Because of the pandemic, instead of promoting his new book, In Awe, on a national television show in New York City as he had once scheduled, author John O'Leary is taking calls from his office in Kirkwood. “The world I expected to be living in is radically different than the one I’m currently residing in, but it’s brought amazing opportunities,” he says. “Later today I’ll see my mom and dad from a 6-foot distance. I’ll be home tonight for dinner and will help put my kids to bed for the 63rd consecutive night.”
This sort of optimism is what O’Leary is known for. When he was 9 years old, he was given a 1 percent chance to live after a fire burned his entire body. He spent five months in the hospital and endured dozens of surgeries, but he survived and gained a new appreciation of life and living each moment to the fullest. That experience informed his book On Fire. (St. Louis Magazine previously interviewed O'Leary in 2016.)
O’Leary wrote In Awe to inspire others to also live with that appreciation. The book reminds us to appreciate the ordinary moments in life, to greet each day with anticipation. He invites readers to return to navigating life as a child with wonder and joy. When he wrote the book, he never imagined that it would be released in the middle of a pandemic, but he says the timing couldn't be better. “It’s a reminder of what matters and who matters," he says. "It’s a reminder to slow down on purpose, to turn into nature, to stop self-isolating.”
Can you speak to the title of the book?
To understand the title, you have to understand the reasoning for the book in the first place. I have the pleasure of going around the world and speaking to some of the largest organizations, but when I get off stage and am traveling in airports and in hotels, I see adults who are discouraged by life. They are getting through their days, but they are not very positive, and they’re not very confident their best days are in front of them.
So I leave these conference centers and walk into school buildings because I like to speak to kids when I’m on the road, and the kids skip into the classroom. They smile more frequently and when I ask a question, they immediately raise their hands. They have ferocious optimism. I see within them what I wish we adults would have in our own lives.
Ultimately, what they have is a sense of awe for life, an appreciation for everything, not just the grand vacations where you’re standing on top of a mountain. Every experience, every cookie out of the oven, every butterfly is significant for them. We begin to lose that at around the age of 5 or 6, and we turn downward from there.
How do you create a sense of awe with your own kids [aged 14, 12, 10, and 8]?
One of the most important ways to create awe in children and adults is to turn off the devices. I begrudgingly pull them outside against their will. Nature has this beautiful way of stoking our creativity, to literally slow down our heart rate, and remind us what actually matters. I force them to go outside. I have also found that taking inventory of what they are grateful for is helpful. We’re used to making lists about things that aren’t going well or things we wish we had, but to live in awe, we have to be grateful for the things we already have access to.
How does this connect to happiness?
There have been a lot of studies on happiness globally, and ironically some of the happiest countries also have the lowest GDP [gross domestic product]. The people who have the least are actually grateful for it the most. We—as a first-world nation—confuse happiness and joy. Happiness is the new iPhone, and you’re really happy until it runs out of batteries. Joy is what you see when you are with kids and whatever is in front of them whether that is a star or a butterfly or a blade of grass.
What was your goal in writing this book?
In part, I wrote this book to challenge people to slow down, to remind them of the ladder that they’re climbing, and to check to see whether or not it’s leaning up against the right wall. Are you over-scheduled? Is your life heading in the right direction? Are you doing things with people who are actually meaningful to you? Are you multitasking and is that as effective as you thought? I think we are highly over-scheduled, and my great concern is that after this pandemic, we will return to the same life.
What does it mean to you that this book came out during a pandemic?
I wrote this book when the stock market was at a historic high, unemployment was at a historic low, and 94.5 percent of the stories in media were negative, so I was writing this book into the powerful headwinds of negativity even though life in the U.S. and the world was trending in a pretty positive line. Then comes the pandemic and with it the recession and all the challenges that every one of us is facing. So I actually think the timing of this book could not be any better.
What advice would you give to people who are struggling with being stuck at home?
It’s very acceptable to feel this way. Every human being—including my wife, Beth, and I—who’s wiped out with homeschooling and working from home with the inability to travel freely is feeling this way.
A lot of people are posting about the movie Groundhog Day as if reliving the same day in the same house with the same people is the worst thing in the world, but they forget that Bill Murray goes crazy at first, but then he begins to realize the gift of each day. He learns how to play the piano, learns how to speak French, he learns when a kid is going to fall from a tree so he can be there to catch him, he learns the name of every individual in town so that he can greet them by name. Bill Murray shows us how to handle the groundhog days of our lives. Just because it’s the same doesn’t mean it has to be bad. It can mean that we are getting a lot better in these days.
For more information on John O’Leary or to find out where you can get a copy of In Awe, visit his website.
