#Theweekthatwas @ 08/11/2026
When we choose to divide based on ethnicity, religion or gender we miss the real divide: the haves and the have-nots; the controlled and the controllers
What difference does my little bit make?
A farewell to a community elder. A ballot dropped in a box. A cricket series won from a game down. A kaumatua’s quiet “well done”.
On the surface, they have nothing to do with each other. And yet...
On the little bit we each offer, and why we rarely see its weight until much later.
#Theweekthatwas @ 02/11/2026
Championship teams are not always the most talented, but they're almost certainly the best led
Who’s keeping the score?
There’s a pattern in leadership right now that I find deeply troubling - and deeply revealing.
With New Zealand’s elections underway, the campaigning has been more focused on attacking opponents than articulating any vision worth voting for.
But this week, the same question showed up in a spa pool. And at a friend’s medical appointment.
#Theweekthatwas @ 25/10/2026
The moment we start blaming others for where we find ourselves in our lives is the moment to invest in a mirror
#Theweekthatwas @ 18/10/2026
Understanding that honour is not bestowed by any human frees us from the need to seek acceptance or security from others
Your capability is not yours to withhold
There’s a story I’ve heard hundreds of times.
This week, in a gathering where it was being recounted, one of its lessons arrived for me as though for the first time.
Putting your hand up when you have the requisite capability and experience is not arrogance. It’s a responsibility.
And what happens when the boat sails without you anyway.
#Theweekthatwas @ 11/10/2026
Difference can be used as an opportunity to learn or as a means to divide
First the constriction. Then the dawn.
It's school holidays. The house is full. The calendar is still full. And the space between them is considerably more restricted than I'd like.
And yet - the constriction creates its own expansion. It always does.
This week that pattern showed up everywhere.
#Theweekthatwas @ 27/09/2026
When we don't know who we are, we seek recognition of our worth from others
You can't run their race
My daughter graduated this week. Qualified nurse. Cap, gown, the whole shebang.
And sitting there watching her cross that stage, I was hit by something I didn't expect.
On cultivation, submission and the hardest discipline of all — learning to run your own race.
#Theweekthatwas @ 20/09/2026
When you've put in the work and achieved your goal, it's important to acknowledge your own effort
Glass, rubber or ceramic?
Last week, I dropped some balls. Intentionally.
And despite society's conditioning that "dropping the ball" is a bad thing - I want to tell you why that doesn't necessarily make me a bad person or a failure.
On glass, rubber and ceramic - and the two years it took to know the difference.
#Theweekthatwas @ 06/09/2026
Fatherhood is not for the fainthearted nor is it for those who wish to avoid life's greatest joys
Living in the overlap
It started with maths homework.
12 is divisible by 2. And 3. And 4. And 6. All at once. It doesn't have to choose. It belongs to multiple sets simultaneously without contradiction. And I thought: neither do we.
On the cost of "or" thinking, the power of holding complexity, and why the overlap is never the problem to be solved.
#Theweekthatwas @ 31/08/2026
Without optimism, one tends to feel as though we're being sucked into a deep dark bottomless pit - pretty pointless really
"Leave it with me"
Someone left a note on our car this week. And it disturbed me more than it should have.
Not because of the parking feedback. Because of the tool they chose to deliver it.
And then the same pattern kept showing up in very different forms.
#Theweekthatwas @ 23/08/2026
Despite knowing our time on earth is limited, too many of us still act as though we're going to live forever
Being the vessel, not the source
A friend my age - gone in her sleep. A young person unsure how to act without a personal incentive. A mentor's book arriving before mine. And a testimonial that humbled me completely.
Four moments. One thread running through all of them.