Arianna Huffington's personal wake-up call came in the form of a broken cheekbone and a nasty gash over her eye—the result of a fall brought on by exhaustion and lack of sleep. As the cofounder and editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post Media Group—one of the fastest growing media companies in the world—celebrated as one of the world's most influential women, and gracing the covers of magazines, she was, by any traditional measure, extraordinarily successful. Yet as she found herself going from brain MRI to CAT scan to echocardiogram, to find out if there was any underlying medical problem beyond exhaustion, she wondered is this really what success feels like?
As more and more people are coming to realize, there is far more to living a truly successful life than just earning a bigger salary and capturing a corner office. Our relentless pursuit of the two traditional metrics of success—money and power—has led to an epidemic of burnout and stress-related illnesses, and an erosion in the quality of our relationships, family life, and, ironically, our careers. In being connected to the world 24/7, we're losing our connection to what truly matters. Our current definition of success is, as Thrive shows, literally killing us. We need a new way forward.
In a commencement address Arianna gave at Smith College in the spring of 2013, she likened our drive for money and power to two legs of a three-legged stool. They may hold us up temporarily, but sooner or later we're going to topple over. We need a third leg—a third metric for defining success—to truly thrive. That third metric, she writes in Thrive, includes our well-being, our ability to draw on our intuition and inner wisdom, our sense of wonder, and our capacity for compassion and giving. As Arianna points out, our eulogies celebrate our lives very differently from the way society defines success. They don't commemorate our long hours in the office, our promotions, or our sterling PowerPoint presentations as we relentlessly raced to climb up the career ladder. They are not about our resumes—they are about cherished memories, shared adventures, small kindnesses and acts of generosity, lifelong passions, and the things that made us laugh.
In this deeply personal book, Arianna talks candidly about her own challenges with managing time and prioritizing the demands of a career and raising two daughters—of juggling business deadlines and family crises, a harried dance that led to her collapse and to her "aha moment." Drawing on the latest groundbreaking research and scientific findings in the fields of psychology, sports, sleep, and physiology that show the profound and transformative effects of meditation, mindfulness, unplugging, and giving, Arianna shows us the way to a revolution in our culture, our thinking, our workplace, and our lives.
Arianna Huffington's personal wake-up call came in the form of a broken cheekbone and a nasty gash over her eye—the result of a fall brought on by exhaustion and lack of sleep. As the cofounder and editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post Media Group—one of the fastest growing media companies in the world—celebrated as one of the world's most influential women, and gracing the covers of magazines, she was, by any traditional measure, extraordinarily successful. Yet as she found herself going from brain MRI to CAT scan to echocardiogram, to find out if there was any underlying medical problem beyond exhaustion, she wondered is this really what success feels like?
As more and more people are coming to realize, there is far more to living a truly successful life than just earning a bigger salary and capturing a corner office. Our relentless pursuit of the two traditional metrics of success—money and power—has led to an epidemic of burnout and stress-related illnesses, and an erosion in the quality of our relationships, family life, and, ironically, our careers. In being connected to the world 24/7, we're losing our connection to what truly matters. Our current definition of success is, as Thrive shows, literally killing us. We need a new way forward.
In a commencement address Arianna gave at Smith College in the spring of 2013, she likened our drive for money and power to two legs of a three-legged stool. They may hold us up temporarily, but sooner or later we're going to topple over. We need a third leg—a third metric for defining success—to truly thrive. That third metric, she writes in Thrive, includes our well-being, our ability to draw on our intuition and inner wisdom, our sense of wonder, and our capacity for compassion and giving. As Arianna points out, our eulogies celebrate our lives very differently from the way society defines success. They don't commemorate our long hours in the office, our promotions, or our sterling PowerPoint presentations as we relentlessly raced to climb up the career ladder. They are not about our resumes—they are about cherished memories, shared adventures, small kindnesses and acts of generosity, lifelong passions, and the things that made us laugh.
In this deeply personal book, Arianna talks candidly about her own challenges with managing time and prioritizing the demands of a career and raising two daughters—of juggling business deadlines and family crises, a harried dance that led to her collapse and to her "aha moment." Drawing on the latest groundbreaking research and scientific findings in the fields of psychology, sports, sleep, and physiology that show the profound and transformative effects of meditation, mindfulness, unplugging, and giving, Arianna shows us the way to a revolution in our culture, our thinking, our workplace, and our lives.
Critiques-
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January 27, 2014
Media mogul Huffington lays out steps to creating a lifestyle where success is measured not by money and power, but something more meaningful. She criticizes “America’s workplace culture... fueled by stress, sleep-deprivation, and burnout,” and compliments efforts by companies like General Mills for its “mindfulness program” and LinkedIn for “managing compassionately.” Huffington Post, she reports, exemplifies the “third metric” tenets—“well-being, wisdom, wonder and giving”—with nap rooms, meditation classes, and an app called “GPS for the Soul.” Huffington cites studies on the health benefits, both physical and psychological, of meditation, adequate sleep, and exercise. One study finds people who had participated in volunteering reported feeling healthier, happier, and less stressed. Huffington also recalls incidents in her own life that have led to wisdom, including her hospitalization for exhaustion, a stillborn baby, and her daughter’s struggle with addiction. Discussing death, she advises opening up a dialogue with the dying, powerfully evoking the dignified passing of her own mother. Huffington draws from both Eastern and Western philosophy, and though it’s a bit rich when she criticizes the media for chasing viral stories, this is otherwise an excellent guide for individuals aspiring beyond the rat race or businesses seeking to elevate employee morale and well-being. -
April 1, 2014
After Huffington, the high-profile creator of the Huffington Post, collapsed from exhaustion and lack of sleep, she realized that she had measured her life in two metrics of success--power and money. In the author's new book, she proposes an alternative yardstick measuring well-being, wisdom, and the willingness to give of ourselves. Huffington details the ways in which readers can achieve these states, such as practicing meditation, getting ample rest, and appreciating the small wonders in life, and stresses the value of "go-givers" over go-getters. VERDICT Despite the title being somewhat of a turn-off, the author's message of slowing down is a good one, and makes a particularly solid read for the harried careerist.
Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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February 15, 2014
Advised to unplug, a world-famous media omnivore promptly creates a commencement speech, multimedia conference, hundreds of blog posts and a self-help book about being nice to yourself. For someone who has drawn much criticism for refusing to pay creators from which she profits, Huffington (Third World America: How Our Politicians Are Abandoning the Middle Class and Betraying the American Dream, 2010, etc.) understands how to market her own image for money. Here, she describes the moment she collapsed from exhaustion in 2007 and the subsequent process of writing her 2013 commencement speech at Smith College. Unfortunately, the book that grew out of that speech is hollow, manipulative and overly self-promotional. "Since my own final straw moment, I have become an evangelist for the need to disconnect from our always-connected lives and reconnect with ourselves," Huffington writes in a representative passage. "It has guided the editorial philosophy behind HuffPosts' 26 Lifestyle sections--in which we promote the ways that we can take care of ourselves and lead balanced, centered lives while making a positive difference in the world." The author's concept--that if life is defined by success at work while simultaneously raising a family, then people need a "third metric" to measure happiness--is flawed at best and deeply condescending at worst, especially to women, at whom this self-help manual is clearly aimed. "It seemed to me that the people who were genuinely thriving in their lives were the ones who had made room for well-being, wisdom, wonder and giving," writes the author. "Hence, the Third Metric was born, the third leg of the stool in living a successful life." Less than a month after her Smith College speech, Huffington launched the concept as a touring womens conference. One has to wonder how hardworking mothers and self-reliant professionals will regard these questionable pearls of wisdom. A gimmicky, patronizing book.COPYRIGHT(2014) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
- Daniel J. Siegel, M.D., author of Brainstorm and Mindsight, professor, UCLA School of Medicine "Thrive is an urgently needed compendium of wisdom and practical guide enabling us to create peace of mind and well-being in our ever more chaotic lives. Filled with cutting edge scientific research, captivating stories, and straightforward everyday practices, this book is a call-to-action that informs, invigorates, and inspires all at once. Arianna Huffington's ingenious gift is to bring herself fully into these pages as she invites us to join her on this rewarding journey to become more connected and compassionate with ourselves and others as we change our cultural conversation about how to best live our lives."
