I did in 2016 around my long-term goals – and it also reflects all the learnings I have taken from the hardest (best?) times of my life. Let me explain… ​CONTINUE READING
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Category:Business, Charity, Purpose, Wisdom
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