I want to talk now about some
of your own personal
challenges. Of course we know
you from the Huffington Post;
you sold that to AOL and
you now have started a
new business,
Thrive Global,
but it came from something that
happened to you.
What happened?
Yes well, in 2007,
two years into
building the Huffington Post,
I collapsed from exhaustion,
burn out and sleep deprivation;
hit my head on the way down,
broke my cheek bone,
and that was the beginning of
my realizing
that millions of us are living
under the collective delusion
that we need to burn out in
order to succeed.
And instead I started studying
the subject which led to two
books, Thrive and,
after that, The Sleep
Revolution and
I was amazed to read the
science,
the latest science,
that shows unequivocally
that, since the industrial
revolution, we've been living
under this delusion that
burnout is necessary to
succeed,
that human beings can
minimize downtime the way
we try to do with machines,
when in fact, as scientists
will tell us, the human
operating system needs
downtime.
We need time to unplug,
recharge, sleep deeply.
And so I became
so passionate about the topic
that I decided
to leave the Huffington Post in
September,
after 11 years of running
it, and even though I love
it like a third child - I have
two daughters and the
Huffington Post -
because I want to go beyond
speaking and writing to
actually helping companies and
individuals make
these changes that
can lead to
more responsive
and responsible leadership.
Was that a difficult decision
for you to leave the Huffington
Post after all those years?
And of course that has your
name and you founded it.
It was difficult,
but the minute I made it,
it seemed inevitable.
And also I've been so
absorbed
in this new company,
this new media platform,
which deals entirely with
this one topics so
we both bring together all the
latest science on the topic
and also new voices
to create new role models.
For example Jeff Bezos,
writing about how- the title
of his piece was: 'Why
my getting eight hours of sleep
is good for Amazon
shareholders.' So
that changes,
you know, the way leaders
see taking care of
themselves,
because taking care of
themselves makes them better
leaders.
But how do people do it,
let's say in a place like
Davos, Arianna?
I mean you've been here year
after year, you've said that
there's so much to do on the
schedule, there's so many
things people feel they have
to be in every single place.
Everyone is working hard.
So how do they put that
into practice?
Well.
In reality.
First you start before Davos.
Davos is the ultimate test.
It's hard to start new
practices in Davos,
but if you- if
you start pre-Davos,
I would say the most important
tiny little micro-step advice
I would give, and it's all
about micro-steps,
is to make sure
that you never charge
your phone by your bed.
OK.
Phone away.
There has to be a clear
demarcation line between
your day life and your night
life, when you are going to
disconnect from the world
and really deeply recharge.
Now that takes discipline,
because let's face it,
we are all addicted to our
devices, we are all addicted
to being always on.
So,
what happens now is that people
wake up in the middle of the
night,
and they often,
if they can go back to sleep,
go immediately to their phones,
and that interrupts the process
of really recharging.
In fact, with Thrive Global,
as well as the media platform,
we have a commerce platform and
we created our first product
was a charging station that
looks like a bed for your phone
so that people can learn
through their ritual of putting
their phones to bed outside
their bedrooms,
there is a little sheet that
you tuck the phones in,
we say good night and I promise
you are going to find them
again in the morning.
But do you think corporations,
companies,
employees- will they do it
though? Are they worried to be
disconnected.
What is amazing is that we are
working with some major
multinational companies because
the third pillar of my new
company is to work with
corporations to help them
change the culture so that
they don't have the high
healthcare costs they have now
because of burnout and
disengagement,
higher productivity
and better retention.
We did an amazing
28 day challenge at J.P.
Morgan which was initiated
by the C-suite by their CMO,
by their general counsel,
and the challenge was
to ask all global employees,
over 350,000,
to pick one of four things to
work on: sleep,
unplugging from technology,
mindfulness and gratitude.
I actually found it incredibly
significant that a major
bank was taking
these things seriously enough
to go beyond the H.R.
department,
to actually endorse them from
the top and invite
their employees to participate
because employees need to feel
they have permission to
prioritize these things.
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