Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder

by Arianna Huffington

But after my fall, I had to ask myself, Was this what success looked like? Was this the life I wanted? I was working eighteen hours a day, seven days a week, trying to build a business, expand our coverage, and bring in investors. But my life, I realized, was out of control. In terms of the traditional measures of success, which focus on money and power, I was very successful. But I was not living a successful life by any sane definition of success. I knew something had to radically change. I could not go on that way. This was a classic wake-up call. Looking back on my life, I had other times when I should have woken up but didn’t. This time I really did and made many changes in the way I live my life, including adopting daily practices to keep me on track—and out of doctors’ waiting rooms. The result is a more fulfilling life, one that gives me breathing spaces and a deeper perspective.

But I want to ask you instead to redefine success. Because the world you are headed into desperately needs it.

To live the lives we truly want and deserve, and not just the lives we settle for, we need a Third Metric, a third measure of success that goes beyond the two metrics of money and power, and consists of four pillars: well-being, wisdom, wonder, and giving. These four pillars make up the four sections of this book.

First, well-being: If we don’t redefine what success is, the price we pay in terms of our health and well-being will continue to rise, as I found out in my own life.

sleep deprivation reduces our emotional intelligence, self-regard, assertiveness, sense of independence, empathy toward others, the quality of our interpersonal relationships, positive thinking, and impulse control.

When we include our own well-being in our definition of success, another thing that changes is our relationship with time.

Dr. Seuss summed it up beautifully: “How did it get so late so soon?” he wrote. “It’s night before it’s afternoon.

And when we’re living a life of perpetual time famine, we rob ourselves of our ability to experience another key element of the Third Metric: wonder, our sense of delight in the mysteries of the universe, as well as the everyday occurrences and small miracles that fill our lives.

“Darling, just change the channel. You are in control of the clicker. Don’t replay the bad, scary movie.”

being connected in a shallow way to the entire world can prevent us from being deeply connected to those closest to us—including ourselves. And that is where wisdom is found.

I’m convinced of two fundamental truths about human beings. The first is that we all have within us a centered place of wisdom, harmony, and strength. This is a truth that all the world’s philosophies and religions—whether Christianity, Islam, Judaism, or Buddhism—acknowledge in one form or another: “The kingdom of God is within you.” Or as Archimedes said, “Give me a place to stand, and I will move the world.” The second truth is that we’re all going to veer away from that place again and again and again. That’s the nature of life. In fact, we may be off course more often than we are on course.

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something—your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”

There is a purpose to our lives, even if it is sometimes hidden from us, and even if the biggest turning points and heartbreaks only make sense as we look back, rather than as we are experiencing them. So we might as well live life as if—as the poet Rumi put it—everything is rigged in our favor.

Well-being, wisdom, and wonder. The last element to the Third Metric of success is the willingness to give of ourselves, prompted by our empathy and compassion.

More and more scientific studies and more and more health statistics are showing that the way we’ve been leading our lives—what we prioritize and what we value—is not working. And growing numbers of women—and men—are refusing to join the list of casualties. Instead, they are re-evaluating their lives, looking to thrive rather than merely succeed based on how the world measures success.

One reason we give for allowing stress to build in our lives is that we don’t have time to take care of ourselves. We’re too busy chasing a phantom of the successful life. The difference between what such success looks like and what truly makes us thrive isn’t always clear as we’re living our lives. But it becomes much more obvious in the rear-view mirror.

Our eulogies are always about the other stuff: what we gave, how we connected, how much we meant to our family and friends, small kindnesses, lifelong passions, and the things that made us laugh.

Even if you build an iconic product, one that lives on in our lives, what is foremost in the minds of the people you care about most are the memories you built in their lives.

A life that embraces the Third Metric is one lived in a way that’s mindful of our eventual eulogy. “I’m always relieved when someone is delivering a eulogy and I realize I’m listening to it,” joked George Carlin. We may not be able to witness our own eulogy, but we’re actually writing it all the time, every day. The question is how much we’re giving the eulogizer to work with.

After giving a lovely and lively account of her life, she showed that she lived with the true definition of success in mind.

It’s an invaluable lesson—one that has much more credence while we have the good fortune of being healthy and having the energy and freedom to create a life of purpose and meaning. The good news is that each and every one of us still has time to live up to the best version of our eulogy.

The architecture of how we live our lives is badly in need of renovation and repair. What we really value is out of sync with how we live our lives. And the need is urgent for some new blueprints to reconcile the two. In Plato’s Apology, Socrates defines his life’s mission as awakening the Athenians to the supreme importance of attending to their souls. His timeless plea that we connect to ourselves remains the only way for any of us to truly thrive.

One idea is to expand the project-based world—where businesses simply give a skilled worker a project and a deadline.

The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another. —WILLIAM J

And every day, the world will drag you by the hand, yelling, “This is important! And this is important! And this is important! You need to worry about this! And this! And this!” And each day, it’s up to you to yank your hand back, put it on your heart and say, “No. This is what’s important.” —IAIN T

One of the best—and most easily available—ways we can become healthier and happier is through mindfulness and meditation. Every element of well-being is enhanced by the practice of meditation and, indeed, studies have shown that mindfulness and meditation have a measurable positive impact on the other three pillars of the Third Metric—wisdom, wonder, and giving.

When we are all mind, things can get rigid. When we are all heart, things can get chaotic. Both lead to stress. But when they work together, the heart leading through empathy, the mind guiding us with focus and attention, we become a harmonious human being. Through mindfulness, I found a practice that helped bring me fully present and in the moment, even in the most hectic of circumstances.

So, in a sense, the engine of mindfulness is always going. To reap the benefits of it, all we have to do is become present and pay attention.

Science has caught up to ancient wisdom, and the results are overwhelming and unambiguous. What study after study shows is that meditation and mindfulness training profoundly affect every aspect of our lives—our bodies, our minds, our physical health, and our emotional and spiritual well-being. It’s not quite the fountain of youth, but it’s pretty close. When you consider all the benefits of meditation—and more are being found every day—it’s not an exaggeration to call meditation a miracle drug.

“Meditation is not just blissing out under a mango tree,” says French Buddhist monk and molecular geneticist Matthieu Ricard. “It completely changes your brain and therefore changes what you are.”

“Pleasure depends very much on circumstances … and also it’s something that basically doesn’t radiate to others.… Happiness is a way of being that gives you the resources to deal with the ups and downs of life, that pervades all the emotional states including sadness.”

A study led by University of North Carolina professor Barbara L. Fredrickson found that meditation increased “positive emotions, including love, joy, gratitude, contentment, hope, pride, interest, amusement”; it also resulted in “increases in a variety of personal resources, including mindful attention, self-acceptance, positive relations with others, and good physical health.”

Happiness and well-being are not just magical traits that some are blessed with and others not. Richard Davidson has come to view “happiness not as a trait but as a skill, like tennis.… If you want to be a good tennis player, you can’t just pick up a racket—you have to practice,” he said. “We can actually practice to enhance our well-being. Every strand of scientific evidence points in that direction. It’s no different than learning to play the violin or play golf. When you practice, you get better at it.”

Padmasree Warrior, the chief technology officer of Cisco, calls meditation “a reboot for your brain and your soul.” She meditates every night and spends her Saturdays doing a digital detox. Warrior drew on her meditation practice to manage twenty-two thousand employees in her previous role as Cisco’s head of engineering. It’s hard to think of anything else that is simultaneously so simple and so powerful. It’s a vital tool not just for us as individuals, but collectively, as well. “Vanquishing infectious disease has left us living with chronic diseases of lifestyle and aging,” says Matthieu Ricard, “leading to the possibility that healthcare can focus on increasing human flourishing by putting the person’s well-being—body, mind and spirit—at the center, empowering them for optimal life.”

According to Taoist philosophy, “Rest is prior to motion and stillness prior to action.” And every Christian tradition incorporates some equivalent form of mindfulness.

Prayer. This is the primary benefit of prayer.

The Quakers built their belief system almost entirely around what are, in effect, the principles of mindfulness. Believing that the light of God is in everyone, Quakers structure their services, called “meetings,” around silence. There is no leader or minister, and members usually arrange themselves in a circle, facing one another, to emphasize the collective spirit and lack of hierarchy. Meetings, which are open to everybody of any faith, begin with silence, which continues until someone feels moved to speak. But the silence isn’t interstitial or an intermission—it’s the main show. It allows all those present to access their own inner light, and be nourished by the collective silence of the group.

In the 1970s, Basil Pennington, a Trappist monk, developed a practice called the “centering prayer.” It entails four steps: 1. Sit comfortably with your eyes closed, relax, and quiet yourself. Be in love and faith to God. 2. Choose a sacred word that best supports your sincere intention to be in the Lord’s presence and open to His divine action within you (for example, “Jesus,” “Lord,” “God,” “Savior,” “Abba,” “Divine,” “Shalom,” “Spirit,” “Love”). 3. Let that word be gently present as your symbol of your sincere intention to be in the Lord’s presence and open to His divine action within you. 4. Whenever you become aware of anything (thoughts, feelings, perceptions, images, associations), simply return to your sacred word, your anchor.

The twelfth-century Kabbalah talks about using meditative practices to “descend to the end of the world,” and thus transcend our external selves and deepen our engagement with the divine.

“As I became more sophisticated in my understanding of Torah,” she writes, “I realized that mindfulness and a peaceful, balanced soul is indeed an objective in Jewish life, and that the tools for attaining it are subtly woven into the tapestry of Torah knowledge. I learned, for example, that the Hebrew word ‘shalom’ implies not just peace, but also completion, perfection, wholeness. We bless one another with peace; our daily prayers culminate in a request for peace.”

Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage by considering your own imperfections, but instantly set about remedying them; every day begin the task anew. —FRANCIS DE S

Ray Dalio, the founder of Bridgewater, one of the largest hedge funds in the world, who has been meditating for more than thirty-five years and considers it “the single most important reason” for his success, pays for half of his employees’ meditation classes and picks up the entire bill if they commit to it for more than six months.

Unlike the gazelles, we don’t stop running.” This is modern man’s predicament, perfectly summed up by Montaigne: “There were many terrible things in my life, but most of them never happened.” We need to liberate ourselves from the tyranny of our fight-or-flight mechanism. And yet much of our life has actually been structured so that we live in an almost permanent state of fight-or-flight—here comes another dozen emails calling out for a response; must stay up late to finish the project; I’ll just use these four minutes of downtime to return six more calls. Under our current definition of success, a chronic state of fight-or-flight is a feature, not a bug.

I enjoy sharing zingers with Twitter all day; I enjoy writing long, wonky posts at night. But the lifestyle has its drawbacks. I don’t get enough sleep, ever. I don’t have any hobbies. I’m always at work.… I’m never disconnected. It’s doing things to my brain. I think in tweets now. My hands start twitching if I’m away from my phone for more than 30 seconds. I can’t even take a pee now without getting “bored.” I know I’m not the only one tweeting in the

Meditation, yoga, mindfulness, napping, and deep breathing once upon a time might have been thought of as New Agey, alternative, and part of a counterculture. But in the past few years we’ve reached a tipping point as more and more people realize that stress-reduction and mindfulness aren’t only about harmonic convergence and universal love—they’re also about increased well-being and better performance.

approach.… To make the case for greater attention to well-being in terms of its effect on work performance may be to win the battle and lose the war. The victor remains the idea that what is good for work is good for us.”

There’s a reason why sleep deprivation is classified as a form of torture and is a common strategy employed by religious cults. They force prospective members to stay awake for extended periods to reduce their subjects’ decision-making ability and make them more open to persuasion. So the choice is ours. Do we want to be empowered women and men taking charge of our lives? Or do we want to drag ourselves around like zombies?

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In stark contrast to our modern habit of drugging ourselves senseless, hoping to “crash” for a few hours before having to face another frantic day, the ancient Egyptians went to sleep expectantly. This spiritual preparation for sleep allowed them to bring back remnants of their dreams and notes from their night’s travels.

And between nursing a newborn, comforting a crying baby, or holding a feverish toddler—to say nothing of trying to continue to write books and newspaper columns—time evaporated into the night, and sleep became aspirational, more of a survival tactic and less of a way to connect to the sacred and the divine.

A side benefit of remembering your dreams is that it is a great opportunity to connect even more deeply with the people closest to you. My younger daughter and I now regularly exchange our dreams.

One of her recurring dreams is a good metaphor for what a good night’s sleep allows us to do. She imagines herself as a living “Stop” sign, forcing people to come to a complete stop before moving on with their lives.