In Thrive, Arianna Huffington makes an impassioned and compelling case.
The Third Metric; When you stop … if you ever do…you sense something isn’t quite right. You have a long list of accomplishments that bring great satisfaction – deals, causes, and outcomes that are better because you poured your heart into them. Yet you’ve been giving and giving to every other good endeavor but yourself. You’re depleted. There’s no rest. There’s no respite. There’s no end. It doesn’t have to be that way. You CAN redefine your life to include a Third Metric -- your well-being, wisdom, wonder, and giving. Thrive invites readers to hit a pause button in their stressful race for job advancement to enable them to focus on health, wellbeing, giving back, and personal fulfillment. A stress-reducing tool for real people.
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.
"Media mogul Huffington lays out steps to creating a lifestyle where success is measured not by money and power, but something more meaningful." Thrive is one of The Season’s Best Business Books:
From sobering reflections on the Great Recession, to an exposé of shady Wall Street practices, to inspirational advice from self-made leaders, this season’s best business books offer something for every reader looking for insight into how money works and how to make more of it.
Posted by Joel Cunningham
As You Age, Will Social Media Make You Happier or Lonelier?
The life of a retired senior can be a quiet one, with family and friends spread far and wide. But gaining mastery of the digital world at this later stage in life can mean the difference between suffering in isolation and leading the life of a (virtual) social butterfly.
Over the last two years, several studies have shown that seniors engaged with technology and connected through social media tend to have higher self esteem and are less likely to fall into depression, especially those living alone or in a retirement home. Read Article: 'Why You’re Never Too Old to Use Social Media'
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