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

Arianna Huffington’s personal wakeup call came in the form of a broken cheekbone and a nasty gash over her eye – the result of a fall brought on by exhaustion and lack of sleep. The co-founder and editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post, one of the fastest growing media companies in the world, celebrated as one of the world’s most influential women, gracing the covers of magazines, she was, by any traditional measure, extraordinarily successful. Yet as she found herself going from brain MRI to CAT scan to echocardiogram, to find out if there was any underlying medical problem beyond exhaustion, she found herself wondering, is this really what success feels like?

In Thrive, she has written a passionate call to arms, looking to redefine what it means to be successful in today’s world. As more and more women and men are coming to realize, there is far more to living a truly successful life than just earning a big salary and capturing a corner office. Our relentless pursuit of the two traditional metrics of success -- money and power -- has led to an epidemic of burnout and stress-related illnesses, and an erosion in the quality of our relationships, family life, and, ironically, our careers. In being connected to the world 24/7, we're losing our connection to what truly matters. Our current definition of success is, as Arianna shows, literally killing us. We need a new way forward.

In a commencement address she gave at Smith College in the spring of 2013, Arianna likened our drive for money and power to two legs of a three-legged stool. It may hold us up temporarily, but sooner or later we're going to topple over. We need a third leg -- a Third Metric for defining success -- in order to live a healthy, balanced, and meaningful life. That third metric, she writes in Thrive, includes our well-being; our ability to draw on our intuition and inner wisdom; our sense of wonder; and our capacity for compassion and giving. As Arianna points out, our eulogies celebrate our lives very differently from the way society defines success. They won’t commemorate our long hours in the office, our promotions, or our sterling PowerPoint presentations as we relentlessly raced to climb up the ladder. They are not about our resumes -- they are about cherished memories, shared adventures, small kindnesses, lifelong passions and the things that made us laugh.

In this deeply personal book, Arianna talks candidly about her own challenges with managing time and prioritizing the demands of a career and two daughters -- of juggling business deadlines and family crises, a harried dance that led to her collapse -- and to her “aha moment.” Drawing on the latest groundbreaking research and scientific findings in the fields of psychology, sports, sleep and physiology that show the profound and transformative effects of meditation, mindfulness, unplugging, and giving, Arianna shows us the way to a revolution in our culture, our thinking, our workplaces, and our lives.


From the Hardcover edition.

Arianna Huffington is the co-founder, president and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post Media Group, one of the world’s most influential news and information brands. She is the author of 13 books, including Third World America and On Becoming Fearless, and the mother of two daughters, Christina and Isabella.