The School of Greatness - 317 Arianna Huffington on The Science of Sleep and Success

Episode Date: April 18, 2016

"Sleep is a performance enhancer." - Arianna Huffington If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes, video, and more at http://lewishowes.com/317

This is episode number 317 with number one New York Times best-selling author, Ariana Huffington. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro-athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Welcome everyone to today's episode. We have a very special guest today.

Her name is Ariana Huffington. She's here in the studio in Los Angeles, Greatness Studio. And she is the co-founder and president and editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post Media Group and author of 15 books. She's also been named to Time Magazine's list of the world's 100 most influential people and the Forbes most powerful women list. Her 15th book is called The Sleep Revolution, Transforming Your Life One Night at a Time.

And it's all on the science, history, and mystery of sleep. And it just came out in April 2016. It was an instant New York Times bestseller. We cover a lot today about sleep, the science behind sleep, and how the recovery is important for athletes when you sleep, the science behind sleep, and how the recovery is important for athletes when you sleep, how mental and emotional issues are linked to sleep deprivation, what the most important thing you can do before you go to bed, Ariana's ideal nightly routine to do before going to sleep, how drowsy driving is killing more people than drunk driving, and so much more in this powerful

interview. If you enjoy this interview, if you're listening to it right now, make sure to share it out with your friends, lewishouse.com slash 317 to have them listen along, post it on Twitter, Facebook, and make sure to tag Ariana Huffington on Twitter and Facebook as well. I hope you guys enjoy this one. Make sure to dive in, take notes, and stay awake on episode number 317 with the one, the only, Ariana Huffington. Welcome back, everyone, to the School of Greatness podcast. Very excited about our guest. Her name is Ariana Huffington, and she's got a new book out called The Sleep Revolution,

Transforming Your Life One Night at a Time. Make sure to go grab the book right now. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited. We got a chance to do an interview about a year ago, I think it was, and we only had about 15 minutes, so now we have a little more time. I'm excited to actually dive in and talk more about the power of sleep, but also why you started getting into sleep,

why it's important to enhance your performance for athletes, also for entrepreneurs, also for busy moms who say they have no time, why it's important for everyone. So first off, thank you for being here. And second off, let me get a question out of the way. You sold a company, Huffington Post, to AOL, right? Right. And I think that was $315 million. Is that correct?

Now, during the time you were building this company, you didn't sleep much from what I remember, right? The first two years. First two years. Because we launched Huffington Post in 2005. So we launched the Huffington Post in 2005, and in April 2007, I collapsed from sleep deprivation and exhaustion and hit my head on my desk and broke my cheekbone. In the middle of the day? In the morning, actually. Okay, wow. Not even in the middle of the day.

of the day. And that was the beginning of my starting on this journey of re-evaluating my life, of looking at what were the things I needed to change in my life. And for me, the keystone habit that I changed and everything else became easier was sleep. I went from four to five hours to eight hours, 95% of the time. You know, I'm a work in progress. I'm perfect. And I suddenly sort of started looking around and seeing that I was not alone, that millions of people were burnt out, and that we live in a culture which is fueled by burnout. And it's kind of amazing because the new science now is so conclusive that sleep is a performance enhancer,

that everything in our lives gets better, our productivity, our health, our relationships, our happiness. our health our relationships our happiness yeah so why is it so hard for us to actually do something that is free and available to us and i think that's partly because we've created this culture mostly created by you guys not not you personally but man you know that's that um that basically wears this sleep deprivation like a badge of honor. Like I'm too busy and too important to sleep or I'll sleep when I'm dead or you snooze, you lose, you know, all these things. And basically they're all wrong.

Yeah. It's kind of interesting. It's kind of like the food industry in a sense where they told us to, you know, the breads and grains and milks and all these things were actually good for us, but now the science is like, well, actually, that's what's causing all the cancer or making you exhausted is like the gluten, dairy, or whatever. So it's kind of like we have to relearn. And even if you go further back, you know,

it's kind of amazing to look at some of the ads in the 1950s by doctors selling cigarettes. Right, of course. And you had like literally doctors in white coats saying, mental cigarettes refresh your throat and give you cancer. So, yes, it's like we often live under false assumptions. Yes. Modern science has disproven them. This has been the golden age of scientific findings around sleep.

Right. And it's very recent. The first scientific sleep center was founded in 1970 at Stanford. And now there are 2,500. Sleep centers. What's a sleep center? Basically, they all, they study different aspects of sleep, what happens to the brain. At Stanford, Sherry Ma studied sports and sleep.

And she was the one who became the pioneer of proving that sleep was a legal performance enhancer without negative side effects. Illegal, yeah, yeah, exactly. And so you have Andre Iguodala, for example, who had such a fantastic year despite his injury. Can I just see a photo with you and him? Yes, I interviewed him at Stanford, the Golden State Warriors MVP. Yeah. Absolutely considers his sleep what got him the MVP title. Right.

And he's kind of so disciplined about it. I talked to his wife, too, you know, getting his eight hours, no screens or TV in the bedroom, temperature at 67 degrees, everything dark, you know, all the things that I include in the book, all the tips and techniques of in the book, all the tips and techniques of how to get a great night's sleep. And he's practicing. And when he's on the road, making sure that he has as many of these things available to

him so that he can actually get the restorative sleep that makes him better on the court. What's the science behind recovering the muscles with whatever it is, seven or eight hours of sleep with a cool temperature, the blackout, you know, calming the mind? What's the science behind that? What do doctors or scientists say about how it actually enhances the muscles or the heart or the brain or all the things? Well, it enhances everything, both the physical body that needs that recovery time.

In fact, the more intensely you work out, the more essential the recovery time is for the body. But also, what happens to the brain? Because as you know, being an athlete yourself, winning is not just a function of your muscles. It's also a function of your brain. and I talk in the book about how if you miss a shot or you make a mistake, which every athlete does in the course of a game, if you actually keep replaying that in your head while the game is going on, that's a recipe for disaster.

And if you're sleep-deprived, you're more likely to dwell on your failures, to dwell on your fears and anxieties. I mean, whether you're an athlete or a busy mom, you know, you're more likely to be irritable and cranky. And all the things that make life much harder are aggravated when you're sleep deprived. Yeah, it has a lot to do with meditation too. You know, when we don't meditate and we're not being mindful, we are more irritated, we're more stressed out, we're not recovering, we're not relaxing the mind and the body. I think sleep and meditation go hand in hand. Do you meditate as well? I do meditate, yes, and I love my meditation. But the thing about sleep is whether you meditate or not, whether you work out or not, everybody has to sleep.

Right, exactly. So everybody has a relationship with sleep. So the question is how can we make this relationship the best it can be so that every other aspect of our life is enhanced? Do you feel like, you know, in 2005, 2007, you said you started to realize that you were, like, crashing and all these things were happening, right? Well, I didn't actually realize until I collapsed. Until you collapsed, 2007, right? That's what I said, 2007. That's what is so interesting.

How many years were you kind of living this lifestyle of not paying attention to your sleep? Well, it would come and go. Okay. So, you know, I started writing the book about how I was brought up by a mother who revered sleep in a one-bedroom apartment in Athens, Greece. She wanted to sleep all the time. No, no, not at all. She just brought us up believing that if we get enough sleep, we're going to be better at school. Okay. And we're going to be happier.

Right. better at school, and we're going to be happier. And, in fact, she kind of knew that because we all wanted to maintain our weight or lose weight depending on the time, this was a great way to do that. She wasn't a scientist, but the modern science now validates that if you want to lose weight, sleep enough. It's not about more. Actually, what is interesting, modern science tells us you cannot oversleep unless you are an narcoleptic or suffering from severe depression.

If you are just going on about your life, your body wakes you up when it's fully recharged. You can't oversleep? If you oversleep, does it hurt you if you get 12 hours of sleep? No, if you get 12 hours of sleep, you're probably making up some sleep deficit. Gotcha. Okay. You know, once you've paid your sleep deficit

and you are in a regular routine, your body will naturally wake you up. Gotcha. Okay. Interesting. So your mom kind of had this intuition. So my mom had that intuition and brought us up like that. But then when I went to England to

get my degree and then to New York, I just bought into the prevailing culture. Which was that... The driven mindset. Yes. That if you're going to succeed, yes, then you need to sacrifice sleep. And really, now for me,

it's a little bit like choosing to get to your destination in a broken-down truck, you know, or a gas-guzzling car instead of a Tesla. Tesla's running so smooth. I mean, when you are fully recharged, it's like there you are in your Tesla, going to your destination faster, more efficiently, and also enjoying the journey. Yeah.

So that's why I've become such a sleep evangelist. And this crusade that we've launched, the book is one part of it, but we're taking the book and the sleep revolution to 100 colleges to convince millennials of the importance of sleep. Are you seeing that a lot of millennials are not sleeping, that they still have this pull-all-nighter mentality like in college for finals and tests? Oh, absolutely. Is that happening still?

It's happening and with huge and dangerous consequences. And that's what I wanted. I structured the book. So you start with the crisis and give people an overview of how dangerous sleep deprivation is, how prevalent it is, and how it's also at the heart of a lot of mental health issues. Really? Like people who are depressed or anxious. At the heart of it is sleep deprivation.

So they're linking the diseases that we're having, just the mental, emotional diseases The mental and the physical. Obviously, sleep deprivation is directly linked to obesity, diabetes, hypertension and heart disease, even cancer, and definitely Alzheimer's. Really? Mm-hmm. Because when we sleep is the time when our brain washes away the toxins that have built during the day. Interesting.

Is it more powerful to have vivid dreams or to not dream at all? Is there a difference? Does it matter? Is it more powerful to have vivid dreams or to not dream at all? Is there a difference? Does it matter? Much more powerful, obviously, to remember your dreams because it means you're getting enough sleep. If you remember them. Yeah. If you are sleep-deprived, you're much less likely to remember your dreams.

Really? I have a whole section on dreams. Dreams are a great source of insights. A lot of inventors have come up with their inventions in dreams. Larry Page came up with the idea for Google. In a dream? In a dream. Wow.

Okay. Paul McCartney came up with Let It Be in a Dream. All the lyrics were written in the dream. Interesting. So whatever it is you're doing. But you're saying if we're not sleeping well, then we're not going to have dreams we can remember, or maybe there'll be more nightmares than dreams.

Well, you're much less likely to remember them if you're not sleeping well. And do we know, and maybe we're not aware of this, but do we know about why we have nightmares and why we have positive dreams? Yeah, I mean, basically, dreaming is a time when we either process a lot of the incomplete emotions of the day, or we process our anxieties about the future, or the more insightful dreams that tap into our wisdom.

So it depends. You know, it's the whole gamut. That's what I love about my sleep time now, that I go to sleep and I don't know what the movie is going to be tonight. Right, exactly. But it's a little bit like rekindling the romance with sleep. But I wanted first to convince people of why it is important. I think we are so data-driven,

and the science chapter gives you all the data you want to really believe it is important. I think we are so data-driven, and the science chapter gives you all the data you want to really believe it's important. And after you believe it's important, and after we go through the history chapter that shows you why we started devaluing sleep in the first industrial revolution when we thought human beings could be like machines and minimize downtime, then you have the second half of the book, which is all about how to.

How to maximize. Yes, how to maximize your performance, how to maximize your sleep. And there are tons of tips. Right, resources. Resources, exactly. But for me, the Right, and resources. Resources, exactly. But for me, the key, the most important thing, if you're going to do one thing, it's to turn off all your devices.

Yeah. Start with five minutes before you're going to turn off the lights. Just have a little demarcation line between your day, life life and your sleep. Right. Why is that important to turn off the screens and TVs? Because otherwise what happens is our bodies may be exhausted, but our minds remain in a stimulated mode.

You know, blue light stimulates the brain. But also, beyond the blue light, it's just that we haven't given our brain some opportunity to power down. Yeah. And that's what wakes people up in the middle of the night. Even if they go to sleep, because they're physically exhausted, their brains wake them up with whatever it is they haven't processed. You know, all the mind chatter. Yeah. So, I think what is key is to have a little transition to sleep. And it can be a really simple and short transition.

Mine is about 30 minutes now. But I believe in microscopic steps. You know how it is. You build habits with very small changes. Don't try to do this big jump. Don't try to make the big jump. Don't try to make the big jump. Just little things that you can stick to. And then, little by little, the kind of person that you become when you are fully recharged becomes like a magnet.

And you want it all the time. I want to be that person. I don't like now. I don't like myself when I'm the other kind of person. When I'm sleep deprived, when I'm the other kind of person, when I'm sleep-deprived, when I'm irritable, when you tell me something and I get upset. Or you're just slow or whatever. Oh, yes.

You make mistakes. You're not as sharp in every possible way. I mean, I've never been drunk and I've never been hungover. I've never gone that far. And I'm curious, is being sleep-deprived, I've been been drunk and I've never been hungover. I've never gone that far. And I'm curious, is being sleep deprived, I've been sleep deprived, does it feel like you're hungover in the morning? Is that what it feels like? It feels like you're hungover.

And also, in terms of the physical changes, the cognitive changes, scientists have found that it is actually absolutely equivalent. So they have found that if you're up 17 to 19 hours, which is not abnormal for a lot of us, you're not legally drunk, but you're close to being drunk. Really? Yes. And if you're up for 24 hours, then you are legally drunk. Really? Yes. Okay. so maybe I've been drunk by being sleep deprived. In another way. Yeah, it's in another way. Okay, so tell me if it's like, obviously we're not perfect and we try to do things the best we can.

Right, we're all works in progress. We're all work in progress. But let's say it's like you get a chance to have the perfect night's sleep. Like you get a night that's like, I'm going to follow every habit that I talk about. I'm going to set everything up beautifully. I'm going to have flowers on the pillowcases, whatever it is. Right. What would be the ideal routine for you in terms of going to bed and then waking up? Great. I love that. So I'll give you my routine. I'll give you my nightly ritual.

But what I recommend for everybody watching is to create your own ritual. I mean, it's almost like I give you a menu and you need to experiment and see what is it that does it for you. For me, it's like 30 minutes before I'm going to go to sleep, turning off all my devices

and gently escorting them out of the bedroom. Escorting them out. They'll be there in the morning. You put them on a horse. You put them in their little homes outside the bedroom. Turning off the lights, you know, the bright lights, making it sort of, I just have one nightstand light

and one light in the bathroom. Then having a really, really hot, wonderful bath. Really? One bath? Yeah. With Epsom salts, which are very relaxing, and flickering candles. But if you guys don't like baths, have a shower. I don't like baths.

Okay. I've got one. I've never used it. Yeah. You're going to have a shower. Yeah. And hot is better than cold. Oh, yeah. You basically want to slow down your brain and soothe your muscles.

Everything is like powering you down. I guess when you're going to a hot tub late at night, I always feel ready to sleep. Exactly. Exactly. The hot tub is a perfect... To do a hot tub, do you have a hot tub? If you have a hot tub, go to a hot tub. I don't have a hot tub, so I do the bath.

I don't have a hot tub, so I do the bath. And then put on, if you sleep naked, you sleep naked. But if you wear PJs or nightdress or whatever, make sure that you wear clothes for bed. I used to sleep in my gym clothes. Really? And then your brain gets these confusing messages. Are we going to the gym or are we powering down? So even if you're a t-shirt, make sure it's not a t-shirt you wear to the gym.

And then in bed, I only read physical books. I don't read anything on screens. And anybody who is reading The Sleep Revolution in bed, I would consider it a personal victory if you actually fall asleep while reading it. Read 20 pages a night, fall asleep. Whatever, 10 pages, you get drowsy, you let the book drop, you turn off the light, you're asleep. So that is incredibly important.

For those who have children, you know that that's how you put your child to bed. You don't just drop your child in bed. You give them a bath. You put them in their PJs. You read to them. You kind of transition. It's like the good night moon. You say good night to everything, which is really a demarcation line between your day with all its stresses,

however blessed our lives may be. Every day has stresses, challenges, difficult things, and incompletions. There's nobody who has any interesting job or is a busy mom who finishes the day and says, I did absolutely everything that was on my list or I should have done. Never. So you need to somehow tell your brain and your body we did what we did

this day. And now the day has come to a close. And we need to fully recharge. Cross the line, right? Cross the line. We need to cross that line. Not be in bed on the screen thinking about work and then trying to sleep at the same time,

creating a cut-off line. I just really, I wish I could sort of convey that feeling that I absolutely, totally believe now to everybody watching because I promise that if you do this, every aspect of your life will improve. If you have any lingering doubt that you're not going to be as productive, just try it.

Because it's like getting in the Tesla. You're going to get to your destination faster, right? Smoother. Cleaner. With kind of consuming less energy. Yes. Yeah.

And also the advantage of kind of energy that is self-renewing is a little bit like

the self-renewing energy of sleep. Right, right. Why reading a book before night? Why would that? I would think that would be like you're still turning your brain on. Well, it depends on what you're reading.

You see, I don't read anything that has to do with work or media or politics. You know, I read poetry. I read novels, not even modern novels. I like to read like Jane Austen or Another World. Okay. And you read it, but you're not really trying to figure out their problems. Sure, sure, sure. Yeah, yeah.

Okay. I love it. And what about watching movies before bed? No. Don't do that. No. No. No movies.

No movies. No screens. What about if you watch it before 30 minutes is up? Yes, that's fine. No problem. You can watch a movie and then 30 minutes. Exactly. You got it. No movies. No screens. What about if you watch it before 30 minutes is up? Yes, that's fine. No problem. You can watch a movie and then 30 minutes. Exactly. You got it.

Very good. So I don't lay in bed with the TV on and pass out. Exactly. That's what happens. A lot of people pass out. And what happens then often is that the TV stays on and then it wakes them up. And then you're suddenly w walking up by a noise. And the minute you're walking up abruptly, your body moves into a fight-or-flight mode.

And cortisol, the stress hormone, floods your body. And there you are again, much harder to fall asleep. Yeah, yeah. Now, I understand the importance of sleep. I practice a lot of stuff. I'm good friends with Shawn Stevenson. I've had him on. You know, I'm applying all the principles, so I get it, it. As an athlete, I get it. As a business person,

I get it. But let's talk about for entrepreneurs who they're striving to build their business. They are struggling to make money, so they've got to put overtime in. That overtime turns into many nights and months and months, and then they drive their team to say, you've got to stay later. You've got to work harder because we've got to You know, we can't just work for free here. So did you ever, after you started transitioning Huffington Post into, okay, it's important to sleep, we've got sleep pods here, which I know I've been to your office and seen them, and you talk about the importance of it, but there are times in our business that we've got to drive forward. We've got a product to launch. We've got to get traffic

up, something, and we've got to push people a little harder probably. It's not going to be perfect balance all the time. Would you agree? Well, it's never about... I don't like the word balance because our lives are not really about balance. It's all about integration for me. And what it means,

if your everyday routine includes getting adequate sleep, when you have a sick child, a big deadline, then you have some reserves to tap into. Life is always going to throw you curveballs where you have to stay up all night or something happens. I'm not suggesting this won't happen. But what has happened in our culture is we've made that the norm. Yeah, the main thing. And that's really the problem. And I think that's why I'm stressing that people need to understand that if all you

care in life is about winning, then you're going to improve your chances when you're fully recharged. Because that's when you're going to make your best decisions. That's when you're going to be able to see the icebergs before they hit the Titanic, which is a very important thing for entrepreneurs. And look at entrepreneurs now. I was in Silicon Valley this week.

Three quarters of startups fail. And there is the myth of the entrepreneur who never sleeps, stays up all night. Well, maybe there's a correlation. Why you're failing. Between sleep deprivation and three quarters of them failing. And I was speaking at the Stanford Business School. at Stanford Business School, and the students there,

the MBA students were telling me how many of them have meningitis or whooping cough, or all these diseases which are signs of a suppressed immune system because you are burnt out. So in the end, it's not even as though you are more productive because you end up being in bed sick instead of being in bed because you're recharging.

Sure, sure. I want to ask a couple of personal questions if that's okay with you. Sure. You know, you've had a lot of success. You're in the media all the time. You are media with Huffington Post. You're asked to speak. You know, number one, your time best selling books.

Do you have any fears of the future? It seems like you've achieved so much and you've helped serve so many people with your message and your work. Do you have any fears or insecurities about the future? My fears have a lot to do with my daughters. Really? And I'm working on them.

How many daughters do you have again? Two. Two daughters. In their 20s, 24 and 26. I see you posting photos of them all the time. Yes, I know. I adore them. And I tend to very easily move into negative fantasies. If, let's say, I text one of my daughters and I don't get a response within three and a half seconds. Really? She always like that? Yeah. So, I think working on that is very important for me. You know, we all have

areas where we're more vulnerable. Sure, sure. And that's one of them. Can I ask why? Well, my oldest daughter went through a drug period. She's now been sober for four years. But I think that maybe has exacerbated.

But also, whatever the reason, you know, fears are so irrational. I mean, I have a friend of mine who is incredibly successful, and she thinks she's going to end up a bag lady. A bag lady. A bag lady in the streets. Right, right. Homeless in the streets. Right, she's incredibly successful.

Yeah, she's incredibly successful, incredibly wealthy, and you think, yeah, sure, maybe all of us will end up in the streets. Right, she's incredibly successful. Yeah, she's incredibly successful, incredibly wealthy, and you think, yeah, sure, maybe all of us will end up in the streets, but the chances are slim. Sure. So I think,

but again, going back to what I said earlier, it's kind of amazing how exacerbated these irrational fears become when you're sleep deprived. More so. Whatever they are.

Yeah. Much more so. You're already scared about things. You're more scared, right? Yes. But whatever it is that you are scared about, suddenly that seems more, the fear seems much more real. Seems real.

Yeah. Interesting. Okay. Do you have any other fears? Was it just with the daughters? That's kind of my main fear. Yeah? Yeah.

Okay. That's good. That's good. It's not that big of an issue then. Well,'s kind of my main fear. Yeah. Okay. That's good. It's not that big of an issue then. Well, this is why you're in the grip of it. That's true. It's pretty nice. What is next for you? What's the big vision?

I mean, you've, again, accomplished so much. Well, right now, kind of the big vision for me is wanting to change the culture. You know, changing culture is not easy. Right? It's challenging. So, for me, it requires like a critical mass. And once that we attain that critical mass, then

suddenly people will look around and say, can you believe that we slept for four hours and we thought this was more productive? People are going to say, can you believe how we used to live? And I want to see that. And that's why this campaign is multi-pronged. You know, there's the book.

There is the college outreach. There is a partnership we launched with Uber against drowsy driving because drowsy driving now is killing more people than drunk driving. Really? Because, you know, since the 80s. It was drunk drivers. Yeah, what happened is that since the 80s, we dramatically increased awareness around drunk driving.

So people are much more conscious. Deaths and crashes from drunk driving have been halved. Wow, since the 80s. Since the 80s. Because, you know, the whole designated driver campaign, friends don't let friends drive drunk, it has worked. Yeah.

So we're launching a similar campaign for tired driving because while people are, unless they're paralytically drunk, you know, conscious of being drunk, people are not always aware of being exhausted, or they think they can power through.

And we have a very powerful PSA, we'll send it to you, that shows a man in a wheelchair for life, a young man in his 20s, who fell asleep at the wheel, and his whole life was changed, and he's very powerful. Right. And the woman who was being driven, Amy Cuddy, who's at Harvard, the brilliant woman. Amy Cuddy, right?

Yeah. The body language woman. Yes. So she ended up having to relearn everything because of that accident. Wow. And she talks about that. So she says in the PSA, I lost 10 years of my life. Wow. And she talks about that. So she said, she says in the PSA, I lost 10 years of my life. Wow.

So, and these are like two young, smart people. And who just made. One simple decision. One simple decision. Literally, micro sleep, they call it, can be two seconds. Right. And everything changes. But since then, since we launched this campaign,

I've had two mothers who came to me. One of them works at Accenture, has a big job there, and she said, I changed my life and my relationship to sleep when I had my two children, young children, in the car, and I kind

of fell asleep, dozed off, yeah, and crossed the barrier towards incoming traffic. With kids in the back. With kids in the back. Oh my goodness. So, but these things happen. Yeah.

They happen all the time. 8,000 people died last year. One million two crashes. So we launched a petition. We'd love everybody to go take on change.org and it's very simple it says I pledge

not to drive drowsy and not to let my friends drive drowsy and now with ride sharing technologies like Uber it's much easier. Wherever you are you can call an Uber. Yeah exactly. Awesome. We'll have that linked up below.

I'll get the information. We'll have people do that. Who was the most influential person in your life growing up? Oh, definitely my mom. Really? Yeah. Because she totally made me believe that it was okay to aim for the stars, and if I failed, it didn't matter.

She wouldn't love me any less, and that failure is not the opposite of success. You used to say it's a stepping stone to success. And that's why I think it's been easier for me to take big risks, like launching the Huffington Post, me to take big risks, like launching the Huffington Post, and kind of... Going for it. Going for it. Going for it all.

You know, there are no guarantees, right? Whatever we do. I must remember one more thing to tell you, which is that you were asking me about my night ritual. So I have created the sleep paradise in my bedroom in New York. In terms of the low lights and the completely dark room and the temperature and

the flowers and the plants and the real alarm clock, you know, rather than I use an old fashioned round alarm clock as opposed to your phone and everything, all that. And so I have put my apartment on Airbnb. Really? And anybody can win a night at my apartment.

It doesn't cost anything. You just have to participate in the contest, which is to write a short essay under 550 words about what would your day be like if you had gotten a great night's sleep the night before. And Virgin Air is going to fly the winner to New York. Start your place. Yes. I will have ready a fabulous Greek dinner with all natural ingredients. None of the foods I write about that make it harder to sleep.

Sure. I'll give them a personal sleep consultation. Then I will leave them alone with their house ground rules about sleep. leave them alone with their house ground rules about sleep. And the next morning, we'll have hair and makeup for them so they can go on Half-Post Rides, which is our morning show, to talk about the experience. Interesting. So what do they need to do? That's all.

Just go to Airbnb. Where do they submit the... Ariana's Paradise, it's called. Ariana's Sleep Paradise. And submit their essay. Okay, cool. It can be anything. We submit the essay there. And submit their essay. Okay, cool. It can be anything. It can be 50 words.

It can be... We'll have it linked up here for people as well below. I love that. So you see we're approaching it from every angle. Uber, Airbnb, colleges. Yes, books, everything. Books, everything. I love it.

Final few questions. What do you think was your biggest failure before Huffington Post that actually taught you the biggest lesson for Huffington Post? I would say my second book, which was rejected by 36 publishers. Now, you're a writer. So imagine getting 36 rejections. That's harsh, right? It made me question whether I was really a writer or whether my first book was a fluke. And fortunately, I walked into a bank in London where I lived at the time and asked the manager for a loan. And the manager gave it to me. I had no assets.

Wow. So, you know, in life often there it to me. I had no assets. Wow. So, you know, in life, often there are kind of amazing things that happen along the way, and that's one of the things that actually might be a good place to end, because I feel that one of the things, people who are very sort of type A personalities, like I think I am, and I think you yeah and think that we make everything happen but in fact i have learned that life is more of a dance between making it happen and letting it happen and so rekindling our romance with sleep is a little bit like letting good things happen and not thinking that we need

to be awake the whole time and make everything happen because that's not how life works. Sure, sure. I love that. I love that. Well, I have two final questions for you. I'd love to end it there, but I've got two final ones because I have a ritual at the end of every one of my interviews. So my last couple of questions is what are you most grateful for in your life recently? So my last couple of questions is, what are you most grateful for in your life recently? So I'm actually very grateful for my accident in 2007. I seriously think I would be either dead or with a heart attack. And if you look around, look at 2015, the number of entrepreneurs and executives who collapsed on their treadmills or on stages.

You know, the CEO of United collapsed and ended up with a big heart attack. Really? Wow. The CEO of BMW collapsed on stage. The head of M&A at J.B. Morgan collapsed on his treadmill and died. And that's kind of interesting because it's convinced people of the importance of exercise and nutrition. But sleep is the other leg of the stool. And so you have these exhausted executives. Who's training harder and harder. Who are training harder and harder, who are no sleep.

And they don't realize how they are hurting themselves. Yeah. Wow. So that's, well, you know how they say there are hidden blessings? So that is a hidden blessing. Yes. Okay. This is a question I ask at the end, and I didn't prep Ariana on this, but this is a question I ask at the end for all the guests.

So whatever comes up for you, feel free. Let's say it's many years from now, and all your books have been erased, everything you've created is gone for whatever reason. But it's the last day for you, and everyone's there. It's a very happy moment. And, again, you don't have any more books to give to people, but you have a piece of paper. And your great, great, great grandchild says,

will you write down the three truths, three things that you know to be true about all the things you learn in life that you pass on to me and to everyone else? Since we can't read your books anymore, what are these three lessons that you would apply or share with all of us that are very important? What would you say? So I would say the first one would be don't miss the moment.

The second would be what Rumi, the Persian poet, has said, live life as though everything is rigged in your favor, no matter what. And the third would be get enough sleep. I love it. I want to make sure everyone gets the book. I've got one more question for you, the final question, before I ask you. Get the book, The Sleep Revolution. We'll have it all linked up, but you can get it on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, everywhere books are sold.

I'll tell you where to go get it specifically. Also, all of the information about the essay, about everything else we talked about with Uber and things like that. So get the book, and I highly endorse it. So thank you for being here. The final question before I ask it, I want to acknowledge you, Ariana, for what you're doing to change the mindset for so many people that have been sleep-deprived and for show people that you can be extremely driven and achieve your dreams, big dreams, but also have a healthy lifestyle.

And it starts with taking care of the most important person in the world, yourself first. Your sleep is very important. So I want to acknowledge you for the incredible work you do, for consistently showing up every single day, positive, loving, and giving to the world. It means a lot to me. Thank you so much. Thank you. Final question is, what's your definition of greatness?

question is what's your definition of greatness? So my definition of greatness is to be in a constant mode of learning and consider yourself always a work in progress on the road to greatness.

I think that greatness is always aspirational and yet always present but there's never finality about it there's never a moment where you can say this is it, I can now put a bow around it

and just do maintenance it's always a work in progress Ariella, thanks for being here, appreciate it thank you so much thank you thank you guys for tuning in in this episode Arianna, thanks for being here. Appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you guys for tuning in in this episode.

Again, lewishouse.com slash 317 to watch the full video interview. Check out the full show notes. All the links and resources we talked about in today's interview is back at lewishouse.com slash 317. Make sure to connect with Ariana. Check out her book. And let me know what you thought of this episode. Again, we've got the full video interview. Our YouTube channel has close to 50,000 subscribers now.

We're doing interviews every Monday, Wednesday and posting videos Monday, Wednesday and mostly Friday as well. So make sure to leave a comment over on YouTube as well and let us know what you think there. And we've got so much more coming out very soon on the School of Greatness podcast. Thank you guys so much for listening today. You know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great. Thank you.