Arianna Huffington has spent a lot of time thinking about the links between working hard and success, and has come to the conclusion that there is a “collective illusion” about positive correlation, while generalized negligence of the risks that can literally be fatal. She has been studying science for years, but also attracts the conviction of personal experience.
Two years after the Huffington Post Foundation, Huffington collapsed from exhaustion and sleep deprivation. He hit his head on his desk, broke the cheekbone and, while coming from doctor to doctor, of magnetic resonance to echocardiogram to find out what was wrong, the diagnosis that returned was exhausted.
“That in 2007 it was not the term that was very much in use,” Julia Boorsstin of CNBC tells the first episode of the new CNBC podcast “Changemakers & Power Players.”
“That's what my life changed,” says Huffington now. “Not only in terms of how I changed my daily habits, but in terms of how I wanted to change the culture, because I realized that we are all suffering under this collective deception that to succeed, to achieve it, we did not have luxury as it was seen, to take care of ourselves, and science is so contradictory.”
Now, as CEO of Thrive Global, Huffington has the mission of using technology to change behavior and help people find more intelligent and healthy ways towards success.
“Is it a successful life if you end up in a pool of blood on the floor of your office?” Huffington says in the new podcast. “And now we have so many data and so much science that, in fact, we are more effective when we give ourselves time to recharge.”
Huffington says that culture is changing, but believes that it is still difficult for young people to think about these problems in the right way. “We have Ceos de Silicon Valley that compete with each other on how much dream they slept, and how much deep sleep and how much Dream REM, and with their oura rings, which are wearing. That would have been impossible to imagine in 2007, but despite that, especially for younger people who begin in their career, there is still fear that they take time to take care of themselves, they will leave behind.”
In consultations with many scientists they brought at home to work with Thrive Global, Huffington has developed new approaches to success, including what she calls the “Micro Steps Power.”
“It's not about New Year resolutions,” he tells Bortstin. “I go to sleep eight hours or give up sugar or whatever. It is very difficult to maintain these resolutions. But if you think of micro steps, which is in the heart of what we do in prospering, small daily incremental steps that gradually become healthier habits and a healthier life, begin to feel differently. You are more creative. You are a better leader. You are less reactive. You are better.
Follow and listen to this and every episode of the cnbc podcast “Changemakers & Power Players” in Apple and Spotify.
