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

by Arianna Huffington

Wherever I go I see the same hunger to live our lives with more meaning and purpose, more happiness and joy, and less unnecessary stress and burnout.

The first step to a thriving “unretirement,” he added, is to “begin by asking yourself what it is you want to be doing.”

To really know what we want to do, we have to know ourselves, what we really value and what makes us truly happy and fulfilled. It’s not a surprise that when we define ourselves solely by our work and that work is taken away, we can find ourselves feeling lost and adrift, as happens to so many retirees. But if we realize that we’re more than our

résumés, it will make for a much easier transition to a time when we stop adding new li...

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.

The Western workplace culture—exported to many other parts of the world—is practically fueled by stress, sleep deprivation, and burnout.

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.

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.

A healthy economy isn’t just about the efficient allocation of capital, but of talent, as well. As more and more people—both men and women—begin to choose not to work themselves into the ground, it’s important that humane pathways back to the workforce be created so their skills are not lost.

It wasn’t the answers that were changing for her, but the questions. “It’s not ‘What do I want to do?’, it’s ‘What kind of life do I want to have?’ ” she says. Her answer made her realize she had to make some changes.

the ease with which the big crises can wipe out the small ones that seemed so critical just a moment before. All of our small anxieties and trivial preoccupations evaporate with the sudden recognition of what really matters. We are reminded of the impermanence of much that we assume is forever and the value of so much we take for granted.

People look for retreats for themselves, in the country, by the coast, or in the hills … There is nowhere that a person can find a more peaceful and trouble-free retreat than in his own mind.… So constantly give yourself this retreat, and renew yourself.

The point is to find some regular activity that trains your mind to be still, fully present, and connected with yourself. Just do it regularly and integrate the benefits into your everyday life.

the traffic crossing, instead of being impatient for the green man, appreciate how the red man gives us a chance to stop, breathe and look around.”

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.

They run and flee when there is a danger—a leopard or a lion approaching—but as soon as the danger passes, they stop and go back to grazing peacefully without a care in the world.

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 bathroom.… The online world, which I struggle to remember represents only a tiny, unrepresentative slice of the American public, has become my world. I spend more time there than in the real world.

In other words, meditation, yoga, getting enough sleep, renewing ourselves, and giving back make us better at our jobs at the same time that they make us aware that our jobs don’t define who we are.

I believe we can win both the battle and the war. Paying greater attention to our well-being—for whatever reason—connects us with parts of ourselves that now lie dormant and makes it more likely that there will no longer be any split between being successful at work and thriving in life.

As Dr. Michael Roizen, chief wellness officer of the Cleveland Clinic, put it, “Sleep is the most underrated health habit.”

There’s practically no element of our lives that’s not improved by getting adequate sleep. And there is no element of life that’s not diminished by a lack of sleep.

Our creativity, ingenuity, confidence, leadership, and decision making can all be enhanced simply by getting enough sleep.

poor sleepers are seven times more likely to feel helpless and five times more likely to feel alone.

study published in Science even calculated that for the sleep deprived, an extra hour of sleep can do more for their daily happiness than a $60,000 raise.

In fact, a number of studies have failed to find a consistent connection between extra money and happiness—as large increases of real income in the developed world over the past half century have not correlated with increases in reported happiness.

it’s during rest and downtime that muscle growth occurs. To achieve peak physical fitness, we push ourselves hard in short bursts of high intensity, and then we rest and recover. And that’s exactly how we should live our lives for overall performance and well-being.

The most effective way to operate at work is like a sprinter, working with single-minded focus for periods of no longer than 90 minutes, and then taking a break. That way when you’re working, you’re really working, and when you’re recovering, you’re truly refueling the tank.”

Members of the group who had gone through the training could concentrate for longer stretches of time, were less distracted, and, most important, had lower stress levels.

All we need is the commitment to get enough sleep, take time to recharge our mental and emotional batteries, put away our phones and laptops and tablets regularly, and try to introduce some stress-reduction tools into our lives.

“walk the talk” method. If you’ve got to talk to someone in person, why not do it while walking? “What I love is that you’re literally facing your problem or situation together when you walk side by side with someone,”

In our culture of overwork, burnout, and exhaustion, how do we tap into our creativity, our wisdom, our capacity for wonder? Solvitur ambulando.

hope the voyage is a long one, full of adventure, full of discovery.

Another study, this one by Dutch researchers, shows that those who live within one kilometer of a park or wooded area suffer lower rates of depression and anxiety than those who don’t.

So, please, walk. It makes us healthier, it enhances cognitive performance, from creativity to planning and scheduling, and it helps us to reconnect with our environment, ourselves, and those around us.

pet owners have higher self-esteem, fewer feelings of loneliness, and are more physically fit and socially outgoing than people without pets.

They also add a sense of responsibility, regular activity, a set routine, and reliable companionship, which can be an invaluable source of healing.

Animals help us be better humans. Quite often, they show us how to be our best selves. Always in the moment, sticking their noses into everything (literally), they see a world that we take for granted, one we’re usually just hurriedly passing through on our way to lives we never quite reach.

Dogs are minor angels, and I don’t mean that facetiously. They love unconditionally, forgive immediately, are the truest of friends, willing to do anything that makes us happy, etcetera. If we attributed some of those qualities to a person we would say they are special. If they had ALL of them, we would call them angelic. But because it’s “only” a dog, we dismiss them as sweet or funny but little more. However, when you think about it, what are the things that we most like in another human being? Many times those qualities are seen in our dogs every single day—we’re just so used to them that we pay no attention.

Pets are the unrivaled masters of giving back. The pleasure they take in giving themselves to us is perhaps their greatest lesson. Like our animals, we are wired to connect, to reach out, to love. But unlike them, with us other things get in the way—jealousy, insecurity, irritation, anger. Pets help us constantly come back to what makes us human. They’re a furry version of our best selves.

Too much and too long, we seem to have surrendered personal excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our gross national product … if we judge America by that … counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage.… Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.

By bringing deeper awareness into our everyday lives, wisdom frees us from the narrow reality we’re trapped in—a reality consumed by the first two metrics of success, money and power, long after they have ceased to fulfill us.

Wisdom is about recognizing what we’re really seeking: connection and love. But in order to find them, we need to drop our relentless pursuit of success as society defines it for something more genuine, more meaningful, and more fulfilling.

When we reexamine what we really want, we realize that everything that happens in our lives—every misfortune, every slight, every loss, and also every joy, every surprise, every happy accident—is a teacher, and life is a giant classroom.

There is nothing that we need more today than having proportion restored to disproportion, and separating our everyday worries and preoccupations from what is truly important. An amazing array of seemingly incompatible people and activities can coexist in our lives with harmony and a sense of order when we find an unambiguous center in ourselves.

Learning to be vulnerable without shame and accepting our emotions without judgment becomes much easier when we realize that we are more than our emotions, our thoughts, our fears, and our personalities. And the stronger the realization, the easier it becomes to move from struggle to grace.

Gratitude works its magic by serving as an antidote to negative emotions. It’s like white blood cells for the soul, protecting us from cynicism, entitlement, anger, and resignation.

In fact, ours is a generation bloated with information and starved for wisdom.

Our culture is obsessed with time. It is our personal deficit crisis. We always think we’re saving time, and yet we feel like we never have enough of it.

She believed that rushing through life was a sure way to miss the gifts that come only when you give 100 percent of yourself to a task, a conversation, a dinner, a relationship, a moment. Which is why she despised multitasking.

We use technology to save time (or so we think), but we also impose our distorted sense of time on our technology and use of social media.