Arianna Huffington has spent a lot of time thinking about the links between working hard and success, and she has come to the conclusion that there is a “collective delusion” about the positive correlation, while pervasive neglect of risks that can be literally fatal. She has spent years studying the science, but she also draws conviction from personal experience.
Two years after founding Huffington Post, Huffington collapsed from exhaustion and sleep deprivation. She hit her head on her desk, broke her cheekbone, and as she proceeded from doctor to doctor, from MRI to echocardiogram to find out what was wrong, the diagnosis that came back was burnout.
“Which in 2007, wasn’t the term that was much in use,” she tells CNBC’s Julia Boorstin in the first episode of the new CNBC podcast “Changemakers & Power Players.”
“That’s what changed my life,” Huffington now says. “Not just 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’re all suffering under this collective delusion that in order to be successful, in order to achieve, we did not have the luxury as It was seen, to take care of ourselves, and the science is so contradictory.”
Now as CEO of Thrive Global, Huffington is on a mission to use technology to change behavior and help individuals find smarter, healthier pathways to 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 much data and so much science that, in fact, we are more effective when we give ourselves time to recharge.”
Huffington says the culture is changing, but she believes it is still hard for young people to think about these issues in the right way. “We have Silicon Valley CEOs competing with each other about how much sleep they got, and how much deep sleep and how much REM sleep, and wearing their Oura rings, which I’m wearing. That would have been impossible to imagine in 2007, but despite that, especially for younger people starting in their career, there is still the fear that if they take time to recharge and take care of themselves, they’re going to be left behind.”
In consultations with many scientists brought in-house to work with Thrive Global, Huffington has developed new approaches to success, including what she calls the “power of micro steps.”
“It’s not about New Year’s resolutions,” she tells Boorstin. “I’m going to get eight hours sleep or give up sugar or whatever. It’s very hard to keep these resolutions. But if you think of micro steps, which is at the heart of what we do at Thrive, small daily incremental steps that gradually become healthier habits and a healthier life, you begin to feel differently. You begin to see how you are more creative. You are a better leader. You are less reactive. You come up with better ideas. You face challenges better, so it’s impossible not to see the difference,” she said.
Follow and listen to this and every episode of the CNBC “Changemakers & Power Players” podcast on Apple and Spotify.
