The School of Greatness - 891 The Power of Rest

Episode Date: December 20, 2019

OVERWORKING ISN’T THE GOAL. So often, we get a pat on the back when we run ourselves into the ground. We get recognition for always staying late at work. We answer emails at night and on the weekend. People ask us, “Wow, how do you manage to DO IT ALL?!” But what we’re really doing is destroying our minds and our bodies. We can only operate at 110% for so long. Professional athletes know the importance of rest and recovery. They work it into their schedule, and they never skip it. Why shouldn’t the rest of us do the same? For this Five Minute Friday, I revisited a conversation I had with Arianna Huffington where she shared how she reshaped her life and health after collapsing from burnout. Arianna Huffington is the founder of The Huffington Post, the founder and CEO of Thrive Global, and the author of fifteen books. She’s no stranger to hard work, but a life-changing event made her drastically change her approach. Learn how to thrive and stop being exhausted in Episode 891. In This Episode You Will Learn: Why Arianna collapsed from exhaustion (1:30) What athletes know better than most people (2:30) What Arianna implemented at Huffington Post (3:00)

This is 5-Minute Friday! Welcome everyone to today's episode with the one, the only, Ariana Huffington. For those who have not heard of her, then you've probably never been online because she runs the incredibly successful and popular Huffington Post. line because she runs the incredibly successful and popular Huffington Post. And in 2012, the Huffington Post became the first commercially run US digital media enterprise to win a Pulitzer Prize. And as of 2014, she is listed as the 52nd most powerful woman in the world by Forbes. She is also a TV personality and New York Times bestselling author for her newest book

called Thrive, the third metric to redefining success and creating a life of well-being, wisdom, and wonder. Eight years ago, two years into launching the Huffington Post, I collapsed from exhaustion, burnout, and sleep deprivation. And that started me on this journey of recognizing that it wasn't just me, that our whole world is suffering from what a Belgian philosopher has called civilization's disease, burnout. And that we are all living under the collective delusion that burnout is the only way to succeed. And I'm really excited now that modern science is proving this wrong. And that's why at the end of Thrive, I have 55 pages of scientific endnotes to prove that in fact, contrary to what we have believed for decades sleep meditation

pauses to renew ourselves are performance enhancement tools and i'm actually thrilled to be talking to you because you come from the world of sport yes originally and athletes we need our sleep you know you're ahead of business. You're ahead of the rest of the world in recognizing that there is no trade-off between taking care of yourself and winning. Yes. Because our muscles won't recover unless we sleep. Exactly. I mean, as an Olympic marathon runner said, he said, I can run really hard. The problem is recovery.

said, he said, I can run really hard. The problem is recovery. And that's why I'm just launching this Thrive e-course with Oprah, which launches on May 3rd. And every week, it's a six-week course. Every week, we work on two steps and have a different guest teacher. So my first guest teacher is Kobe Bryant, because I wanted to have somebody unexpected to talk about sleep and meditation. He's probably one of the best. And Kobe talks to everyone on the course, well, we will talk when we start on May 3rd, about how important sleep and meditation has been on his performance. Yeah. And also on his ability to be a good dad and a good husband.

But even if somebody only cares about their performance at work, which I hope is not the case, we have done it wrong. You know, we've been congratulating people for working 24-7, for not taking care of themselves, not taking a vacation. And all these things make people actually less productive and less creative and less creative and less healthy yeah in germany for example a lot of companies are taking measures to reduce stress

in in the workplace because they are seeing the impact of burnout on the bottom line like volkswagen gives um employees smartphones that are automatically turned off at 6 p.m. and turned on at 7 a.m. Wow, that is interesting. So they can't work at night. So they can actually take time to be with their children, their loved ones, themselves. Wow. Because, again, the science shows that people need predictable time off. If your boss expects you to be on all the time in case they send you an email,

you can never really unwind and truly recharge. And therefore, you're not going to be as effective in the morning. Hey guys, if you enjoyed this inspirational clip from a past episode of the show, then you'll love the free book I'm giving away right now. It's called The Millionaire Morning. It includes some of my best tips for starting off your day with a millionaire mindset. Get your free copy at themillionairemorning.com and just pay shipping. Again, check it out right now, themillionairemorning.com. dot com and just pay shipping. Again, check it out right now. The millionaire morning dot com.