A season just for you
In three months, you'll explore what's yearning to come through you and bring it into its first form. Working one-to-one over a season: deep listening, clear insight, aligned action.
The Wā Programme. Founded by Cleo Shortland.
A season just for you
In three months, you'll explore what's yearning to come through you and bring it into its first form. Working one-to-one over a season: deep listening, clear insight, aligned action.
The Wā Programme. Founded by Cleo Shortland.
A change of season
Wā means season: time, a period of change.
This work meets that longer season for three focused months, for the founder or owner with a change already underway, ready to understand what it's asking of them, and of the business alongside it.
How it works
The world of possibility
We start with what you really want and desire, honest and unfiltered, before it gets shaped into anything else.
Walking into the unknown
Somewhere in the season, things can feel dark and confusing, and if you've done this kind of creating before, you'll recognize exactly what this feels like. But this is an important part of bringing ideas from the ethereal into reality. This is where the real listening and growth happens.
Creation
What's been gathered takes its first real form, a framework built from what matters most to you, ready to carry into the rest of your life.
These three movements often unfold in this order, though the season holds room for them to move fluidly rather than following a fixed script. The unknown might return after creation has already begun, or possibility might open again halfway through.
"Your positivity wasn't just uplifting, it was empowering. You have a way of helping people see what's possible rather than focusing on limitations, and helping them recognise their own strengths and potential. That gave me greater confidence in my own abilities, and I always left interactions with you feeling energised, capable, and more willing to back myself and take the next step forward. The lasting impact for me was a stronger belief in what I could achieve and the confidence to go after it."
— Aime Carter, South Island Super Yacht Services
What you receive
Six video calls across three months, timed around a season. It can be a fixed fortnightly slot, or flow around a calendar that's always shifting, built for the realities of a business.
Between calls, an open line stays available, so momentum holds even with big schedules.
A Trello board holds the season alongside you, witnessing your idea as it's brought into its first form, one call at a time.
Each call threads what matters into a personal framework, one decision, one signal, one question at a time.
Your investment
US$2,000 a month across the three month season, US$6,000 in total. This is priced as a full season of continuity: six calls and an open line between them, held together as one container.
Kia ora, I’m Cleo Shortland
Life is always moving, and so is a business. That's why I like to look at these shifts as seasons, from high summer, full, vibrant and demanding, through to the winter of pause and rest, when it's time to bring someone else in to help carry the work. My work is to weave. I listen closely, understanding what is important to you, and work that into the larger picture.
The Wā Programme invites you to follow your curiosity, and step into what’s most alive.
Step into the experience
Book a curiosity call with Cleo to learn how to step into the experience.
"My time working with Cleo was alchemical. I had never felt so deeply held and understood, a natural gift she holds. What stayed with me was a connection that transcended the surface and the ordinary. You could always tell that holding space energised her as much as it uplifted us both.
Through ritual, contemplation, deep enquiry and a focus on creating the future, Cleo sped up my personal evolution in a way only very few people can. Blending the rational and the creative, her structures and frameworks create a safe container for deeper magic to come through.
There is a true element of belief and magic in working with Cleo that goes far deeper than the mind, and you have to experience it to understand what can be created together. I made so much progress in those years, having Cleo hold my visions with unwavering faith. Cleo is the real deal.”
— Rhea James Fox, Writer
Frequently Asked Questions
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You arrive with whatever's most alive: a decision, a doubt, a pull you're still finding words for. I listen for what's underneath it, and we work to understand it deeper and whether anything needs to shift.
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This is coaching built around deep listening and aligned action. It draws on a real, structured method rather than open conversation alone.
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This work suits a genuine change of season as much as a hard moment: a shift in capacity, a decision on the horizon, a pull toward something new.
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Wā, karakia (Māori incantation), and whakapapa (a sense of place in the world) shape how each session is held. A relational, cyclical worldview, rooted in place, learned over a lifetime.
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This work is built around the particular weight of being the person a business ultimately answers to. That weight has a shape I know well from almost two decades inside that world.
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It keeps this work reachable across time zones and travel, and keeps a full season possible regardless of where you're based.
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Everything shared stays between us. This is a private container for thinking something through, held with the same discretion you'd expect from your own profession.
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Threading works best with enough space between sessions for a theme to settle, and enough structure that momentum holds. Six sessions across a season, scheduled around your calendar, holds both.
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I receive clients in and around spring and autumn seasons only, wherever you're based. Book a curiosity call to talk about timing.
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This work is built on individual attention and discretion, better suited to conversation than broadcast. Find more through the podcast, or start with a curiosity call.