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

by Arianna Huffington

alone with ourselves—is so essential to our creativity, it’s become a much more valuable skill, worth far more than a productivity app, a cleared-out in-box, or a rigidly efficient schedule. As Eric Barker, who studies how human behavior affects creativity, wrote, “Those who can sit in a chair, undistracted for hours, mastering subjects and creating things will rule the world—while the rest of us frantically and futilely try to keep up with texts, tweets, and other incessant interruptions.”

Technology is miraculous because it allows us to do more with less, ratcheting up our fundamental capabilities to a higher level.” That’s true in many important ways. But, if we let it, technology can also add a lot of noise and distraction that get in the way of our most fundamental creative capabilities—instead of freeing us, it can consume us. What we’re beginning to recognize now is that success is not always about doing more, but also about doing better—and we do better when we’re connected to our inner wisdom, strength, and intuition.

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 line items to those résumés.

But over the long term, money and power by themselves are like a two-legged stool—you can balance on them for a while, but eventually you’re going to topple over. And more and more people—very successful people—are toppling over. So what I pointed out to the Smith College graduates was that the way we’ve defined success is not enough. And it’s no longer sustainable: It’s no longer sustainable for human beings or for societies. 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.

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.

In the new definition of success, building and looking after our financial capital is not enough. We need to do everything we can to protect and nurture our human capital. My mother was an expert at that.

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

being connected in a shallow way to the entire world can prevent us from being deeply connected to those closest to us—including ourselves.

“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.”

Well-being, wisdom, and wonder.

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. So

You are not your bank account, or your ambitiousness. You’re not the cold clay lump with a big belly you leave behind when you die. You’re not your collection of walking personality disorders. You are spirit, you are love. —ANNE LAMOTT

Another result of our current toxic definition of success is an epidemic of addiction. More than twenty-two million people in the United States are using illegal drugs, more than twelve million are using prescription painkillers without a medical reason, and almost nine million need prescription sleep aids to go to sleep. And the percentage of adults taking antidepressants has gone up 400 percent since 1988.

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

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 THOMAS

So no matter what tradition you follow—or if you follow no tradition—there is some form of meditation and mindfulness that can be integrated into your life.

We’ve made it very clear, however, that walking around drained and exhausted is what should be looked down on—not taking a break to rest and recharge.

My screensaver is a picture of gazelles: They are my role models. 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.

“Sleep is the most underrated health habit.”

Bill Clinton, who used to famously get only five hours of sleep a night, admitted, “Every important mistake I’ve made in my life, I’ve made because I was too tired.” And

True understanding is to see the events of life in this way: “You are here for my benefit, though rumor paints you otherwise.” And everything is turned to one’s advantage when he greets a situation like this: You are the very thing I was looking for. Truly whatever arises in life is the right material to bring about your growth and the growth of those around you. This, in a word, is art—and this art called “life” is a practice suitable to both men and gods. Everything contains some special purpose and a hidden blessing; what then could be strange or arduous when all of life is here to greet you like an old and faithful friend?

Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.

On a day when the wind is perfect, the sail just needs to open and the world is full of beauty. Today is such a day.

“My heart is at ease knowing that what was meant for me will never miss me, and that what misses me was never meant for me.”

There are three basics, three simple practices, that help me live more in the moment—the only place from which we can experience wonder: 1. Focus on the rising and falling of your breath for ten seconds whenever you feel tense, rushed, or distracted. This allows you to become fully present in your life. 2. Pick an image that ignites the joy in you. It can be of your child, a pet, the ocean, a painting you love—something that inspires a sense of wonder. And any time you feel contracted, go to it to help you expand. 3. Forgive yourself for any judgments you are holding against yourself and then forgive your judgments of others. (If Nelson Mandela can do it, you can, too.) Then look at your life and the day ahead with newness and wonder.

Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritualtype thing to worship—be it JC or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles—is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.”