Lisa O’Neill, who’s also a public speaker and mentor, published her seventh book, Energy, in May — last week it was the biggest-selling title in Whitcoulls New Zealand — and is almost halfway through a transtasman tour, which will include an event at Hilton Queenstown on Tuesday night.
O’Neill tells Mountain Scene the inspiration for the book was an adrenal collapse she suffered when she was 26.
"I was just working 24 hours a day and addicted to coffee, and my liver and my adrenals just shut down, really."
She had to physically rebuild herself, with help from a naturopath, and then "I went off on a bit of a spiritual tangent".
"But, as I’ve got older, and spent more and more time with humans, I’m just realising how emotional energy and mental energy are our biggest challenges," she says.
Most people nowadays are "over-responsible", full of resentment and obligation, and wondering why their lives "aren’t working".
"You’re not doing anything you want, you’re just doing everything everyone else wants you to do.
"We’re all the same and everyone thinks it’s just them, and it’s not.
"We’ve got it all wrong."
Noting no one gets out of life alive, O’Neill says most people are guilty of "just existing" instead of living.
"We all have bits of our lives that are really hard ... but you’re supposed to enjoy life — that’s the point — and people just aren’t.
"The fix-it solutions for all of that is being inspired and creating things you love and finding things to get excited about and noticing when you’re at your best and when you’re not.
"It takes a bit of an effort to slow down and think about those things, but we just don’t do it — we just get on the treadmill of packing the dishwasher and hanging out the washing and being miserable and whinging and then we die."
O’Neill believes inspiration is one of the biggest currencies for energy — while "eating broccoli and sleeping" will help, emotional energy will "get you further".
Next week’s two-hour event, from 7.30pm, is designed for people to get out of the house with their friends, get some inspiration, have some fun, and meet some new people, something she believes is particularly important.
"I think since Covid, we’ve really forgotten how to go out — we don’t do it as much, and I think it’s really good for people to go out ... and have a conversation, because you go home better."
Tickets for O’Neill’s ‘Energy Event & Book Tour’ cost $50 plus fees, via eventbrite
- Mountain Scene has two double passes to give away to O’Neill’s event next week — to be in to win, just email ed@scene.co.nz, subject line ‘Energy’, by noon Monday — we’ll contact the winners directly
