A short interview excerpt where Joe Polish asks Arianna Huffington about 'success traps'—pitfalls that accompany achievement. Huffington describes her 2007 collapse as the catalyst for her book Thrive and identifies a common trap: overcommitting by saying yes to too many requests. She emphasizes learning to say 'no', delegating speaking and meetings, and empowering others to represent the brand.
Chapters
Talks about success traps and that success traps are harder to get out of than failure traps. And here you were, very successful 2007. You literally, you know, you collapse from exhaustion and you crack your cheekbone and you're lying in a pool of blood. And that's what was the starting point of your fantastic book, Thrive, which is really about how to get out of success traps. So what are the most common success traps on the way of building a company, or when you've already arrived or you've become very successful financially, but you're in a trap, it becomes a. It becomes a prison with maybe golden bars. How do you avoid success traps? And what are some of the common ones that you know of?
I think probably the most common success trap is saying yes to too many things. And so I had to learn that no is a complete sentence. And I also had to learn that I didn't have to go to every advertising meeting. I didn't have to give every speech, I didn't have to do everything. And that's when I started making sure we're building half pasta, that there are other people who could go and give the speech or go to the advertising meeting or go on TV. And so then we got to the point where 90% of invitations coming to me, I would say I can't do it. But, you know, Lance Gould, our executive blog editor or so, and so our healthy living editor is available. And then that way they build that muscle of being really good at doing that. The brand was getting the exposure, but it didn't have to be me.