Allison launched her first business at age three selling soaps for 20 cents at the end of her driveway. Her next business venture age seven was a family newsletter (birth notices, horoscopes - the works).
When she entered the workforce she spent 5 years within a corporate where senior management pretended to really listen, but they never actually did. This drove the workers mad! So she started her own staff survey company. She was determined to show managers why they desperately needed to listen to their people. During this time, she saw inside many workplaces, uncovered all kinds of workplace nasties and helped fix them. This inspired her to write a book.
With a new-born baby expected literally any day now- she tells us what drives her and what keeps her inspired in a world which she says is far too focused on the “recession”.
She remains very interested in what differentiates a bad boss from a good boss. Think about your own experience. Have you had a good or bad experience with your boss lately? What defined the experience? How did you turn the situation to your benefit? Did you still achieve your goal. Allison O’Neill has achieved them and some. She has no set herself a few new goals- like turning her love of writing into a steady income while balancing things with her new family.
Hometown
Christchurch – the magnificent home of The Crusaders, Underground Coffee and Pegasus Bay wine!
Hobbies & Interests
Hill walks (there are tonnes in here), learning + reading, baking, dining out, Ceroc dancing, meditation, reading high fashion mags ,shopping, being pampered (massages, facials and pedicures).
My Companies & otherRoles
My Favourite Time of the day is...(and why)
At 4:30pm I finish in my home office and put on the Ellen Degeneres show that my DVD player tapes everyday. I start preparing tea while watching it. It is the most addictive (and I’d say life changing) show. It seems like a crazy program the first few times you watch it, but then you realise you are watching something so positive, so fun – her show is about loving life and helping others. Through her show Ellen really changes the world! When you watch it you will laugh so hard – her fans will never get cancer as we laugh too much!
I really enjoy...
WINE (when not ‘with child’)!!!! Writing, eating lemon cheesecake, seeing others grow, laughter, seeing great acts of kindness, being an All Black and Crusaders fan, music (all different types), dancing around my living room while singing badly (though with gusto) and exercising so hard my lungs burn (though again, not when I’m ‘with child’!).
How do you maintain balance in all your roles?
Prioritising and not taking on more than I can handle.
List recent accomplishments you are proud of:
1. Finishing and publishing my first book.
2. Seeing that my writing is good enough to be published all around the world (now I just need to get paid for it!).
Did you celebrate it? How?
By letting out a big sigh of relief that the project was finished and having a nice dinner out with great wine.
What keeps me up at night?
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Worrying if my gorgeous wee lady cat Mercedes has brought a live mouse inside (she likes to do that during the night occasionally).
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Rearranging all four of my pillows every time I move (I am in the last stages of pregnancy).
What drove you to become involved in your industry?
I worked for a large NZ bank that boasted constantly about how much they valued the staff, and how much they listened to us. We the staff didn’t feel even slightly valued and felt we were most definitely not listened to. Every year we’d do a staff survey and we would naively think each time “fantastic, finally they will listen and do something about X, Y and Z” we would spend ages writing well thought out responses that were blunt and showed our discontent. Yet when we got the survey findings report it was always absolutely glowing – we were bouncing off the walls happy, everything was great and we apparently adored this company…. We were always left scratching our heads and bloody frustrated! I decided to do staff surveys that actually listened. I asked killer questions, interpreted the results properly and read between the lines. Doing these surveys lead me to share everything I learnt about bosses and workplaces in my book.
My big hairy audacious goal this year is to:
Balance work with motherhood
I knew I was onto something when:
Kevin Roberts of Saatchi & Saatchi endorsed my book and brought 45 copies.
My secret for getting things done is to:
Do them.
My darkest hour was when:
There are highs and lows to being self employed. Sometimes lots of great stuff is happening other times you question things and stop to take stock and think “what the hell am I doing?” It is natural to go through a cycle of up and down – the down times are the most transformational as they force you to make decisions, change your action plan and really take stock. I see these down phases as fantastic as I know I am about to make powerful changes that will accelerate me further.
I come through down times by:
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Brainstorming
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Asking great questions
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Figuring out what I really want
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Deciding on a new action plan
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Seeking help from those that have been in this position before
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Taking a mental break from work – going for a walk or hitting the shops for an afternoon - just something different that takes my mind totally away from work
What would you do if you were not ...
Um, I really have no idea. It’s not something I’ve thought about. I suppose in someway or another I would have ended up writing. I love the process of learning, pondering, researching, presenting all of that to others, then hearing their thoughts on it and re-pondering.
What do you do to cope with stress?
I do a daily walk for exercise and meditate everyday for half an hour. I read somewhere “meditation is the only way you can grow” and I believe it to be so true. That space and peace while you are awake is so powerful. I can’t speak highly enough of meditation – I recommend people google it and read up on it as much as you can. It isn’t some hippy practice – it is a sanity, growth and problem solving tool. It is relevant to everyone from executives to mums, teenagers and retired people. It is actually during meditation I get my best ideas – so it pays to have a pen and paper handy so you haven’t forgotten it when you are finished as once something pops into your head you have to clear your mind again and keep going.
How many hours do you work each week?
40
What do you do when things aren't going your way?
Identify where my thinking is going wrong and fixing it as our thoughts create our reality. Things change pretty fast after doing that.
What separates successful people from unsuccessful people?
Persistence, resilience, determination, clarity about what they want and fear of failure.
Do you have any daily rituals that help you keep focused and in the right mental state to succeed?
Yep, everyday I:
- Write a list of gratitude (everything I’m grateful for – can even be things like “my legs” or “socks”)
- Write out whichever affirmations I am currently using quite a few times over
- Read my goals out loud
- Meditate
- Exercise
- Do visualisation
- Read something that grows my mind (my library card gets lots of use)
- Work on my brain stretching project (currently it is learning the guitar – its still early days!)
Do you have any school/study qualifications?
I got great school certificate grades. I left after that to work in the beauty industry – I thought that was my calling at the time. The $5.40 an hour eventually put me off so I went into banking where I started on the path to where I am now.
Who inspires you the most and why?
Steve Irwin – I adore the bloke. I recently read Terri’s book ‘My Steve’ and that made me love him even more (highly recommend it). It is actually a fantastic book for professionals to take lessons from as Steve’s mindset, professional abilities and intuition was absolutely incredible. He truly had the biggest heart - he contributed millions and millions and millions of dollars to the wildlife he adored. Everything he earned went to them. He didn’t need a Maserati, a private jet and 60 year old single malt scotch whisky. He was the most authentic person this world has seen I think. Steve had energy that many of us can only dream of. Once in an interview he got asked “do you drink coffee” and he replied “nahhhhh mate – the top of my head would blow off” and I think it really would have! I’m sure every executive that leans on caffeine day in and day out would love to become a Steve.
Do you have a formal goal setting process?
Yes. At the start of every year me and my lovely hubby do Anthony Robbins CD series Personal Power and Get the Edge which puts us on the right track for the year. We review in June to see how we are going, and regularly refresh our minds with his CD’s when we go on long car trips.
Have you ever been scared to .........? What did you do about it?
Hold a taranchula and snake? Yes. A zoo we visited in Aussie didn’t offer holding sessions so haven’t done anything about that yet (what a shame!).
What comes first...success or confidence?
Definitely confidence. Nobody is ever going to tell you “you are good enough to do X” so you have to decide for yourself and then do something about it. Also nobody else can see inside your soul to see what you are capable of. If you share your goals and dreams with small thinkers they will think you are crazy for believing that you can achieve that. They have no idea what you hold within you, nor the size of your determination. You have to keep getting more and more out of your comfort zone – then you know you are growing. There is a saying that is something like “if you aren’t constantly making mistakes you aren’t working on hard enough problems”.
The Parting Shot:
I love this: “Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."
Harold Thurman Whitman