Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Thrive Global CEO Arianna Huffington on Well-Being, High Performance, Habit Development

Episode Date: October 25, 2017

This conversation is with Arianna Huffington. Arianna is the founder and CEO of Thrive Global, the founder of The Huffington Post, and the author of 15 books, including, most recently, Thrive and The Sleep Revolution.Arianna has been named to Time Magazine's list of the world’s 100 most influential people and the Forbes Most Powerful Women list.In May 2005, she launched The Huffington Post, in 2012 won a Pulitzer Prize for national reporting. In August 2016, she launched Thrive Global, a corporate and consumer well-being and productivity platform with the mission of changing the way we work and live by ending the collective delusion that burnout is the price we must pay for success.With that in mind, a big focus of this conversation is on recovery.We discuss what it’s going to take to get people to care about recovery and the specific moment that made her realize why it can't be overlooked.In many of the Finding Mastery conversations, guests have shared how hard it is for them to “turn it off” and in this conversation, Arianna shares some tactics she’s developed to improve in this area, including creating an “artificial” end to your day. We get into the keys to her continued success, how she copes with anxiety and depression, and what can be done to fix the current political climate._________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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hit your daily protein goals with something seamless, I'd love for you to go check them out. Get a free variety pack, a $25 value, and 10% off for life when you head to davidprotein.com slash finding mastery. That's David, D-A-V-I-D, protein, P-R-O-T-E-I-N.com slash finding mastery. This conversation is with Arianna Huffington. Most of you know exactly who Arianna is, and she's the founder and CEO of Thrive Global, the founder of The Huffington. Most of you know exactly who Ariana is. And she's the founder and CEO of Thrive Global, the founder of the Huffington Post. And she's authored 15 books. So her ideas are prevalent, but the formats that she's created to share and spread ideas are world-class. And her most recent

book has been deeply focused on the sleep revolution and the concepts around thriving. So Ariana, I mean, her life efforts are extraordinary. She's been named to Time Magazine's list of world's most 100 influential people and Forbes most powerful women list. How cool is that? Like, that's really cool. Not from like an external, but like, oh, how great it is to be on that list. No, no, no. But like, when we think about what she's about to share with us in this conversation, it's coming from a framework of being one of the most influential people in the world. That's really cool. And so the work in this conversation is try to unpack and understand how does she think and how is she conditioned and trained her mind to be extraordinary on a day-to-day basis. And so let's do a little timeframe thing here. In 2005, she launched the Huffington Post and in 2012 won the Pulitzer Prize for National

Reporting. And then in 2016, she launched Thrive Global. And it's a corporate and consumer well-being and productivity platform with one single mission, which is changing the way people work and live. And her idea and hope is to end the delusion that burnout is the price for success. And we talk a lot about recovery and we nod our heads to the insight and understanding that people on the world stage, they work ridiculously hard and people that are wanting to do great in their community or their family legacy or their own individual lives, like they're going to work really hard to figure some stuff out. So it's critical to have an,

it's irresponsible to not talk about the mechanisms of recovery. And that's what this conversation is about. So we discuss from her lenses, what it's going to take for people to care about recovery from a global like conversation and the specific moment for her that made her realize why it's so overlooked and why it can't be overlooked any further. And in many of the Finding Mastery conversations that we've had, guests have shared how hard it is for them to turn it off, to switch off and how hard it is to fall asleep. And in this conversation, Ariana shares tactics on how she's developed to improve in that area. And I just want to put a thought in here.

These conversations, there is no hack. We're not looking for hacks. We're not looking for shortcuts. We're not looking for expedited ways. We're looking for efficient, science-based, and thoughtful practices that help people become. And her main mission is about the recovery process. And I also want to make sure that we're not looking for, if it's right for her, it's going to be right for you. No, no, no. But to, to, to wind back the conversation,

to better understand how do people recover. And so I, as you can tell, I'm excited about this part of the conversation because recovery is essential. It's essential for all of us to have vibrance. And we get into the keys for her continued success and how she copes with anxiety and depression and what can be done to impact those in the current political climate. On top of all that, what's exceptional about Ariana is that she's on the cutting edge when it comes to feeling the zeitgeist, having an understanding across the globe of what's timely, what's relevant, what's important. And we explore that. She's got an incredible way to understand the pulse and the rhythms of what communities are calling for. And that's one of the reasons that

she's become this media maven, which is a difficult world to operate in for sure. It's cutthroat, you know, by no means is that a misunderstood in this conversation. And my hope for you is that you're able to take away strategies and processes that will allow you to have more vibrance and recover better. And let's also be very clear that there is no one tactic that's going to radically change your life. That's back to this hack conversation that I prefer us to think about the mental skills and the self-discovery process as a tapestry. And for some people, you know, mindfulness is a bigger part of the tapestry. And for some recovery is smaller

because they're just more efficient, maybe genetically or the way that they run their life. But for some of us, recovery needs to be a central pillar. And so all of the elements of mindset and mental skills and psychology are like pieces that are knitted and stitched together on this tapestry of becoming the best version of you, becoming you in an authentic way. And so this one, this conversation is really about the stress recovery balance and ways to get that thing right. So I've gone way too far on this introduction. Let's get right into this conversation with Arianna Huffington. Arianna, how are you? I'm very good. I'm very happy to be with you. I just love what you're doing. I feel we're so aligned. I have so admired what you and

Coach Carol have brought to the world and how data-based you've made it. Well, you know, this is an honor for me to sit with you and have this discussion because you've made a real dent in the world about well-being. And so your focus on sleep has been significant. And this is an honor to really learn how you've created media and how you've changed it. And you've been part of that change. And so congratulations, first and foremost, of everything that you've done in the world of digital media. Well, thank you so much. I'm very grateful for the way you have demonstrated the connection, which is very central to what we're building here at Thrive Global, between well-being and

performance. Because for so many decades, we've thought of performance and well-being as somehow being in opposition to each other. Even the term work-life balance, if you think of it, suggests that somehow you have to balance the two, while the truth is that they rise or fall in tandem. And we now have all the data to show that. And of course, the world of athletes and elite sport shows it better than anything that you have the stats to prove the impact of having a good night's sleep, of getting to the field fully recharged, the impact that it has on the game. You know, you bring up a good point because everybody on

the world saves a sport. Not everybody. 95%. There's always the freaks of talent that are always the outliers. But most people in elite sport, they work really hard. It's an assumption. Of course, you need to work hard. Like that happens day in and day out. So we talk more about recovery than we do about training hard because they all work hard. Right. Yeah. So because that's what you need to change the mindset around recovery. And that's why I love actually the new Under Armour slogan, which is win, rest, repeat. I haven't seen it. I love that.

Win, rest, repeat. Yeah, they're right on the money with it. I think the idea of rest and recovery has been so alien in the world of sports, in the world of business, in the world of achievement, that we need to keep reinforcing it before we can make a real dent. Okay, so let's stay on this for just a moment, because I want to understand what led you to be a media maven, so to speak, like one of the tip of the arrow contributors to changing the way we consume information. Or maybe it's fair to say you've maybe not created that, but were certainly part of that swell in a significant way at Huffington Post. Okay. So this idea of sleep though and recovery, what is it going to take in this digital transforming,

transforming world, this Insta gratification, you know, uh, ridiculous cadence that we're on right now as, as a, I don't know, uh, performers trying to keep our head above water, right? What is it going to take? I think it's going to take two things. And that's really what our Thrive Global Media Platform is about. The first is data and science to demonstrate that what we're saying about the connection between well-being, taking care of ourselves, recharging ourselves and performance, that connection is proven by all the latest science and all the latest data. So that's one thing. And the second thing is new role models, storytelling.

Because human beings learn by a combination of these two things, data and stories. And so what we try to do here is to bring together new role models. You know, people in the arena who are succeeding but who are also taking care of themselves. So, for example, when Jeff Bezos wrote a piece for us and the title was Why Am I Getting Eight Hours of Sleep a Night

is Good for Amazon Shareholders and he made the connection between the amount of sleep he gets and the quality of his decisions. It went crazy viral. And so many people mentioned it to me as a proof point that, hey, this is a different way to look at how I manage my time. Eric Schmidt wrote a similar piece. And then Selena Gomez wrote about why and how she does a regular digital detox.

So whether it's sleep or digital detox or meditation or nutrition or movement, having people who are in the arena who write and talk about it, combined with the latest science on the subject, for me are the two major ingredients in creating a culture shift. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Momentus. When it comes to high performance, whether you're leading a team, raising a family,

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story a little bit, but your head hit the desk in a dramatic fashion. And you said, what am I doing with my life? Is that where it started for you? Yes. It's 10 years ago. I was two years into building the Huffington Post, which incidentally we launched in this very building where now I'm launching Thrive Global. That's very cool. And I was a single mom. I had two teenage daughters with all the problems that go with teenage daughters. And I thought that the one thing that I could sacrifice was myself,

sleep, taking care of myself. So one morning, my body gave up, and I literally got up from my desk because I was cold, went to get a sweater, and I crashed. I collapsed. My head hit the desk. I broke my cheekbone. I got four stitches on my right eye. And that's the way my book Thrive opens up. So what happened after that is that I

really sort of started, as you said, looking at my life and saying, is this what success looks like? What am I doing wrong? What am I missing? And being kind of a researcher, I started studying, looking at the latest science, talking to people. And as I went around talking about the subject around the world, one of the things people particularly wanted to talk about was sleep. Because even if people don't want to meditate or work out or eat right, everybody has to sleep. The brain will shut you down if you don't. Exactly. It literally will shut you down. And people have more and more problems with sleep, either falling asleep or staying asleep.

So I decided to write an entire book on that, The Sleep Revolution. And after that, I really felt that this is like my mission. And this is what I want to work on 100% as a hard decision leaving half post because I love it. It's like my third child. I have two daughters and half post. But I felt that at half post post I could only make sort of incremental changes and improvements but here I could really help change the way we work and live and I consider burnout a global epidemic and with tremendous casualties you know 75 percent of health care costs and health care problems are stress related and and preventable. So think of how much suffering we can alleviate if we first of all change people's thinking. I know I love

that you talk about mindset because it starts with mindset. Yeah, well, I don't know if it starts there. I think that you're right about that thoughts drive emotions and behaviors and performance. Like, so if we move up the chain, thoughts are the most significant lever that we can pull on. And what I love, but I would also, I would agree with your position as well, that it does begin with sleep because a fatigued brain, a fatigued organism, according to research, Han Selye, which I'm sure you're familiar with when acute stress happens. And then there's chronic stress that stays with it, there's a predictable trend for organisms is that they go from fatigue to staleness to burnout to early death. And in that fatigue state, we're not as good as a thinker or doer that we'd like to be. So I think it does start with getting this recovery system right.

And it is a full-time job in and of itself. Okay, so do you have a couple really influential ways that you've shifted your practice to value recovery? Are there some things that you've done to do it? Yes, absolutely. The most important thing is navigating my relationship with my devices because the truth is that we are all wired 24-7. And we need to declare an artificial end to the day. I love that thought.

Because our day never ends. It used to end at sundown. Yes, or it used to end when we left the office. Now, none of that is true. So for me, my ritual, I believe in ritual. I believe that we all learn through ritual and build habits through ritual. So I believe in building a transition to sleep

the way we do with children. You know, you read them Good Night Moon, you sing them a lullaby, you give them a bath. So we need to create our own ritual. And mine starts with picking a time, ideally 30 minutes before I'm going to turn off the light, but it may be 10 minutes, whatever is possible, when I turn off my phones and charge them outside my bedroom. So we've created a little charging station that looks like a phone bed. Actually, we have here one in front of us. It has room for 10 phones and two iPads. And you put them under the little blanket,

and you tuck them in, and you say good night. And it's a great ritual for me this is like the end of my day and i know that i won't see my phone until the morning after i wake up meditate and set my intention for the day and then i go to my phone what does your meditation practice look like so i my meditation practice is very much based on my breath. It's like the inhale and exhale. I've also done TM. I've also meditated with the Sanskrit sound. So I've been meditating ever since I was 13, which is 3,000 years ago. So I'm a big believer in meditation and I feel that it makes a huge difference in our lives and in the course of the day to be able to interrupt the cumulative nature of stress

by having even five minutes where we can take a pause, focus on the rising and falling breath. It makes such a difference to the day. Here we have a nap room which has a nap pod with a privacy visor and noise-canceling headphones if people want to take a break if they're tired during the day. Yeah. I think the concept of who's going to nap and who's going to take time out of their day for quality sleeping and the old model that we need to achieve more to be more, you've been disrupted in that model, disruptive in that model. So the new model seems very clear

to me that we need to be more present, be more authentic, be more ourselves, be more grounded, and then let the flow of doing come from there. I love that. In fact, I have a little saying on my desk that says life is a dance between making it happen and letting it happen. Oh, that's good. Yeah. Okay. All right. So that, okay. That's a nice little segue into, um, some people have beautiful and wonderful and game changing ideas and then somehow they don't get to the execution phase and you've got an amazing set of ideas that you've figured out how to get to execution

and not only execution in a moderately successful way, but a world class successful way. So how have you gone from thought? I want to change my behaviors and thinking around sleep and recovery. And maybe I could do that for other people to actually creating that execution, like the how, how have you done that? So for me, and that's kind of the basis of all our IP here is micro steps. We know from modern science that human beings change through micro steps. You know, it's not like an overnight going from A to Z. It's like, what are the little steps that we take habitually, ideally every day, that begin to change our behavior? And when the rewards are clear, we get reinforcement

for changing our behavior. So I mentioned, you know, the transition to sleep or waking up in the morning and taking even one minute you know i believe in starting really small take one minute before you go to your phone to get centered to to focus again on what you're grateful for your intention for the day and i feel that it makes such a difference and when we begin to take these steps. And we have a lot of products here to make it easier for people. Like I created a parody of Goodnight Moon called Goodnight Smartphone that you can download for free from Audible. That helps you take this step of saying goodbye to your phone, which is the portal to all your problems, all your projects, etc. With the micro steps and micro goals, do you write them down?

Do you discuss them as a team? How do you stay on track? In the work we're doing with corporations and with consumers, we have 10 pathways ranging from well-being, gratitude, mindfulness, financial literacy. And the pathways are broken into journeys and the journeys are broken into microsteps. So you can start from whichever pathway feels more relevant to you. A lot of people actually start with the pathway of unplugging from technology because that's become a major pain point for people. And the micro steps involve you having dinner with your family, you know, turn your phone off, don't put it on the table. The research shows that even if it's

turned off, if it's on the table, it changes the nature of conversation. Yeah. And it changes our attention. It changes our attention. You know what we do? Well, that is good science. And one of the things that will morph that science into application is we'll put cell phones on the table at dinner. This is like an alpha competitive environment. And we'll put the cell phones on and whoever reaches for it first, they've got to pick up dinner. So there's a little pain point in there. I think it's great. Yes, exactly. Sort of whatever it takes. I think we can get so creative. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Cozy Earth. Over the years, I've learned that recovery doesn't

just happen when we sleep. It starts with how we transition and wind down. Over the years, I've learned that recovery doesn't just happen when we sleep. It starts with how we transition and wind down. And that's why I've built intentional routines into the way that I close my day. And Cozy Earth has become a new part of that. Their bedding, it's incredibly soft, like next level soft. And what surprised me the most is how much it actually helps regulate temperature. I tend to run warm at night, and these sheets have helped me sleep cooler and more consistently, which has made a meaningful difference in how I show up the next day for myself, my family, and our team here at Finding Mastery.

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Head to calderalab.com slash finding mastery and use the code finding mastery at checkout for 20% off your first order. That's calderalab, C-A-L-D-E-R-L-A-B.com slash finding mastery. Are you a competitor? Do you identify with being a competitor, more cooperative, a spiritual person, a businesswoman, probably all of those? But how do you identify with the word competition? In my business, I identify with being consumer obsessed and learning from our consumers, whether they are corporations or individuals, learning what they respond to, learning what resonates with them, and constantly improving our offerings. I'm much more oriented towards that than towards looking at my competitors. I don't really think of competitors because I feel that when you're looking at competitors,

you're not really innovating. And I believe in innovating and looking forward. And I love what Baryshnikov, the ballet dancer, said. He said, I don't try to dance better than anyone else. I try to dance better than myself. You had it right. Yeah. And so the idea of listening and knowing your potential, listening to and knowing your potential is really hard to do for people. And so it is like a shortcut or some unbecoming pathway to say, well, if Johnny or Jane can do 15 turns, pirouettes,

right? Then maybe I could do 16, but maybe your potential is that you could do 22 and change the world through your craft. Okay. Have you reached, are you close to, or are you far away from your potential? You know, I see myself and I see everyone else as a work in progress. I feel while, while we're on this earth, we are constantly evolving and we are improving animals. And I love that. So I never think of some kind of ultimate end goal, but more about incremental improvements, changes. And that includes bringing more joy into my life. You know, we talk about achievements, we talk about performance.

For me, the other part we don't often talk about is more joy. And life ultimately is also about that, bringing more loving, more intangible qualities into everything we're doing. Okay, on that note, if we were to take that thought and micro steps for change, those two thoughts together combined with this idea of potential and then springboard into a conversation about what's happening in the United States right now, you know, the political climate of divide and divisiveness and what's, I was just part of it with the NFL where many, most, I should say, if not all people were deeply offended on sport teams when the president had said, you should not, um, should not take a knee during the national anthem. It was interpreted as,

um, don't have a voice and just do your job, entertain us, which was highly insulting for many people. So many teams, as you witnessed, decided to stay in for the national anthem, which was a cost for many people's, you know, care for the national anthem. But to make a statement, some people took knees, some people locked arms. Where do you think our future politically is going? And like for people. And I'd love to just get your worldview for the future. Well, first of all, I think it's very powerful when people choose to take a risk and express themselves

and stand up for what they value beyond the game or beyond their job. So I thought this was an incredible manifestation of that and very, very powerful. I feel that what's happening politically challenges us in very deep ways. It challenges us to build our resilience, to build our response, both practically, but also how can we make a difference without moving into hatred? I think it's a big challenge, but I really believe we have had so many leaders in the past who showed us the way, whether it's Martin Luther King or Gandhi, to use like the giants, that it is possible. And it's also an amazing way to grow as human beings.

It is such a, your statement is a real powerful reminder of the importance of having a vision, investing in oneself and in others and doing it without harming others, right? Like some of the titans of, I don't know, global change have done, including many of the spiritual leaders. They didn't, you know, Confucius, Buddha, Jesus, you know, they didn't use violence as part of change. They used words and actions. So on the words and actions piece, do you have a philosophy that guides your life? Do you have a set of principles that shape your thoughts and decisions? Yes, I really believe that all of us have a centered place in us of wisdom, love, strength, and peace.

That it's our destiny as human beings to tap into it. And modern life makes it harder and harder to tap into it because we are perpetually distracted. Our attention span is now shortened than the attention span of the goldfish, apparently, about eight seconds. As the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh said, it's never been easier to run away from ourselves. So I believe profoundly, and that guides my life and my work, that we do have that place in us.

Nobody lives there all the time. Maybe if you're a saint or a completely enlightened being, you do, but the rest of us, we are in and out of that place. And I feel it's just an incredible aspiration to be able to spend more time in that place, in that center of love, peace, strength, and wisdom. And it becomes particularly important at a time when we're drowning in data and starved for wisdom. Yeah. And so the thought that it's never been easier to run from ourselves. You've, in counterintuitive ways, you've had a play in that. You've had a hand in that by the mass amount of content that your platforms have produced or been part of producing. So how do you grapple with that? I think it's different to produce news in different areas of lives and completely different to produce ways to hijack people's

minds and get them attached to how wide is the distribution of the salad they ate at lunch or whatever it is they're promoting on social media. And I think what that has done also is led to an incredible amount of comparison, like people comparing their own lives to the way somebody else's life looks on Instagram. And that has led to a lot of problems, a lot of mental health issues, too. Depression, anxiety, fear. When you notice depression, anxiety, and fear within yourself, and you know that the core principles are love and wisdom and joy and peace for you, how do you bring it back when you're off? And maybe this is a way that we can redefine failure, right? It's not losing a job or losing something, but losing your way. Yeah, I love that.

And so how do you, what are your, what are the process that brings you back to your best? So interestingly enough, and this has been probably the hardest thing for me, is acceptance. Instead of judging the hell out of myself, which is my tendency, I can't believe you're doing that. I can't believe you're reacting that way after all these years of work you've done on yourself. I can hear that voice in my head that I call the obnoxious roommate out of that place that I know is my birthright. And now my goal is to get back there. And the sooner I stop judging myself, the sooner I'll be able to get back there. And I have a toolbox. We all have a toolbox. I mean, my toolbox involves meditation, a hot bath, a walk in the park, reading one of my favorite books. You know, there's a whole host of things that I can do.

You know, the mindfulness practices, many people think that the moment in which we wander away that we failed from the breath of the single point, that's not what it is. It's the moment we notice that we're off. That's the moment of awareness to go, Oh, look, I have awareness of my inner experience. Let me bring it back now. Absolutely. That sounds like that's how you exactly because in the end, it's all about course correcting. I love that. I love that phrase. Okay. One more question about a difficult conversation. You're a woman, I'm a man, how are we getting this so wrong in society right now? You know, it's interesting. We all talk about gender parity, gender equality, and the truth is that we haven't really moved the needle enough.

And I think part of it has to do with the world of work, that workplaces were designed by men. And they are really, in many ways, inhospitable to women. And we need to change that. I mean, if your workplace has two ping pong tables, but not a corner where women who are mothers can pump milk. There is something wrong with that. If the only way to bond with your teammates is a drunken party, there's something wrong with that. If the only language you use is war metaphors,

you know, killing it or crushing it, one throat to choke, there's something wrong with that. So I think changing the environment in which women contribute and participate is going to make a big difference in bringing about greater gender equality. I love that thought. And on that thread, what, and I don't know if this is a work-related question or if this is outside of work, but what has been one of the greatest challenges in your life? So definitely one of the greatest challenges for me has been accepting failure, accepting my own failings and learning from them and moving on. And my mother used to say failure is not the opposite of success. It's a stepping stone to success. Okay.

You know, so that probably provides a lot of space for you to say, okay, well, if it's a stepping stone, I'm going to afford the chance to take a risk and have failure. And then because I'm going to be able to step on that stone and go further in whatever efforts I have. Okay. Last question for you is somehow, and it's almost from a distance magical. And I know it's, I know it's not, but somehow you have the pulse of the zeitgeist. You've done it repeatedly. How have you done that? How have you tapped in to what the world is calling for and done it in a way that is eloquent and potent as an output? Well, I find that the more connected I am with myself, the more connected I am with everyone else

because there is that unity among us. And for me, that's really the key to remain connected with myself and as a result to see what's the need that I can help fill. Brilliant. Ariana, thank you for your time. Thank you so much. And thank you for all you're doing. It's been fun. And so congratulations on everything and look forward to the journey together. Thank you so much. Thank you. All right. Thank you so much for diving into another episode of Finding Mastery with us. Our team loves creating this podcast and sharing these conversations with you.

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