RACHEL WHETSTONE: So I
wanted to introduce Arianna,
who I've met a couple of
times, who I admire enormously
for being an amazing journalist,
an amazing entrepreneur,
and an incredibly warm person.
And every time I meet her,
I feel very, very happy,
which is a lovely
gift to give people.
And I actually read her
book at the weekend.
And it got me at a moment,
actually, when I was quite low.
I was feeling quite
stressed out about work.
I was very frustrated
with my inability
to be present when
I was at home and be
a good mother and a good wife.
And I felt a really
shitty mother, actually.
And so the opening--
the introduction
in the first chapter,
actually-- really made me cry,
but really made me
think about my life
in a very different way.
And I think it's a kind of path
that Arianna's been through.
So I actually really
think everyone
would love to hear from her.
How she went through
that journey.
And how she manages
now to be more present,
and to be with the
people she loves.
And not to be distracted by
all the other things that
are going on in her
life, which are many.
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON: Thank
you so much, Rachel.
And thank you all
for being here.
Can you all hear me?
Because we have to deal
with my Greek accent.
[LAUGHTER]
So that's a beautiful
introduction.
Because what I'm
hoping to do with
the book is to open
up conversations
like that, where we can be
more personal, intimate,
and vulnerable with each other.
And where we can look at how
we can build a path forward
for our lives that is
more sustainable and less
fueled by burnout, sleep
deprivation, exhaustion.
And how I got on this
path, as Rachel alluded to,
is because of my rude
awakening, my wake-up call,
which happened on April 6, 2007.
And that's how I
start the book with,
when I collapsed from
exhaustion, burnout, and sleep
deprivation, hit my
head on the way down,
and broke my cheek bone, got
four stitches on my right eye.
And as I was going from doctor's
office to doctor's office,
while they were trying to
find out if I had something
seriously wrong with me, like
a brain tumor, heart disease.
And they discovered
that I didn't
have anything medically
wrong with me.
But I discovered that I
had just about everything
wrong with the way I
was leading my life.
And so I started asking
the big questions
that I had asked in college,
that my compatriots, all
the Greek philosophers, used to
ask, like, what is a good life?
And Socrates famously said
that the unexamined life is not
worth living.
And I started asking
these questions
from the starting point
of what is success.
Because I feel that is a great
starting point for our culture.
Because at some
point, by default,
we began defining success
as just two metrics--
money and power.
And this is like trying to
sit on a two-legged stool.
Sooner or later, you fall off.
And that's when I came
up with a third metric,
without which we cannot thrive.
And the third metric
consists of four elements
that have become the four
sections of the book.
The first is our
well-being and our health.
If we sacrifice our health
in the course of attaining
our ambitions at work, it's
a really Pyrrhic victory.
And we pay a very heavy price.
And we look around at
all the casualties.
And we women, if I can
address the women in the room,
really cannot afford to do that.
Because the data-- I
know Googlers love data,
and I have 55 pages of
scientific footnotes,
because I knew I was
coming to speak to you.
[LAUGHTER]
The data is unequivocal,
that women in stressful jobs,
which is everybody
in this room, have
a 40% greater risk
of heart disease
and a 60% greater
risk of diabetes.
Because we can internalize
stress differently than men.
And so I'm kind of
calling, in the book,
for the third
women's revolution.
The first one being
getting us the vote,
the second being getting us
equal access to every field,
and the top of every field.
And the third one
being women saying,
we don't want just to be
at the top of the world,
we want to change the world.
Because the way
the world has been
designed by men--
I'm not blaming
the particular men in this
room, but men generally--
is not working.
[LAUGHTER]
All men in this
room are excluded
from any comments I'm
going to make about men.
But men have created
the world of workplace
to basically treat sleep
deprivation as a virility
symbol.
I mean, I had dinner
recently with a guy who
bragged that he had
only gotten four hours
sleep the night before.
And I didn't say it,
but I thought to myself,
you know what, if
you'd gotten five
this dinner would have been
a lot more interesting.
[LAUGHTER]
And now you have unequivocal
scientific evidence
of the importance of sleep
and the dangers of sleep
deprivation, including
killing brain cells.
There's an article
in "Forbes" today
about how a lot of the
failure of the tech
startups here in Silicon Valley
can be attributed to the sleep
deprivation of the
founders and the delusion
that if they just
work 24/7, that's
how they're going to succeed.
So that is the central
delusion of our time.
And I think it
would be fantastic
if you as Googlers can sort
of experiment with another way
of doing things and
demonstrate to the world
that this delusion is
really, literally hurting us.
And I thought back
to-- I thought of that,
actually, after I wrote the
book, so it's not in the book.
But I thought of how
before Copernicus,
the general assumption
that everybody accepted
was that the Earth
was flat, right?
They accepted that mindlessly.
Because then [INAUDIBLE] better.
I think the equivalent of
the pre-Copernican flat Earth
assumption in our
society is the delusion
that in order to succeed,
achieve, accomplish, change
the world, you have to be
plugged in all the time.
And really that's
a demonstration
of your commitment, of your
seriousness about this.
And anything else is
basically slacking off
and wanting to chill
out under a mango tree.
And the scientific
evidence against that
is conclusive, especially
in the last few years.
So all we need to
do now is to A.,
read the evidence and B., a
much more important-- take,
actually, tiny, microscopic
steps in our lives to change.
And when I say microscopic,
I have three steps
at the end of each
section, as you
know, Rachel, which are really
small and manageable and tiny.
Because I really think that
if we can experiment-- again,
that's the other thing
you like to do, right?
If you can experiment with that,
you will get your own proof.
You don't have to trust
me, or even the science.
You will get your proof and
you'll get it very quickly.
RACHEL WHETSTONE: It's
interesting on the sleep--
I remember after the birth of
my first child, which I didn't
find a terribly
enjoyable experience.
Not so much the birth,
but the after bit.
Some object that didn't
do what I wanted it to do.
Didn't respond in the ways--
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON: You
couldn't talk, right?
RACHEL WHETSTONE: Exactly.
And I was so overtired.
And being overtired made
it much, much worse.
And when things
go wrong at work,
it's normally because
you're overtired.
I also have a husband
who's a bit eccentric,
in that he refuses to have
any kind of phone, at all.
And so he actually
never looks at email.
He looks at email for
about 1/2 an hour a day.
And he's much more productive
and efficient than anyone
else I know.
Because he doesn't
actually just sit
there like a gerbil on
a wheel, just responding
to the emails that come
in and then generating
more and more emails.
He actually decides what he
wants to do in the morning,
he goes and does it, and
by the end of the day
he's normally done it.
It's also profoundly
selfish, because it
means no one in his
family can get a hold him,
or interfere with him,
or do anything else.
[LAUGHTER]
But it's been very
interesting to me,
because I just wouldn't have
the self-control to do that.
Because actually, when
I'm not with my computer,
I feel very tense.
And after I get off an airplane
and I open my computer,
I can feel the sort
of-- [DEEP BREATH] phew,
I'm back with my
addiction again.
It's very interesting.
And I literally don't
have the self-control.
So I think it really would
be great to hear from you two
or three of the small steps that
really started getting you back
to a state where you didn't
feel that you were constantly
needing to be connected.
I mean, when you realized
that you had a problem, what
were the first one or two
little things that you did,
that maybe some of us in this
room could start copying?
Because the notion of
completely changing
your life seems very scary.
But I think the notion of the
tiny steps is really great.
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON: Absolutely.
And first of all, like
in AA, acknowledging
that you have a problem
is the first step.
Acknowledging that our lives
have become unmanageable
and we need some higher power
to help us, wherever we find it,
is incredibly important.
For me, the microscopic step I
took, which at the time seemed,
actually, pretty
big, was at night,
to charge my smartphones
, iPads, all devices,
outside my bedroom.
How many people here sleep
with their smartphones
beside them, or with them?
Wow.
This is definitely
the biggest percentage
of any group I've spoken to.
[LAUGHTER]
Wow.
So this is great.
[LAUGHTER]
Because you can actually get
immediate results by simply--
RACHEL WHETSTONE: Tonight.
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON: Tonight.
Tonight.
And then can you
please write about it?
On your own blog,
Facebook, Google+,
and "The Huffington Post."
And I will give you
my email address,
to make it super easy to
bypass "The Huffington Post"
bureaucracy.
It's Arianna@huffingtonpost.com.
And seriously, I
would love to hear
what happens to you if you
charge your devices outside.
Because what my experience
and the science show,
is that if you wake up in
the middle of the night
to go to the bathroom,
whatever, you're
going to be tempted to
look at your data, right?
RACHEL WHETSTONE: Who's
tempted to look at their phones
in the middle of the night?
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON: Quite a lot.
RACHEL WHETSTONE: Quite a lot.
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON:
And if you do that,
your sleep, when you
go back to sleep,
is not going to be as
recharging, regenerating,
and the kind of sleep that you
want to have so that you can
wake up ready to take on the
day and face all the challenges
and obstacles that
come your way.
And you probably have two
objections to what I'm saying.
And you may have
more that we can
discuss when we go to questions.
But one of them is,
I need my smartphone
to wake me up in
the morning, right?
OK, Pottery Barn has these
great vintage alarm clocks.
They look really pretty.
They cost $32.
I gave them to all my
friends for Christmas.
Excuse number two-- maybe
you're in a job where
something terrible or
fantastic may happen
in the middle of the night, and
they need to reach you, right?
Really cheap, old-fashioned
phones without data.
Just it rings, if
something happens.
[LAUGHTER]
I have one of those.
So try it.
A small, microscopic step.
RACHEL WHETSTONE:
Actually, funny enough,
I took that step
about six months ago.
Because sometimes people
do have to ring me
in the middle of the night.
In fact, someone rang me in the
middle of the night on Monday.
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON:
Was it legitimate?
RACHEL WHETSTONE: It was
very legitimate, yes.
But I'm even more old
fashioned in that I
have a landline in my house.
Which everyone sort of looks
at-- shock, horror-- of what
is that thing sitting in
the corner of your kitchen?
But it is brilliant, because
it means that I can actually
be contacted, without
being contacted by email.
Which I think is fabulous.
So I did do that.
And it did make me
feel much better.
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON:
That's great.
RACHEL WHETSTONE: And
I also found, actually,
if I didn't look at my
smartphone before I got
the children up and
took them to school,
then I didn't have all this--
[DEEP BREATH]-- the emails,
and seeing all the things
that I should be doing.
It actually meant I could give
my kids breakfast and have
an enjoyable time taking
them to school, I found.
For any mothers,
fathers in the room,
it was a really good way
of being present in the car
with my kids.
It actually made
a huge difference.
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON:
Rachel, that's fantastic.
I didn't dare suggest
the second step.
I though it might be too much.
But that is actually
the companion piece.
Don't start-- because
most people literally
open their eyes and
grab their phones.
And there is no entry ritual.
RACHEL WHETSTONE:
And one thing I
was reading about in
your book-- there's
a lovely section about
happiness and love.
And that happiness
really is love,
and there's a lot of
research that shows that.
How do you think about
love in a work context?
I think in a home context,
it's very easy for everyone
to understand that.
But if you think about
being happy at work,
and love being an
important part of that,
is that love of
doing your work well?
Is it the fulfillment
that comes from creating
something beautiful?
How do you think about that
in the context of your work?
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON:
That's a great question.
I think there are a few
different entry points,
depending on your personality.
And one entry point
is bringing joy back
into our everyday lives.
Because so many of us-- and I
speak as a complete culprit,
as a certifiable type A,
workaholic, driven personality.
Who basically felt my
job was about getting it
all down, getting it done in
time, getting it accomplished.
And joy?
Who has time for joy?
And now, I feel
that-- not at all.
When I'm not joyful, I
look at what happened.
I don't mean joyful
like there are
no challenges,
problems, et cetera.
I mean when I'm not like, hey,
this is great, I'm blessed.
I'm doing something I love.
I'm grateful.
When I don't have that
feeling, I know I'm off.
I need to course correct.
So joy, kind of really checking
in, seeing how am I doing?
Am I-- you don't even
have to check in,
because you know when you
are in the flow, in the joy,
and when you're not.
The second one is-- and this
is one of the microscopic steps
at the end of the
giving section.
So just quickly, it's well-being
and health, wisdom, wonder,
and giving.
So one of the microscopic
steps that is a great way
to bring love into the workplace
is making a personal connection
with people that
otherwise, at work,
you might tend to take
for granted or pass by.
It could be the cleaning crew.
It could be somebody
serving lunch.
Very often, we're just too
busy to interact, right?
We're either buried in our
smartphones or in our thoughts.
And I think that really
changes the experience at work.
And also, another
thing is-- and I
think, from the Googlers I know,
you're really good at that--
is to really tap
into our creativity,
even though this is
not part of our job.
There are people who love--
it's one of the things
that our cultural, I
think, has suppressed--
every child is creative.
They sing, they draw.
Then at some point, if
we can't make a living
through our creative
love, we drop it.
But in fact, it's just great
to maintain it in some way.
Now it's happening
more and more.
I have examples in the book
of people who love to sing.
They were never able
or willing to even try
to make their living that way.
But they now find
ways to practice.
Some of them have joined what
they call threshold choirs.
And they go to hospices and sing
to the terminally ill people,
because their
hearing is apparently
the last sense that goes.
Or cooking.
They love to cook,
and they prepare
meals for people who are
in homeless shelters.
Or surprise people with
their birthday celebrations.
So there's just
incredible creativity
that is buried in people.
And when we tap into it, we
can make it part of our giving.
And here the science
is absolutely amazing,
that we are actually
wired for giving.
So when we give, all the
biological inflammation markers
and the precursors
of disease go down.
And when we're simply engaged in
self-gratification, they go up.
Obviously life is a
mixture, unless we
have a lot of
Mother Teresas here.
And so it's important to
remember that actually giving
is a shortcut to happiness.
And Richard Davidson, at
the University of Wisconsin,
has an amazing amount
of research about that.
RACHEL WHETSTONE: Yeah,
I was very interested
reading "The Giving Book,"
because it reminded me
of a conversation I had
a couple of weeks ago
when I was down
in San Francisco.
And there's obviously a
lot of debate going on
about technology companies
in San Francisco and the role
that we play in society.
And there was a
subset of people who
I was talking to who really
believe that their product is
their gift to society.
And I said, yes, that's
a good starting point,
to have a product that's
great for society.
But it's probably
not sufficient,
and it's probably not going
to be seen as sufficient
by the community in San
Francisco, who expect people
to be present and
part of the community
and not just their products.
And so I thought that that was
an interesting observation.
In the giving, I think that
the notion of public service
has become massively
undervalued.
You touch on that
in this section.
And I think all the
partisanship in politics
and and things makes
that very hard.
The old-fashioned
public service--
that my parents
probably think about
and many people's parents
would think about--
seems to be terribly,
terribly different
from how people think about
public service, and politics,
and those kinds of things today.
And I'm interested--
you've obviously
dealt with lots of people who
do public service-- you could
argue that journalism
is a public service.
How do you think
about public service?
And what do you think we're
getting wrong at the moment,
that people don't want to
stand up and do that stuff,
in some of the more traditional
ways that they used to?
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON: Yes,
I think a lot about it.
Because I've always been
fascinated by politics, and you
spend a lot of time
around politics.
And something has
happened where people
have lost hope that good,
major, big things are
going to happen
through politics.
And I think that we need to
recapture that spirit, where A,
we don't demonize people
that we disagree with.
And B, can take it to the next
level-- I know your husband
works with David Cameron, and I
quote what David Cameron said.
He said, actually, two
important things, one of which
was really
misunderstood, which I
thought was really important,
about compassionate capitalism.
That whole element.
For me, it's very
important not just
to delegate our
compassion to government.
Government has its
role, but to also
take some responsibility
ourselves.
And the other thing was about
the national happiness index--
that it's not just about
the gross national product.
How do you measure well-being?
How do you measure a country's
human capital, basically?
And we have
staggering statistics
of dysfunctionality here.
We have, in the States, 3/4
of our health care costs
are for preventable, chronic
stress related diseases.
We have an epidemic of
increasing addiction,
depression, and all the
criteria of lives that are not
sustainable without some
kind of chemical crutch.
And that's why I feel
that right now, we
are at the tipping point,
where a lot of people
realize that fundamental
changes have to happen.
Starting at the individual
level, but a lot of companies--
Google included--
are recognizing
that the well-being
of their employees
is not separate from the
bottom line of the company.
RACHEL WHETSTONE: Yeah, I find
that the way that governments
don't try and measure
happiness at all--
it's always very focused
on the economic side.
Because actually, the
measurement of happiness
would, in some ways,
get at the demands that
are put on the state by all
the failures in the system.
The people who are sick who
didn't need to get sick.
The people who become addicted
and all those kinds of things.
And because we don't
measure any of those things,
the demands on the state get
bigger and bigger and bigger.
And then you just end up with
a fairly pointless debate
between the right and the left
about how big the state should
be.
Rather than thinking, if we
put less demands on the state,
then different
consequences would happen.
And I find that really
not well thought through.
I thought the other
thing in your book which
was fascinating, which is true
from a lot of the statistics,
is that religion
makes people happy.
There's some very clear
statistical evidence,
if you track happiness, that
people who believe in a creed
are happier.
But I thought you
made the lovely point,
is that because so many of
us reject religion now--
we live in a very
secular society-- we also
reject spiritualism.
And that's a big mistake,
because spiritualism
is an enormous part of
well-being and joy and about
future learning.
And I was really interested
in your thoughts on that.
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON: Yes,
and it's very different.
I was at LinkedIn, and I
had lunch with Reid Hoffman,
before I came here.
And he said, I call
myself a mystical atheist.
And I think a lot of people
who would say they're atheists,
when you really
scratch the surface,
they have a sense of
spirituality or mysticism
or wonder at the
mystery of life.
But they don't believe
in a particular creed.
And for me, really
what matters--
and that's what my
wonder section is about--
is to have that sense
that there is something
amazing and
mysterious about life.
That we haven't
figured it all out,
and the journey of exploring
it-- it's fascinating.
I'm personally much more
interested in an inner space
project than an
outer space project.
And I've always been
very interested in that,
ever since I was a kid.
That's why I have a whole
section on coincidences.
Because I find that even my most
militantly atheistic friends
love coincidences,
because they're
like this kind of miracles
that the universe seems
to perform anonymously.
And you can't
exactly explain them,
and you don't need to draw
grand conclusions from them.
But they're almost
like a little reminder
that we're living in
an incredibly amazing,
mysterious place.
And we forget that when
we shrink ourselves
down to our to-do list.
That's really, for
me, the worst thing.
If we completely
identify ourselves
with our jobs--
however magnificent
our jobs may be--
we are missing out
on the fullness and the grandeur
of what a human being is.
And also, I think we make bad
decisions about our lives.
I was talking to Ellen.
I just did her
show last weekend.
And we're talking about the
fact that if she had really
believed, in 2008
when she came out,
that the most important thing
in her life, who she was,
what defined her, was to be a
successful sitcom host, then
she would never have come out.
Because coming out was important
to her as an individual.
She didn't want to live with
the shame and the fear of being
found out, of not owning
up to who she was.
But when she did come out,
her sitcom was canceled,
and the phone did not
ring for three years.
After that, of course, she
did thrive, in every sense
of the word.
But she had to take that risk.
And she wouldn't
have taken it, as she
said, if she didn't think there
was something more in life
than the job.
RACHEL WHETSTONE: That's
a rather amazing story.
The last thing I wanted to
ask before throwing open
to questions, if anyone
wants to come up,
was-- Larry spoke at TED
last week, actually--
and this was about the
wisdom and knowledge section.
And it became very clear
to me, in listening
to what he was saying and
talking to him in advance,
that search is really a
crucial part of who he is.
Because he's very
curious, and he
wants to understand
about the world.
And he wants to understand
how you can improve things,
how you can create a
self-driving car, how you could
create bicycles that
were more efficient.
And that search is
a huge part of that.
He has this thought,
why is it like that,
why does it work like that?
And then he goes and
searches, searches on YouTube
and searches on Google.
And he finds all
the experts, and he
finds all the information.
And so I just thought that was
such an interesting insight
as to Google.
And it got me from
Google and search
to your section about wisdom,
and your point about discovery
and being open to new ideas.
And all those kinds of
things, which I guess you
get to do a lot in
your job, anyway.
How do you keep yourself
on a constant course
of wondering and getting
wiser about things?
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON:
Well I feel that's one
of my favorite things to do.
And I also love what
Meng is doing here,
with "Search Inside Yourself."
And I actually just
joined his board.
Meng, are you there?
[APPLAUSE]
And I'm really looking forward
to working with Meng on this.
Because for me, that
that's the search
that interests me the most.
But whatever it is that
interests you the most,
pursuing it always leaves
open amazing possibilities.
And that's what I love.
But what makes it really hard to
wonder and notice these things
is our obsession with
multitasking and avoiding
any kind of pauses and
space in our lives.
And as I've been traveling
around the world,
as "The Huffington Post" is
launching across the globe,
I'm just amazed by how
ancient wisdom has always
incorporated pauses.
I was in Japan when
we launched there.
They have the actual
concept of-- ma,
is their word, which
literally means "space."
And creating spaces in life
is an incredible regeneration
tool.
And I now have included
these spaces in my life.
I deliberately do that.
RACHEL WHETSTONE: How do
you-- I don't understand
how you write a
book, how you launch
your company all around
the world, how you're still
an active journalist, how you
can give everyone your email.
And I'm sure if I email--
[LAUGHTER]
--you'll respond.
So I find it amazing how you
can create pauses in your life.
And that you're not
constantly exhausted.
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON: Here's
what is interesting.
Well first of all,
I prioritize sleep.
And that means saying no
to things you want to do.
It's not easy.
RACHEL WHETSTONE: No, it's hard.
I think the hardest thing.
Yeah.
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON: Last night
Sheryl Sandberg Interviewed me
at the San Francisco
Symphony Hall.
And then I had to sign books.
And I would have loved to
go and have dinner with her,
but I went to bed.
Because if I had
gone out to dinner
and hadn't gotten my
at least seven hours
sleep that I need, and had
to get up early to do TV,
I would not be enjoying
being here with you now.
And I'm really enjoying
it, and I'm 100% present.
And I'm not tired.
And I hate being tired
more than I hate anything.
And I've had so many people come
up to me in the last two days--
the book just came
out two days ago,
as I've been talking
about-- I had two women who
came to me yesterday and said
the same thing, they said,
I don't remember the last
time I was not tired.
RACHEL WHETSTONE:
I feel that a lot.
Who else feels
that in this room?
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON: Rachel,
I have to become your--
Who feels the last time
that they weren't tired?
Maybe not that many of
us, but I certainly do.
Jacob does, because he spends
too much time on an airplane.
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON: Can I become
your third metric sponsor?
RACHEL WHETSTONE: Yes, please.
I'll email you once a week,
and I know that you'll--
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON: I did
Karen May-- you know Karen?
RACHEL WHETSTONE: There's Karen.
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON:
Karen, where are you?
Karen and I bonded at Wisdom
2.0 and we had dinner together.
KAREN MAY: You're
my sleep coach.
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON: And
now I'm her sleep coach.
[APPLAUSE]
RACHEL WHETSTONE:
So when did you
discover that you
hate being tired?
When did you get the
cause and effect?
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON:
I'm a bad case,
because I only got
it after I collapsed.
RACHEL WHETSTONE: And
that made you really
understand that you
just need to sleep?
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON:
That was the first time
I realized that I really--
I was one of those cases--
until my collapse, I
literally was not even aware
that I was tired all the time.
Except that all my friends
knew that if we stopped
talking for a minute,
I would fall asleep.
I would fall asleep
instantly, because I
had such a deficit of sleep
that I was operating under.
I'm a bad case.
If I can change, anybody can.
That's basically
why I am giving you
all these examples of
how bad of a case I was.
RACHEL WHETSTONE: And for the
mothers-- parents in the room.
Let's be gender neutral.
You obviously have children,
and you've obviously
had to work at being
present with them.
And what are the
tricks that you've
learned to put-- I'm not
thinking about "The Huffington
Post" now, I'm not thinking
about these things.
I'm thinking about
family and other people.
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON:
Well first of all,
let me just say that
when I look back,
I was always there
for my children.
I didn't miss things.
For a lot of my life, as I was
a writer, before "The Huffington
Post," I worked from home.
So they could walk in
at any time, et cetera.
I was always fully available.
But when I look back, I
would often be with them,
but not be with them mentality.
And that's a big problem.
So now, since my wake
up call, I really
have been there with them.
And they're now 22 and 24.
So I definitely missed
times, when I was only
physically present with them.
And the experience is so
dramatically different.
RACHEL WHETSTONE: I know,
I had that last night.
I was reading a story to
my son, "The Famous Five."
And I realized that I'd read
an entire chapter to him
out loud where I had been
writing a blog post in my head.
And I couldn't remember a single
thing that was in the chapter.
It was extraordinary, how one
can just not be present at all.
And what was interesting
is after I put him to bed,
I then couldn't actually
remember a single thing
of the blog post that I'd
been doing in my brain.
So I'd ended up failing
at both things miserably.
Although I don't think
he noticed, actually.
But I certainly noticed.
And that's why I think phones
and things can be so bad.
Because when you have
them with your kids,
you want to be present.
And just a little bit
of looking at an email,
or looking at a text message,
just gets you straight--
thinking about the other thing--
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON: Exactly.
RACHEL WHETSTONE: --rather
than being focused with them.
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON: But
you know, honestly Rachel,
I can't say enough
about how important it
is that you're
talking about that.
Or that we are having
this conversation.
Because that's what
we haven't had.
And having this
conversation, and saying
what it is that we
are experiencing,
is going to make
all the difference.
RACHEL WHETSTONE: Someone
else wants to share.
AUDIENCE: Hi welcome.
[SPEAKING GREEK]
RACHEL WHETSTONE: This
is going to be in Greek.
[LAUGHTER]
AUDIENCE: [SPEAKING GREEK]
I had a quick question.
It was more geared
around diversity.
As a fellow Greek
and a woman, I'm
sure you've been quite
diverse in your space.
And I was wondering, what are
some of the challenges you've
faced in the business world?
Or perhaps how you use
diversity as an advantage?
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON: Well
some of the challenges
I faced were inside my head.
Because for a long time, I had
a huge problem with my accent.
It was the bane of my existence.
I tried to change it.
Actually, my ex-husband
gave me the most passive
aggressive gift one birthday.
He gave me a dialect coach to
follow me around for two weeks.
And not just any dialect
coach, but Jessica Drake,
who's a famous Hollywood
dialect coach who
trained Tom Hanks
in "Forrest Gump."
And she would walk around
with me and give me notes.
Including-- my children
were young at the time--
she would put diphthong
symbols on the Dr. Seuss books.
So when I would be reading to
them I would be practicing.
And by the end of two weeks,
I was completely paralyzed.
I knew what I was
doing wrong, but I
couldn't fix it and
have a normal life.
And also, soon after that
I divorced my husband.
Not because of
the dialect coach.
[LAUGHTER]
So I'm saying that--
obviously, every company
needs to pay attention
to diversity,
for the sake of creativity,
culture, and everything.
But also, we need to
realize how much of what
happens with us immigrants,
outsiders, is in our heads.
And one of my favorite quotes
in my book is from Montaigne.
He said, there were many
terrible things in my life,
but most of them never happened.
AUDIENCE: Thank you.
RACHEL WHETSTONE: I think
there's another one.
AUDIENCE: Hi.
I'm one of the
perpetually tired,
so hopefully this is coherent.
[LAUGHTER]
AUDIENCE: So I was
wondering-- I love
the metaphor of the two-legged
stool and the third metric
being the third leg.
How do you feel your book,
and your overall philosophy,
applies to those who don't even
have access to the first two
legs?
When you think about different
socioeconomic classes--
like a single parent
working three jobs--
where does "Thrive"
fit into that?
And what can we do,
as the privileged few,
honestly, to expand
that beyond just
Google and the corporate world?
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON: Absolutely.
Great question.
I have a whole section
in the book about that.
Because I feel
everything I'm saying,
and all the tips and
practice in the book,
are ultimately about building
our own human resources
and our own resilience.
And recognizing that
whatever our circumstances,
whether we're at the top
of the world struggling
with all the demands of
success or struggling
to put food on the table,
we all have a place in us--
all of us, just by virtue
of being alive-- that
is a center of strength,
wisdom, joy, and peace.
We all have it.
We would not be alive
if we didn't have it.
Most of the time we
don't live there.
But we all have it,
and it's up to us
how quickly we can
get back to it.
So that's why I even include
in the book people who
are in extreme circumstances,
like in concentration camps.
Like Viktor Frankl who talked
about people in concentration
camps who somehow were able
to tap into that center
and therefore have
the ultimate freedom,
which is to choose your own
attitude and your own way
of thinking and responding.
And also, I have
studies-- there's
a famous study done in
Illinois, when the Bell phone
company downsized dramatically.
Like 50% of the employees
lost their jobs.
And they followed everybody
who lost their job.
And they saw that 2/3 of them
were kind of destroyed by it.
They became alcoholics,
depressed, got divorced.
1/3 of them thrived.
Not only did they
survive the downsizing,
but they went on to start
their own companies,
go to bigger and better jobs.
So how we respond to bad things
happening in our lives, even
terrible things
happening, is a function
of how resilient we are.
And how much we have developed
our own human capital.
RACHEL WHETSTONE: I though
Frankl's book was amazing,
about how some people
got broken by it,
and some people were able to
move beyond it and through it.
It's really amazing.
AUDIENCE: Thanks for coming.
My question, I think, is in
the same vein as the last one.
And I'm wondering how
you feel your life may
have been different if
you'd had this perspective
and mentality when you were
18 years old, versus now.
And if, for some
reason, it meant
you may not have been at
the top of your game--
but still a successful
journalist in some regard,
maybe differently than you are
now-- would that have been OK?
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON: So I
have to get up and answer
this question, because it's
the most important question.
And I really think this
is the key to where
the thriving, as a
movement, as a way of living
our lives differently,
works or not.
And I totally understand why
you're asking this question.
Because when you
look around, you
see that the
majority of people we
know about who are
successful are workaholics.
So you look around
and you say, hey
they succeeded because they
worked around the clock.
And they were always
available, et cetera.
But there is no
correlation, that's
what I'm here to tell you.
And again, I was having this
conversation with Oprah,
one of the super
successful people we know.
And I just taped Super
Soul Sunday with her,
which is airing on Mother's Day.
And we both agreed
that if Oprah had not
worked as hard as she did,
including, as she said,
often going to bed at
night with her clothes
on because she was too
tired to take them off,
she would still be Oprah.
But she would have had a
much better time of it.
Because what makes
her Oprah is not
that she worked
around the clock,
but all the great gifts
and talents and abilities
to connect with people.
These are hers.
It's not a function
of how hard she works.
And what makes me me is
whatever talents I have,
and what makes Rachel
Rachel are her talents.
And what makes you you are
your talents and gifts.
Whatever is our
unique personality,
that's what makes us us.
I'm not for a minute suggesting
we're not going to work hard.
I work hard now.
I'm suggesting working
stupidly, and not regenerating,
and not renewing
ourselves, which
only make us better at work.
And I think the ultimate
evidence here is in sports.
Because sports is
all about winning.
Nothing else matters, right?
And now sports is
ahead of business
in incorporating all
these thriving measures.
And sleep, and meditation,
and yoga, and pauses.
And you saw, probably, the
LeBron James meditation video
that went crazy viral.
And another way to
explain that is,
I was watching an interview
that Charlie Rose did
with Andy Murray, the
great tennis player.
And they talked about
how when you're really
recharged on the court--
do you play tennis?
RACHEL WHETSTONE: No,
I'm terrible at it,
but I do sometimes play, yes.
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON: Well
for those who play tennis,
whether good or bad,
you know that when
you're really recharged
and feel good,
the ball is coming at you
almost in slow motion.
So you have time
to deal with it,
to decide what
you're going to do,
where you're going
to hit it, et cetera.
And I feel it's a great
metaphor for life.
I know that when I'm exhausted,
its as though everything
is coming at me this way,
and I have to deal with it,
and I don't know
where I'm looking,
and it's like an onslaught.
And so this is
like the key thing
that we need to disentangle.
The fact that more
successful people we know,
or perhaps every
successful person we know,
has worked around the clock.
With the assumption,
therefore, that that's
the only way to succeed.
That's the kind of
disentangling that has
to happen in our
brains, and I think
the way to do it is through
experimenting and collecting
data.
AUDIENCE: Thank you.
RACHEL WHETSTONE:
It's also, presumably,
about phases in your life.
I mean, presumably, when
you were starting up
"The Huffington Post," that
was a very intense phase.
And now you know more
how to do the job,
there are ways in which
you can pause and do things
differently.
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON:
Right, but also,
even when you have the
most intense phases,
then you can have a pause,
regenerate, and then have
another intense phase.
I think it's the lack of
pauses and opportunities
to regenerate and
renew ourselves
that's the problem,
not the intensity.
AUDIENCE: Thank you,
Arianna, for coming.
So I've been dying to ask
this question, since you're
giving practical tips.
One of the problems this
entire room suffers from
is the volume of information
we deal with, especially email.
So I want to ask a question
about email hygiene,
as to how you do it.
Now you take the opposite
attack, as Rachel mentioned.
You stand up at
conferences and say,
email me at
arianna@huffingtonpost.com.
And you did it at Wisdom 2.0.
Since we test
everything at Google--
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON: And I got
an amazing amounts of email.
AUDIENCE: So I emailed you.
[LAUGHTER]
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON:
And I responded, right?
AUDIENCE: You
responded immediately,
connected me to the editor--
RACHEL WHETSTONE: You're
a very effective router.
AUDIENCE: Exactly.
And I went on to become
a blogger at Huffington,
and you responded
every single time.
And I have no idea
how you do it.
I just want to
know, specifically,
do you have 10 people
scanning your email
and answering for you?
Or do you actually look
at every single email?
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON: I
do have people scanning,
but I look at every email.
I don't look at
them in real time.
That's the key.
The key is what you
said about your husband.
The problem is when we allow
email to just constantly
intrude into what we're doing.
If you think of it, it
would be the equivalent,
before email, if every
time a letter came,
the postman rang the
bell and you got up
and you went out and got
the letter and opened it.
And then you went back
to what you were doing.
It doesn't make any sense.
So changing our email
protocol is absolutely key.
At "The Huffington
Post," for example,
we have new email rules.
Which is that, unless you're on
the night shift or the weekend
shift-- we're a 24/7
media operation,
so there are a lot of people
on this shift-- they are not
expected to answer
work email after hours.
If there is an emergency
and we need to reach you,
we'll text you, we'll
call you, we'll find you.
And that makes a big
difference, because I
think what's hard for people
is the expectation that they
have to be always on.
And even Goldman Sachs,
now, told its analysts
that they don't have
to work weekends,
which is a radical point.
But it shows that there's
something happening,
that it's in the
air, that they're
going to be more effective.
And fewer of them will
commit suicide, too.
Right now there's
a spate of suicides
in the finance industry.
AUDIENCE: Thank you.
RACHEL WHETSTONE: I think there
should be a rule that there's
no such thing as
an urgent email.
If you want to get hold
of someone, you ring them.
Because otherwise
you're expecting people
to walk around like
this the whole time
to catch the urgent email,
which is very unrelaxing.
AUDIENCE: Hi, Arianna.
Thank you for being here.
You've had a unique journey.
You've been successful
in a time when
we've got great political
and economic polarization.
You've been successful
on the right and the left
and certainly economically.
And this newest work, "Thrive,"
going from the ethic of work
harder to be successful
to try to be happier.
There aren't many people
who've made that transition.
And I'm often stumped by
people who are diametrically
opposed to me
philosophically, being
on the other end
of the spectrum.
Can you say something about the
major philosophical transitions
you've made in your life?
And how we might bring
others along, as well?
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON:
So philosophically,
ever since I can
remember, I've always
been really interested in
these big questions-- what
is the purpose of life,
what is the meaning of life,
why are we here?
I never considered
that these questions
had to stop when
we're in college.
I always love these
conversations.
And I fell in love with a
man, when we lived in London,
because he was always writing
about these questions.
And he was twice my age and
half my size, but I didn't care.
And I was with him
for seven years,
and it was all about
these conversations.
And I find that the difference
was that these conversations
had remained
intellectual for me,
and now I tried to apply them.
I tried to apply the
wisdom, and loved the fact
that so much of
the ancient wisdom
I have studied-- whether it's
Buddhism, or Christianity,
or mystical Sufism--
basically says the same thing.
Which is that life is shaped
from the inside out, period.
And I love, now, to be
putting this into practice.
So that's the difference.
The difference is now that
I'm applying these things
that before I just used to have
as fascinating conversations.
AUDIENCE: Hi, Arianna.
Thanks for coming.
So you talk about pauses and
building them into your life.
And I, two and a 1/2 years
ago, took a three-month break
from Google for an unpaid leave.
So I'm wondering,
what is your take,
so we can help
companies figure out
how to build in these pauses
that ultimately make people
more effective, more
visible, and just
having more energy overall?
Because I feel like that's
one of my main messages
that I want to be
sharing with people,
as I've learned a lot from that.
And I want to help, from
the corporate level,
other companies understand.
I would love to hear what
you have to say about it.
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON: Well
that is the key-- sharing
your experience.
Because we need more role models
of doing things differently.
At LinkedIn where
I was before, I
was talking to the
general counsel.
And Erica, who's one of the
more successful women lawyers,
was talking about
how she started
integrating pauses in her life.
She would go hiking
over the weekend
and see how incredible
space is created
in her and in her responses.
And then she started
doing it on Fridays.
And then she went on a call--
she had an important conference
call.
But she still went on her hike.
And she said there she was
on the conference call,
and suddenly she
saw a mountain lion.
And she was talking about
how, for the first time,
she noticed that there
were black squirrels.
And that is amazing,
because she always
thought that
squirrels were gray.
And in her office
she has this picture
of a squirrel, which is
like her kind of totem,
about, remember to look at
the color of the squirrel.
So I think hearing these
stories, among women and men
who are successful, making
room in their lives for pauses
and space, is very reinforcing.
And that's one of the
things I want to do.
And that's why I always
want to ask you all
to write about these things.
Because when you write about
taking a sabbatical for three
months, and the world
did not collapse.
And you're back, and
your job, or another job,
was still there.
It just takes a lot of the
fear out of these pauses.
And I think companies
are beginning
to realize that if you have
a good employee that you want
to keep, allowing them
to take a sabbatical
is just in the
interest of everybody.
AUDIENCE: Well that's
great, because I'm
writing a book about it.
And it's called "Pause."
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON:
Oh, fantastic.
Well let us know.
We'd love to help promote it.
AUDIENCE: So I've been
at Google for nine years.
And just to your point
about being a role model,
I thought I'd send you an
email while I was sitting
in the front row,
but decided, maybe
I'll get up here and say it.
We talk all about
working around the clock.
I've been at Google
for nine years,
and I don't work
around the clock.
I don't check my
email, I don't respond
to email in the evenings.
And I think I've done
fairly well at Google.
So I'm standing up
here, telling people
that you can do it at Google.
You don't have to be
connected to your email.
You don't have to respond
to everything in real time.
But it's hard to say
it, because you're
in a company where
everyone does it.
And so you kind of stand
out as the anomaly.
So I think we have
to figure out how
to make this a safe
environment, in Google
and the corporate world.
To talk about it, to say,
you can be successful.
You can do great things
by taking pauses,
by doing things that you're
more interested in doing
on weekends than doing
a document or an email.
But it takes people to stand
up and start talking about it,
before that can happen.
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON: Absolutely.
Until we get to a critical mass.
And so everybody who stands up,
as you did now, and says that
is bringing us closer
to the critical mass.
And also being aware of
companies and individuals who
are doing it, like the
Boston Consulting Group.
They have what they call
a red zone report, where
if consultants are
billing too many hours,
they consider them at
risk of depression,
health problems, et cetera.
So they issue a red zone
report and talk to them.
So I have a lot of those
examples that it is happening.
Just us talking about
it is accelerating
the shift that's
already happening.
This is a global shift.
And it's happening partly
because we are recognizing ,
more and more, the
price we are paying.
And partly because
more and more people
are beginning to
live differently,
make different choices,
themselves or their companies
and seeing that this has
a great positive impact.
Let me give you an example.
Mark Bertolini, the CEO of
Aetna, the third largest health
insurance company, had a
terrible skiing accident,
broke his neck, spent a year
hooked on narcotics, barely
able to function,
And then discovered
what he called his cocktail,
of yoga, meditation,
and acupuncture,
which saved him.
It had such a positive
transformative impact on him,
that he made them
available as benefits
to his 49,000 employees.
And then he brought
in Duke University
to study the cost benefit.
And they found a 7% reduction
in health care costs
and a 69-minute improvement
in productivity every day.
So you see, here we're
talking about data.
It's not his opinion, it's
not California new-agey,
flaky stuff.
It's proof.
And that's how we're going
to get a critical mass.
Thank you for telling us.
RACHEL WHETSTONE: And
I think, on that note,
we are out of time.
But thank you so much
for coming and sharing
your advice with us.
And really, really good
luck with your book talk.
Thank you so much.
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON:
Thank you so much.
Thank you, thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
