Wisdom & Wonder Feat. Arianna Huffington

But I wrote a blog post a couple of weeks ago about fdr after he was elected in his third term of office, everybody was pressuring him to make a quick decision about us entering the war, the Second World War, Churchill especially. But he didn't know how to do it because the American public was so against it. So instead of submitting to the pressure, he said, I'm off on a vacation. So he left and went to the Caribbean for 10 days. Can you imagine anybody doing that now? And really reflected and came back with this brilliant idea of the land lease program which convinced the American public of how they could enter the war. So I think that's what that's wisdom for me. And you can see that in business, you can see it in politics, you can see it in our own lives.

All right, six letters doesn't sound like a lot. Yet when those six letters spell thrive and you put it on a book, it can be a life changing. Six letters. And it has for thousands of readers, including many of you in the room that have her book. This was Arianna Huffington's 14th book and her most successful. It debuted number one on the New York Times bestseller list, in large part because many people in Genius Network got behind it and helped with just sharing that message. So success has been a pattern in Ariana's amazing life. After leaving her native Greece and being accepted to Cambridge University in England, she graduated with a master's degree in economics, starting the Huffington Post. Success again. Winning a Pulitzer Prize, More success. Being included in Forbes list of most powerful women. Success again. Included on Time magazine's list of the hundred most influential people. Even more success. Yet at times, success just isn't enough to thrive. You need more. So to help you thrive. I want to bring up this amazing woman that's done so much, my good friend Arianna Huffington. Awesome. Well, so what have you been up to in the last week?

So, first of all, it's so great to be here. I've been in the back listening, and it's really inspiring. And there is sort of a wonderful theme which makes this so rare, which is that so many people talked about themselves and their lives and not just their businesses and what they do. And that, I think, is just part of where we are in the zeitgeist, that I think the people who are changing the world are willing to be more vulnerable to talk about having leukemia or to talk about their marriages or to talk about their lives and not just present this incredible front of having it all together. So thank you for creating this space for People to feel that they can speak like that.

Absolutely, absolutely. So I've got a whole slew of questions for you. And you know, I've been quite involved with Thrive from the, you know, as soon as I first heard about it and I have my first original copy of the pre release, the Uncorrected Proof, and it's just filled with like my notes and highlights. And I just have read this book several times and just really, really awesome. And so Thrive, it's become pretty much an inspirational movement. Now you've done Thrive events, you've had amazing world famous people that have come and talked about it, but it started with a dramatic beginning of you waking up in a pool of blood and of your own blood, of course, so I should make that distinction. So how did all this begin? Where did it start for you?

So seven years ago, two years into building the Huffington Post with two daughters, one about to go to college. So going through the College 2 circuit, you remember that? And I got back home and I basically collapsed from exhaustion, burnout and sleep deprivation. Hit my head on my way down, broke my cheekbone, got four stitches on my right eye. And that was really the beginning of looking at my life, asking these questions and like, what would your life be like if you had a life altering event? I mean, it could have been much worse. I know that. But at least it did wake me up and I started asking these questions of what is success? Because by conventional definition of success, I was successful. But by any sane definition of success, if you come to in your own pool of blood, you are not successful. Can we all agree on that? And then, you know what was strange is that I had to go through this litany of doctors, you know, when you collapse and nobody knows what's wrong with you. So, you know, it could have been a brain tumor, heart disease, any number of things. And so at the end of this sequence of doctors, I was basically presented with a diagnosis which is burnout. And that really doesn't make you feel good because you brought it on yourself. And in fact, since then I discovered that a Belgian philosopher, Pascal Chabot, has described burnout as the disease of civilization. And I've also discovered on tour for Thrive that it's even worse than I thought. When I wrote Thrive, you and I have talked about that, Joe, that so many. I had so many people come up to me and say, I actually don't remember the last time I was not tired. And a lot of them felt the way I felt, that you're not, you don't even know just how burnt out you are. I mean, I wish somebody here, one of the geniuses here, can come up with a little device that can give us alerts. The way, you know, anybody who has an iPhone gets alerts. Like, 17% of battery remaining, 13% of battery remaining. I mean, when I collapsed, I must have been below 0% battery remaining.

But.

But I didn't even know it. Like, if you had asked me, how are you? I would say fine, because that was my normal. Being exhausted was my normal. So that's really how thrive begins for those of you who have a copy, because I think it was my entry point into this whole re evaluation of everything.

You know, it's interesting what you said of creating a device. What's going through my marketing brain right now is the burnout badge, where you just kind of wear it and as soon as you get. Instead of a badge of honor, like a lot of people, you know, I've always talked about workaholism. And there's even a book on workaholism where the subtitle is the Respectable Addiction. You know, it's a badge of honor for people to be insanely driven and to not get sleep and to accomplish a lot and talk about it. But yeah, that would be interesting. But you had a reverse badge that said, you know, insane person. Exactly.

But you're so right. It is a badge of honor. And I now watch my emails, like, you know, if somebody invites you to do something and you can't do it or you don't want to do it, whatever, we tend to reply, you know, I'm just overwhelmed, or, I'll get back to you when I come up for air. And we use all these descriptions, which are really insane. And I now monitor myself to stop using these descriptions because they perpetuate wearing our business like a badge of honor and our multitasking. Have you noticed, you know, people walking down the streets and being on their phones or worse, texting while walking? I live in New York, and it's a disease. And also, you know, if anybody's texting while walking, they expect you to get out of the way. Because clearly, if you're not texting while walking, then you're not as important as they are because you are not as busy and therefore you can just afford to walk. And I remember when I started actually walking in New York rather than doing something else at the same time, I started seeing things I had completely missed, like this beautiful building near my apartment with this incredible ornamentation at the top. And I asked a Friend, I said, when did this go up? And she said, 1890.

That's pretty funny, actually. You know, I don't know the exact stat, but I heard the average teenager In America spends 11 hours looking at a screen. And I mean, I don't know. I don't know what the exact.

And as grown up, probably even more if you include all the time we spend doing emails. And also, again, this obsession that captures us that we can't go to sleep without finishing our emails, which, you know, is a completely thankless task because it's like getting water out of a leaking boat. You know, more water comes in, more emails come in. So that was for me, the beginning of re evaluating what matters, what my priorities are. And I have 12 steps in thrive of how to start on this journey. And I pick 12 deliberately because we are addicted to this current insane way of living. And you pick one of them to start with. I know this is all a room full of type A personalities. Please don't pick all 12 at once. So my first one, which became my keystone habit of changing things, was sleep. I'm a sleep evangelist for those of you who know me even. In fact, when I gave a commencement speech at Smith, I told the women graduates to. To slip their way to the top. I said, that's my best career advice.

That's awesome. I like. I mean, I hope you say that a lot. I'm like, okay, what do I say?

What do I say?

Speechless. When did that last happen?

Exactly. So this is more than just a book, though. You've actually wanted to create a movement. And you know, when someone says, I want to create a movement, you know, a lot of people can say that, but you've had tremendous success. How many countries is Huffington Post in now? Right now?

Well, the Huffington post is in 11 countries now. We are launching in India on November 25 on Thanksgiving. And after that, we're launching Half Post Arabic all over the Arab world. And also we're launching Half Past Greece, which is an emotional rather than a business decision. But thrive, the book is being published in 26 countries.

Yeah. Let me show everyone a copy of this. Here's the current.

I thought you were going to show half was in Arabic or Hebrew.

No, no, I wish if I would have had one, I would. But this is just a basic English version, you know, so you have the platform, you have the ability to really share this message of redefining success. So what's the old definition of success and what's the new definition of success for me?

So the old Definition of success is really just two metrics, money and power. You know, slash status recognition. And the new definition of success that I'm proposing in Thrive is to include the third metric. If you think of it, trying to live your life based on these two metrics of success is like trying to sit on a two legged stool. Sooner or later you fall off. And we look around and we see an enormous amount of conventionally successful people falling off. You know, becoming addicted, becoming depressed, any number of casualties. So the third metric consists of four things.

Hey, I hope you're enjoying this video. And I want to let you know that I have a new book that's come out and if you'd like to get it absolutely free, there's a link below in the description. Or you can wait till the end of this video or you can Simply go to joesfreebook.com and you can get a copy there.

The first is our well being. I mean, that's the foundation, our health. It's just amazing that we have managed to live under this collective delusion that in order to succeed you have to burn out. It's a very deep, very entrenched delusion. It is completely negated by modern science. That's what I love about this time. We're living through that. We now have new scientific findings validating ancient wisdom about the importance of sleep, renewal, regeneration, et cetera. And that's why in Thrive I have 55 pages of scientific endnotes. So that even if you or someone you love is an incredible skeptic about these things, have them just read the endnotes because the science is pretty conclusive. So the second point, the second part of the third metric is wisdom. You know, we look around and we have an enormous amount of very smart leaders with high IQs making terrible decisions. What they lack is not intelligence or iq, but wisdom. And that is key. That's why, you know, our politics team in Washington is now tracking what is happening in Washington. And there is really incredible evidence that politicians are so burnt out that we see this constant vacation shaming. Like if a politician takes vacation, like Obama is in Martha's Vineyard, they shame him. Like somehow this is a bad thing. I want politicians taking a lot of vacation. I want them out of Washington, out of fundraising, you know, out of doing harm. Just kind of get them off. But I wrote a blog post a couple of weeks ago about fdr. After he was elected in his third term of office, everybody was pressuring him to make a quick decision about us entering the war, the Second World War, Churchill Especially just. But he didn't know how to do it because the American public was so against it. So instead of submitting to the pressure, he said, I'm off on a vacation. So he left and went to the Caribbean for 10 days. Can you imagine anybody doing that now? And really reflected and came back with this brilliant idea of the land lease program which convinced the American public of how they could enter the war. So I think that's what, that's wisdom for me. And you can see that in business, you can see it in politics, you can see it in our own lives. The third part of the third metric is wonder. When we begin to notice the beauty around us that otherwise we just completely miss because we are buried in our thoughts or our smartphones. And the fourth is giving. And you've already talked a lot about giving here. And you, Joe, are an enormous giver. And I think everybody who is a good networker, everybody who succeeds really organically recognize the importance of giving, you know, of giving to others, of giving beyond our own preoccupations and self interest.

No, I love saying life gives to the giver and takes from the taker. I mean it just, you know, even Adam Grant, who wrote the book Give and Take, where he actually shows that that's true. You know, I mean the people that interesting. He did a lot of research on people that are givers, takers and what he calls matchers, where people, that's like a, you know, tit for tat sort of quid pro quo sort of relationship with interacting versus givers. Just give and takers take. And the first research that he came up with showed that the people that make the least amount of money and get most used are actually the givers. But then he went much deeper into the research and found the most successful people that make the most are also the givers too. It just, it's kind of how you apply it and where you put your efforts.

And so I think, you know, I think I've looked at that because my mother was a natural giver. Even when we had no money, we were living in a one room apartment in Athens, Greece and she was always approaching life from abundance. You know, the Peter Diamantes concept that when you approach life from abundance, it's not a function of how much you have, it's your attitude to life. And if you are constantly approaching life from what can I take from him or her? You are approaching life from lack. And there's nothing more exhausting than walking through life feeling that you are lacking things as opposed to feeling abandoned and then wanting to create things.

How many of you have a copy of the book Thrive? Show of hands. Okay. Awesome, awesome.

I have a few with me. For anybody who doesn't have it, see me afterwards.

How much is your autograph worth if you sign it? I mean, could you sell that book.

For more if I put a kiss next to it?

That would be awesome. Like an Arianna Huffington signed book with that.

Like that, with lipstick. You like one?

That would be great. Oh, my God, look at this. That is. That is.

Wow.

Wow. All right, I can auction that off later, but no, I will keep it. I will keep it. So what are some of your favorite action steps that you've written about? And Dave Asprey's in the room. Where's Dave? Okay, Dave did great interview with Arianna, and thank you for the shout out. I want to point something out that's always. It's a little subtle thing, but I noticed it. Like, you know, I introduced you to Dave and he did an interview for you. He has a big following, people that listen to his podcast. And, you know, he says, you know, he thanked me in the beginning. Little things like that I love. And I can't tell you how many people, when you make a connection, they don't acknowledge the person or they hear a quote and they don't really credit the person that gave a quote. You know, one of the attributes of a giver is giving credit and always acknowledging people. It's just the right thing to do. But, you know, he talked about how much science is really in your book because it's really backed up with a lot of great science. And so what are some of the things you've written about action steps that are just game changers for all these entrepreneurs and people that are here and people that will be watching this on video so specifically.

And thank you, Dave. I loved our interview. Dave came to the Huffington Post newsroom and we did it there. So one of the things that is worth stressing here, because it's a room of entrepreneurs, is the connection between renewal and creativity, which is the exact opposite of the connection we assume is the truth, which is working around the clock, burning out and creating great things. In fact, if you look at the data that 3/4 of startups fail and that startup entrepreneurs, as the stereotype would have it, work around the clock, never sleep, et cetera. Well, maybe if they actually slept and renewed themselves, we might not have three quarters of them failing. Has anybody thought of that? And now the science is very convincing that when we are Sleep deprived, exhausted, burnt out. We can be transactional, but we are not really ultimately creative. And I have quotes in the book. Steve Jobs famously said that his best ideas that led to the most iconic Apple products came after Zen meditation. Bill Gates would take think weeks and go off in the mountains in a cabin without devices, without anything. And if you go back through history, you know, Archimedes, my fellow Greek compatriot, the Greek mathematician, came up with the scientific theory of displacement when he was having a bath and therefore really relaxed and ran out in the streets naked shouting, eureka. Which would have made a great Instagram. And, you know, Newton sitting under a tree, having tea, contemplating, and the apple fell and the theory of gravity. So, you know, it's like endless examples. The whole point is that if you want to be creative, you want to come up with great ideas. It's much easier to do that when we are not operating from burnout and constantly on deadline. So one of the ways that, of course we need to do that is by learning to disconnect from our constant thoughts in our mind. And somebody here mentioned the obnoxious roommate. I write in the book about the obnoxious roommate living in our head that constantly questions, doubts, puts us down. You guys have it too, but we women have it much louder, right? So how do we learn to silence that voice? So I have a couple of steps in particular. One of them has to do with learning to put our devices outside our bedroom before we go to sleep. Because we need to have a transition between our waking life and our sleeping life. Whenever people say to you, I can't sleep, it's because they can't silence the mind. And it's very hard to silence your mind if, as most of us do, we just stay on email or texting or whatever until the last minute and then we crash. So very important, how many of you sleep with your phones by your bed? Okay, you guys are successful. If you stop doing that, you'll be even more successful, I promise. Just take your phones at the end of the day and charge them outside your bedroom, because the science is incontrovertible. If you wake up in the middle of the night, for whatever reason, you're going to be tempted to look at your data, especially if you can't go to sleep right away. And that A, makes it harder to go to sleep, and B, your sleep is not as deep and recharging, and it's not worth it because you all know that when you wake up recharged, there's nothing you can do, right? Life is there to be taken. And another connected part here is to really recognize that very often we carry a lot of projects, things that we thought we would do that we are not going to really do. So having regular life audits, I mean, I had a recent life audit during which I decided, you know what? I was never going to learn to become a good skier. I'm a lousy skier. I was hoping one day I would become a good skier, but realistically, I'm not going to invest the time and energy to do it. So it was very liberating to realize that you can complete a project by dropping it. So as far as I'm concerned, skiing is done. When I go skiing now with my friends or daughters, I sit by the fire, drink hot chocolate and read a good book, and I feel just fine.

And just listen to I love marketing on your headphones.

I love marketing. I will do that. I'll try that next time.

Well.

The thing you said about. Well, let me ask you this. What about hula hoops? Can you. Are you good with the hula hoop?

No, but I'm willing to try that.

Have you ever been to Burning Man?

No.

Okay, just curious because I wanted to see if there's another side to Ariana. I just don't know. Just don't know. So the thing you're saying about not sleeping near your phone, I don't do that. And I'm, you know, I'm an addict. You know, I mean, an addict is either in their active addiction or they just. I mean, I believe in the disease model of addiction, that it's a brain disease and my brain does not do well if I have electronic friends, because they aren't friends when I'm trying to sleep. I live in a two story home and I keep my phone downstairs because it is a magnetic force that seems to be more powerful than my willpower and ability to manage it. And it does tempt me and it's annoying And I simply, you know, when I even go to hotels, I will keep the phone across the room because when it's next to me, for some reason, it just, it's just a temptation. And although that's a subtle piece of advice, I mean, I've talked to a lot of people that do that. It's just, it's very difficult. And there's little hinges, swing, big doors, and these little things that you can do make all the difference in the world. So you're one of the most successful media moguls in the world today. So what entrepreneurial lessons could you share with everyone here as it relates to what you've discovered in Thrive? That would just reduce a lot of suffering in their lives and give them what you define as the real success, the ability to focus on the metrics, the third metrics.

So I think recognizing that we are our most valuable resource, you know, so often entrepreneurs somehow feel that they can just keep going and going and going, and we forget the need to renew ourselves. And that's what I did the first two years of Hoffbau's life. And honestly, I can say without doubt, we are now nine years old, that when I changed, that I was infinitely more effective. Because after all, as leaders in a business, our greatest value added is being clear about where we are going and being able to see the icebergs before they hit the Titanic. It's not micromanaging. And when we are exhausted, it's easy to micromanage because it's transactional, and that's what we gravitate towards. So for me, operating as an entrepreneur from a place of renewal. And again, I'm not doing that 100%. I'm not saying any of that is 100%, but I'm saying I can say now that 90% of the time, I'm there. And you said something very important, Joe, which is, don't try to do it through willpower. Willpower is too weak. It's like I try to do it in small steps, and then you see the reward, and it becomes a magnet that draws you. Like now I've gotten to the point where I really, really do not like myself. When I'm exhausted and burned out, I feel I'm overreactive. I'm not clear. I'm foggy. So I don't like that place. While before, I was oblivious, now I'm very acutely aware of it. So at the Huffington Post, for example, I've instituted nap rooms so people can have naps in the middle of the afternoon. At first, people were rolling their eyes, like, who is going to be seen walking into a nap room in New York City? Now they're perpetually full. People are asking for a third one. And I have a couch in my office, and when I'm tired, I have a nap. And I have a glass office. I used to close the curtain, and now I don't. Because, again, I think you lead by example. It's like sending the message it's okay to be seen napping on the job. And you know what was so funny? I. I didn't tell you that. But when I was in London. I went to speak at the US Embassy in London and I was asked the question about the nap rooms and the ambassador was there and somebody said well it would be great to have nap rooms in the embassy. And the ambassador said okay, let's do it. And the Washington Post wrote about it and the State Department put out a statement saying State Department employees do not sleep on the job. And I thought well that's the problem with the US government, you know, they don't realize that sleeping on the job as they put it, that is recharging would actually make them better at their job. They're operating in the middle ages of pre scientific delusions about what makes success and effectiveness. And it was just funny to see it like in black and white, you know.

I have a friend, Dr. Edward Hollowell, who's the top ADD ADHD psychiatrist and he has a saying where if you don't manage modern life, it will manage you. And he's talked about how we have almost a cultural add where it's become so normal for people to be kind of crazed that you really have to. You're not going to go out to the world and get a lot of support. This is something you actually have to put build on yourself. I mean your definition of success taken to many people like well, you're crazy. What are you talking about? And so you're. But what you're doing is you're wanting to just get people first to recognize and be aware of it and then shift that message.

And that's why we all need what we call a thrive body. At least one kind of member of your tribe that you can. I mean my first thrive body is my sister Agapenopoulos who is here with me. And it's just a great support to us.

Who's funny out of the two of you? Is she funnier than you or what do you think?

She's everything nicer and funnier and everything and wonderful. And I feel very blessed, you know that we share this journey together because it's just amazing to see how what a difference it makes. I mean let's say if you are tempted to binge watch House of Cards instead of going to sleep, you can call your thrive buddy and they can talk you down.

It's called a sponsor in sponsor.

Exactly. I'm trying to be a little less kind of addiction language driven. Although I totally love it and I think the AA model is fantastic. I write in the book about my own daughter in her last year at Yale getting involved in drugs and she's now been sober for almost three years and how much value she got from aa. And I wrote about it with her permission because I'm hoping it can help other families that are going through similar problems.

Well, you know, I like bringing that up and maybe I talk about addiction. I maybe intermingle it more on a personal level because coming, you know, from being a former heavy drug user, when I was 18 years old I weighed 105 pounds. I think I told that story to you. But the thing that Dan Sullivan from Strategic Coach has this whole model of who do you want to be a hero to in the world? And I thought about that a lot after many conversations with Dan. And I want to be a hero to entrepreneurs because I think entrepreneurs are the ones that make things happen. They're the ones that provide jobs, they're the ones that do innovation, they're the ones that create solutions. This room is filled with them. I want to be a hero to entrepreneurs and to addicts because addicts endure incredible suffering and some of the greatest people on the planet are addicts. And when Mihaly Csiksiksetmihalyi, who wrote the book Flow, he talked about the neural pathways in the human brain. The same ones that the greatest artists, entertainers, entrepreneurs used to be be in a state of flow are also the same neuropathways that an addict uses for self destruction. And I mean you can see it recently with Robin Williams, you know, incredible genius redirected in pain and depression and stuff. And so a term in addiction in like AA or any 12 step group for that matter, they use the halt state. You know, halt don't make a decision when you're hungry, angry, lonely, tired. And what's great is, you know, thrive is about how to not get get into that halt state. So you don't want to make a decision when you're in a halt state. But part of it is just setting your life up so you minimize any times that you get in those because you just make bad decisions.

And when we get there to catch ourselves and course correct quickly, we are going to get there. I mean the truth is that nobody while we're on this planet is going to be in a thriving state all the time. The important thing to recognize is that we can course correct really fast so we don't have to be off center as long as we have traditionally been off center. We can return to center really quickly.

Yeah, well, I'm going to in just a minute we're going to do some Q and A with the audience. So if you have a question you want to ask Arianna, think of it and then go up to the mic. What I'd like to ask you is this is a really important message and certainly I've been behind it and I've loved your book and I've wanted to share this message with as many people as I could, which is why we've done the interview and we've gotten a lot of people involved with this because it's important. I mean, this will reduce suffering. And I really want to reduce suffering for entrepreneurs because these are great people doing amazing things, but they don't do great work when they're burnt out, when they're exhausted, when they're not rejuvenating. And what's the whole point of making profit if you can't enjoy the profit? And so how could we best help you with your goals and objectives with this movement? I mean, what sort of support can we help you? Because I think collaboratively you've got a huge platform. But we also are sitting in a room with some really sharp, brilliant people. So what are your thoughts on that? How can we help you?

Well, first of all, thank you for your support and for really believing in the message. I would love to invite all of you to write on the Huffington Post about your your experiences, either your experiences with burnout or wake up calls or your experiences with how you thrive and how you are prioritizing when you are prioritizing your own renewal and recovery and regeneration. And to make it super easy for you to bypass the growing Huffington Post bureaucracy, I will give you my email address so you can send it to me and we can set you up with a password and you can block whenever you want. So It's Ariana with 1R and 2 NSuffingtonpost.com and then what we do is we translate a lot of what comes on the subject in all our other editions because it's a global phenomenon and we want not just the States but people around the world to be exposed to it. And I'm finding there is nothing more powerful than sharing our stories. You never know who is going to be moved by JJ stories or team stories or people are touched by different stories. So my story may touch certain people and your story may touch other people. And I feel traditionally they say that people don't change except through pain. I want us to change that paradigm. Why should it be so, you know, why should you all have your own wake up calls, those who haven't had them yet? Why can't you learn from Mine. And that's kind of really my hope that we can accelerate a global shift that's already happening. The global shift is already happening. 2013 was an amazing year. It was the year when CEO after CEO came out not as being gay, but as being meditators. You know, it was really amazing. I was talking to Ray Dalio, who is the founder of Bridgewater, the biggest hedge fund, and he said to me, I've been meditating for 45 years. I said, why are you just saying it now? And the assumption before now was that if you're meditating, you're kind of a little new agey, flaky, kind of vaguely Californian and not really serious. And now that's changing.

Well, I do TM every day. Yeah. And he actually credits meditation for his. The number one thing for his most success. Yeah. Which is awesome.

Yes. I was at a conference recently and I was asked to lead a meditation before my session. And instead Ray Dalio was there, asked him to lead the meditation. And it was really great because this was a group of hardcore business people. And having Ray Dalio there say, you know, meditation has been the foundation of my success. And explaining why, because he could see more clearly, because he could see the icebergs before they hit the Titanic. And connected with that is the fact that this is a global phenomenon. That all around the world, countries, business people are taking steps. Some are pioneers, as it always happens, and ahead of the curve, and others are laggards and they're going to be the last to catch on. But it's happening everywhere. But I feel with this room and the power and creativity in this room, we can help accelerate this global shift.

What do you think of that? That'd be some serious genius networking right there. And I actually, Arianna registered the website thrivestyle.com and I would like to see this is a new lifestyle is Thrive Style. And so that's not been developed yet.

But that was actually your idea. You called me one day and said, thrive Style is free. How about you getting it? And so it was his idea. So it lies dormant somewhere. But maybe one of these days we'll do something with Thrivestein. Right, J.J. we can do that together. Any other women, men who are interested in Thrive Style? It's an interesting idea because we want to make it cool. You know, Thrive Style could be the coolest thing in the world because it's style and it's a way to live life, which is also healthy and giving and sexy and everything else that you value.

Yeah, I can see the male and female version of the taglines. Like the male version. Your lifestyle sucks. Visit ThriveStyle. Okay, so who has a question for Ariana? Go up to the mic. We're going to take questions for and.

Tell us who you are and what you do and how many hours sleep you get.

Denise, hi, my name is Denise Gosnell and thank you for setting me up as a blogger when you spoke before. I will totally go blog about my own life changing experience that I had three years ago after a house fire. So I'll be posting that for you as well. I had started a publishing company called Thriving Business that after my house fire, I realized I needed to focus on just one business, which is now my law firm where I've merged all the things I loved about publishing and technology. And I get to work with a lot of amazing clients, including six people in this room. My question for you is the reason I started Thriving Business three years ago is, is because I found that entrepreneurs don't know that there's business Body, mind and spirit, which is the logo I created for Thriving Business. And it mirrors what you talk about ironically in Thrive. But entrepreneurs are so focused, like I was before my fire, on business, but they neglect body, mind and spirit. So the premise behind the company was to kind of like give them the business stuff they were looking for and then slide in the body, mind and spirit when they weren't looking and like help teach them that. But right now, basically I have, I've invested a fortune in that company, but I'm not working on it. And I would love to talk to you about a way that I could offer that up in a way that we could take it to the next level. Because Thriving Business entrepreneurs deserve to have that message put in front of them even when they're not looking for it. Because I almost burned out myself. And I'm so grateful for having the house fire that woke my eyes up to that.

Wow.

Absolutely would love to talk to you about that. That's incredibly aligned.

Yeah, it was. Gave me goosebumps when Joe sent me your book and was telling me about what you guys are doing together. Because Joe and I work together on a lot of things that he's talked about before. And it just like I felt like we were meant to connect. So I just wanted to put that.

Out there tomorrow by any chance.

I leave in the morning, but I could always change that if it may. Yeah, not a problem. Thank you.

Thank you.

Let's go to Dr. Daniel Amen.

Hi.

I love the Huffington Post because it's not about negative news. I mean, you can get the news, but there are lots of other interesting things. My question for you is I have three daughters and in a world that's so focused on what they look like, what would you recommend to parents on the best way to get girls to thrive?

How old are your daughters?

So my youngest is 10. And then I have one that's 25 and another one that's 30.

Great. So I have a 25 year old and a 23 year old and they were once 10. So I can talk to you. From my experience, this is a really hard time to be a young person because there is so much stress around. And you see it in colleges, you see it in high schools with binge drinking, blackout drinking, the kind of hooking up culture which is so emotionally debilitating, especially for girls. Because I totally agree that women and men are completely equal, but we're not the same. We respond emotionally different. So I feel that it's very important to give them alternatives. And that's why on HuffPost we have a dedicated teen section which gives alternative ways to be and trust yourself and invite them to go to that and write about their experience. We have a great college section. We are doing a lot around colleges. I did a college too, with a thriving message. We did partnerships with colleges. We where we created an oasis around exams so kids could recharge while taking exams. We are now partnering with ABC to do a series in October on the stress in the millennial generation. So I think giving them alternatives, depending on what they are interested in, helping them see that there are different ways to achieve what they want to achieve without stressing so much that they affect their health.

So I wrote a book I published last year called Unleash the Power of the Female Brain and partly to honor My girls, but I have five sisters. So I've been tortured by women most of my life. And when you said earlier that women are much harder on themselves than men, well, there's biology behind that because a female brain is much more active than a male brain. But what's interesting is the front part, which is the most human, thoughtful part of the brain, the executive part of the brain is healthier, usually in women, than in men. So women actually make great leaders. We've just not allowed that as a society to happen.

And I think what you said about the female brain being more active, one thing to recommend to your girls is meditation. In the book I have 12 apps I recommend. So if they need some guidance, you know, Headspace is a great App that my daughters have used to learn to meditate. And they don't need an app. It's paradoxical to go to apps to help us disconnect from apps and technology, but that's okay. Anything that will help us recognize that we are not our thoughts. Because that's really the most dangerous thing. When we completely identify with our thoughts and forget that there is a seer and a center in us that goes beyond them.

Yes.

Now, I often talk about a concept I call ants. Automatic negative thoughts. The thoughts that come into your mind automatically and ruin your day. And then you end up infested. And the ultimate prescription is not to believe every stupid thing you think. Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Awesome. Thank you, Christian. He's partners of Peter Diamandis, by the way.

Just. Hi, Christian.

Hello. Yeah, so your comments about startup entrepreneurs really resonates with with me because I'm a startup entrepreneur. I'm doing my fourth startup and I had to learn. So I've been doing startups for 22 years, and you're always in a constant state of crisis and survival. So I've had to learn how to do work, life, balance, and recharge. And I get seven hours of sleep a night, and I've learned that. But by doing that, I'm far more effective and powerful because it's not about the hours I put in. It's about my energy and my creativity and my confidence and a big shout out to Dan Sullivan for teaching me that, by the way. So I'm doing this project with Peter. It's Herox. It lets anybody launch their own XPRIZE to solve their own problem. And it's a platform. I'm about 16 months into it. And my question for you is, I'm hiring a lot of people, a lot of. I'm a Canadian. I hire a lot of Americans because they're awesome, by the way. But there's this culture they have about really wanting to work hard and demonstrate to me how hard they're working. And I'm trying to show them that I don't want them to work hard. I want them to create amazing results with creativity and energy, and I want them to live amazing lives. And so I guess my question is, what would be your tip? Because I see that attitude come back over and over again like they're addicted to it. Like they don't want to let go of this thing. And they actually, like a dog with a bone, they try to bring me evidence of how hard they're working. Like I'm supposed to be Happy about it. So what would be your advice to. Of how I can help break my staff from this addiction they have to workaholism?

Well, one of the things we've done is we've established certain parameters. Like we have an email policy which makes it clear to people that when they're off work, they're not expected to be on email. All our managers are encouraged not to send emails after hours or over the weekend. They often, if they want to do it, they put them in draft and they send them during working hours. Because if you, no matter what you say to your employees, how you act is going to be more important. So if you say to them, you know, don't work after hours, and you send emails after hours, even if you tell them they don't have to reply, they will feel obliged to reply or they will feel obliged to keep checking emails. So modeling behavior is incredibly important. I mean, I take a week off like I did last year for the first time, actually, or where I'm not on email and making that clear, I did it with two friends and we wrote about it. Making a big deal of what you do as the leader is going to have an impact and then on and also educating them about the science. You know, we have dedicated sections on HuffPost. We have a third metric section. We have a healthy living section that constantly has all that latest science so they know that in fact, they're going to be more effective. And again, another thing that a lot of people find very compelling is athletes. Tim Ferriss and I were talking about that earlier. You know, athletes are ahead of business people. They don't care about anything except winning. And they've incorporated sleep, meditation, yoga, because it makes them better on the court or in the field. And it's very important to show all these role models to them.

Thank you very much.

Yeah, that's, that's a great point. I actually, I saw this term winners find ways on the back of a sports jersey and actually registered the URL and we put it on everyone's Genius network journals here. And what most people think of winners find ways is they're going to figure out how to do that much more than the other person. But in a lot of ways, winners will find ways to build in meditation, they will find ways to eat properly, they will find ways to exercise. When people say, I'm too busy to work out, well, you're too busy not to. If you don't take time out for these things now, you're going to take time out for them later. With disease with debilitation, with death, with pain. And so my buddy Dave Kekich. Where's Dave at? Dave over here. He's been paralyzed from the chest down for over 35 years. He's in his 70s. It looks like he's 45. And, you know, he wrote these hundred credos, and he. One of the things. And Dave works out every day, eats very well. And when I'm, like, thinking I can't exercise, I think, you know what? Dave has stuff to deal with that I can't even imagine. And he figures out how to do it. You know, he was taking care of. I remember his father with Alzheimer's taking care of in a wheelchair, doing things. Not complaining, but learning how to live his life the best way he can. He's an incredible eater. He devotes his time to learning about nutrition and helping people with disease and life experience, extension research and all kinds of stuff. And one of his credos says, life's easy when you live it the hard way and hard if you live it the easy way. And my interpretation of that is, yeah, it may be hard to work out and exercise and not eat the donut or whatever, but life is easier when you do that. Life is easier when you take the time to sleep more. So I really thought about that a lot, and to me, that's inspiring. So winners find ways to do both. They, you know, put in more than maybe other people will, but also what not to do, that sort of thing. So that was like a tangent, but I wanted to throw that in. One more question from Laura.

Okay, thanks. Laura Weiss. I have spent about the last 10 years of my life where I was not in business really or anything. I was more of a caretaker position. Lived a very intuitive life where everything that I made decisions on was very intuitive. I knew what to do every day to take care. It was my husband who was ill to take care of him. I knew exactly what to do. I knew what doctor to call. I knew what document to submit. I knew how to manipulate the egos of doctors to get what I wanted. I got very good at knowing what to do very, very intuitively. So it became so second nature for me, I didn't realize I was doing it. So then, since then, my husband's passed away, my kids have grown up. They're not, you know, their youngest is 18, et cetera. And I sold that business. What I find really interesting right now is when you lose your ability for intuition, which was very obvious to me when I was trying to save a life every day. And it comes down to something so menial, like making money. I apologize, but I cannot seem to get my heart around the goal of making money after I've experienced the depth and richness of life every day where you see another person's soul. Right. So I think the question for me is, I hear, I love this stuff. I mean, like, I'm a tiny bit over the top. Like, I listen to. I love marketing probably every day because I love this stuff. But I have the hardest time knowing how to take this heartfelt richness.

And.

Lead other women when I know they have opportunities right now that have never existed before, like that excitement and hunger and try so hard to not get sucked into the idea that my life simply will not be about making money. I can't do it. Right. So how do I reach them?

Well, how about if you just reframe it and see making money as a byproduct rather than the goal? And if you look at the goal as whatever it is that the business is about, you know, whatever it is that the value added of the business is about or the impact is about. And that's going to differ from business to business. But every business has some value added. I mean, that's how it can be successful. It has some impact it's having on people's lives. So if you and I don't know, are you coaching people, is that what you're doing?

I'm having the hardest time getting clear, I think, on what to do. Right. I was given a lot of skill set running my business. I did very well. But then there's this whole emotional part of it. I think for me, honestly, I am all over the board. I can't seem to get this thing. 10 years of life or however many years I've lived it, that taught me what I know, down to a message.

Well, it's really, I think you remind me a little bit of people who come back from war. I mean, in a way, you're in a war, you're in a life or death situation with your husband, it appears. And there are people like, who come back from Afghanistan and they can't get used to normal life. And I think that's where, if you can stop seeing it as something that you are not connecting with, like just making money and elevate the goal to something that touches your heart and brings meaning to your life, I would say that's the beginning. And then not try to figure it all out. You know, we women especially sometimes we want to figure it all out at the beginning. It's more like figure out a little bit of the puzzle to start you going.

And.

And then I think every step we take, we open up the horizon to more clarity and more grace, which is part of what the intuitive part of you realize during these very tough 10 years when you try to save your husband.

Okay, thank you, actually. Thanks a lot.

Thank you.

Thank you. And we'll do this. Let's make this one quick because a timing thing, but I didn't know you were.

That's okay. Hi, my name is Ed Swain, and it seems so much that you're speaking really about the gift of love. So much of what you're saying is we all do this. We're all guilty. As at various times of our lives, we give so much the people we love, our families, our friends, our partners, our customers. And oftentimes we end up depleting ourselves. And no one who loves us want to seize us to depleted. And so really, I think what you're saying is giving ourselves the gift of love. And so in this particular case, we have to be the giver, and also we have to be the receiver of our own gift. And I really like the fact about how you talked about winding down your day and renewing each day. We have an opportunity each day to renew, you know, at the very end, being grateful. But I wonder if you could talk about how you welcome the day, embrace the day. I mean, too often I think we wake up and check the cell phone and all this kind of stuff, but, you know, we have an opportunity every single day to just say hello to this day and welcome it. How do you do it?

Well, that's a great question, because the first thing that I learned to do is not to rush to my phone the minute I wake up, which is what I used to do. So even if you take two minutes to set your intention for the day, be grateful for the day. For me, gratitude is an incredibly important emotion. And constantly focusing on what I'm grateful for, even during times that are tough, when difficult challenges are in front of me, is key. But I agree with you. Setting your intention for the day sets the climate of the day. And then when things happen that are challenging, it's easier not to be subsumed by them. And if we are subsumed by them, to quickly return to a centered place, which basically comes down to the fact that we all have in us that place of wisdom, wonder, and centeredness. And most of the time, we don't live there, but it's also always available to us. Every spiritual teacher and every philosopher said it's as close to us as our next breath. But we don't really believe that because we don't give ourselves time to connect with that. And yet it's so available. And when we connect with that, we live life from a very different place. And you ask Tim, I think, for his favorite quote. Well, you didn't ask me, but. Oh, Arianna, say the two. Oh, okay.

But I have to give agape credit for that because she handed that to me.

Okay, so I'll give you my two favorite quotes. They're both in Thrive. The first one is from Rumi who said, live life as though everything is rigged in your favor. And I love that because so often we live life. Live life. Live life as in Liv, because with my accent you may think I mean live life. I don't mean live life. I mean live life. I'm sorry, I tried. I had elocution lessons. Nothing worked. So live life as though everything is as though everything, everything is rigged in your favor. And the other one is from Ian Thomas, who said every day life will grab you by the hand and tell you, this is important and this is important and this is important. You must worry about this and you must worry about that. And you must grab your hand back and put it on your heart and say, no, this is important.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Now.

Thank you.

Thank you. I want to mention, and Eunice, can you please bring me instructions of what we're going to do with the Ariana pictures? So I know specifically I need to know how we're going to do that. We're going to do it quickly though, because Ariana has to hop on a call. So tomorrow we're going to record almost a whole day of a knowledge product on the subject of Thrive. And I'm also going to ask her some business questions. And when we're done recording this, we want to put it out to the world and I want most of it's going to be free. I mean, originally the idea was let's just put the message out. But I'm actually, we'll talk about maybe actually offering something to help self liquidate the cost of just having to market and promote the book and the message of thrive. But that being said, here's some of the questions I'm going to ask Arianna tomorrow. What you created and built. The Huffington Post is extraordinary. How can entrepreneurs here 10x their communications and community on a platform? What are the keys to that? How did you do it at Huffington Post? Now, the reason I'm reading these questions is, I'm going to get. Everyone in here is going to get a copy of the videos. Okay. If the Huffington Post had any internal documents or memos teaching their writers how to communicate persuasively for a mass audience, what would those documents say? Based on what you did at HuffPost, what do you think or know to be a way to build a platform or a business with millions of followers, readers, prospects, customers, and so on? Building and growing a team is critical. How you did it at Huffington Post, and what are your thoughts on culture? What is it? How did you build it? And what do you think are the keys to having a team of stars around you? Because Ariana has done a great job with that. How do you get bloggers from all over the world happily creating content for The Huffington Post 24 7? And if someone who is already successful doing at least a million dollars a year wanted to take their current business and build an empire in the same sort of way you built an empire with a Huffington Post, what private advice would you give? Or what would you suggest they do? How many of you would like to know the answers to those questions? That'd be pretty good, right? So that's some of what we're going to cover tomorrow. But I just wanted to. That was kind of a teaser. That was a marketing thing there. That was kind of a setup. Okay, Arianna, I mean, you really deserve a Joe Polish show sticker here. I mean, this is like, look at that. Originally, I had these little stickers made because I thought they would be small enough to put on a nail. So you would have, like, gel polish, nail polish, sort of. And I could maybe have my own, but it's now become total and utter nonsense, like I'm doing right now. For a few minutes. Ariana is going to do some pictures. And what do I do, Yunus? Give me Eunice, my wonderful assistant of 19 years who's endured me. Thank you. It's going to start here. We're going to take pictures right here. Okay, well, first off, just to officially edit this video properly, what did you guys think of Arianna Huffington? Okay. I hope you found that video awesome and useful. So if you want to get a free copy of my book, I want you to click here. And if you want to watch some more videos that'll be useful and awesome, click here. Go ahead. You're over here. Do it now. Come on. Thank you. Watch them.