Energy Is the Real Currency

Ok beloved subscribers, bear with me as I do a bit more writing on the economy. I know it is not everyone’s favourite topic, but that is part of the problem. We leave it to people who benefit from the confusion.

I want every person to see the economy as something they contribute to, something they shape, something they have a stake in. It should be presented in simple enough terms and with enough transparency that it builds trust rather than shutting people out.

Right now we treat “the economy” as if it is some vast, unknowable machine. Layers of jargon. Charts. Forecasts. Acronyms. Constant talk of inflation, quantitative easing, and signals from the market. But here is a telling clue. If the economy worked the way we are told it does, every economist would be wealthy. They are not. Most earn solid middle to upper-middle incomes, not the kind of wealth you would expect from people supposedly holding the master keys. Which tells us something important. The economy and the power structure are not the same thing. One is presented as complex and neutral. The other shapes who benefits.

Strip away the noise and every economy rests on two simple things: Energy flowing through a system, and people deciding what to do with it.

When you see the world through that lens, the fog lifts. The economy is not an abstract force of nature. It is the sum of our choices about how we use energy, how we value time, how we design systems, and who benefits from the flow.

If we misdirect our energy we get fragility, burnout, waste, poverty, pollution, and communities held hostage by distant markets.

If we direct our energy wisely, we get resilience, affordability, thriving local ecosystems, and communities that can stand on their own feet.

Maybe the economy is only complicated because it has been designed to obscure the basics.

So we need to shift our thinking: Energy is money and money is energy and we are literally pouring it down the drain.

I am not talking only about lightbulbs. Yes, turn things off when you don’t use them butI am talking about energy in its widest sense:

Energy as personal time lost sitting in traffic. Energy as shipping heavy ancient fossilised trees across the world when we live in a country flooded with sunlight. Energy as the massive, unexamined cost of AI scaling with no natural ceiling and no collective choice about whether this is the best use of our finite power supply. Energy as the opportunity cost of cheap imported produce while our local employment market languishes.

We need an Energy Minister who understands energy as the fundamental unit of our economy and has the conviction to design an economy that makes sense.

We behave as if energy is abstract, yet it is the most concrete resource we have. Every action, every export model, every piece of infrastructure, every digital ambition draws from the same pool. If energy is the real currency, then every wasteful design choice is a withdrawal from our shared future. When you look at the world through this lens you’ll see wastage everywhere. But if you look at the lens of solving and exporting solutions then all you will see are opportunities to transform our economy everywhere.

But the more fundamental question is not how to save a little energy at the edges. The question is how to redesign our systems so that our energy serves us, our communities, and the planet we depend on.

And who are the people who will solve these problems?

They are not lone geniuses. They are intergenerational, interdisciplinary teams that braid many knowledge systems together. Scientists and farmers working alongside storytellers. Actors and grandparents alongside ecologists. Community leaders with lived experience next to poets and data analysts. Māori, Pasifika, migrant, and Pākehā thinkers, old and young weaving worldviews that reach far beyond Western economics.

These are teams that understand pattern, history, and hold the threads of whakapapa. Teams that know innovation without memory is dangerous and progress without cultural grounding collapses under pressure.

They carry practical skills, ancestral wisdom, creative imagination, and technical excellence in the same room. They build in public, test assumptions early, and invite community voice. They design for the long arc, not the election cycle. They are people like me. They are people like you. This is a transformative leadership model - where we weave lived experience, insight and knowledge systems together.

And this is it will take to solve the real problems of our time. Not more of the old model, but teams who can integrate many ways of knowing and many forms of intelligence. Teams who can hold complexity, honour relationships, and choose solutions that strengthen the whole system rather than extract from it. Can you see your role in it? Are you feeling a little more inspired and empowered in your thinking about it?

I have said all I need to now on my vision for a hopeful Solution’s Economy, so we will head into some new territory next week.

Have a beautiful hopeful week out there x Megan

P.S: I am writing this from a business retreat with my LOLI gang on the Sunny East Coast of Aotearoa, the first place in the world to see the new day. But it has meant I have had less time to make visual assets for this newsletter, so sorry if this one looks a bit less visual than other weeks! I still love you xxx