“You can’t run your life from your inbox.”
– Arianna Huffington

Arianna Huffington (@ariannahuff) is the founder and CEO of Thrive Global and founder of The Huffington Post. She has been named to Time magazine’s list of the world’s 100 Most Influential People and Forbes’ Most Powerful Women list.

Originally from Greece, Arianna moved to England when she was 16 and graduated from Cambridge with an M.A. in economics. In late 2005, she launched The Huffington Post, a news and blog site that quickly became one of the most widely read, linked to, and frequently cited media brands on the Internet. In 2012, she won a Pulitzer Prize for reporting. In August of 2016, she launched Thrive Global with a mission of ending the stress and burnout epidemic by offering companies and individuals sustainable, science-based solutions to well-being.

Arianna serves on a lot of boards — including Uber and The Center for Public Integrity — and she is the author of 15 books, including Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder and The Sleep Revolution: Transforming Your Life, One Night at a Time.

This is a wide-ranging conversation, and we get into plenty of tactics. Arianna is an expert storyteller and very funny — enjoy!

Want to hear another podcast with an influencer in the media? — Listen to my conversation with Ezra Klein. In this episode, we discuss influencing the rules of the game by which this country is run (overall politics — not partisan), how Ezra lost 60 pounds, and his ascension into the ranks of the most respected media companies in the world (stream below or right-click here to download):

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QUESTION(S) OF THE DAY: What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

Scroll below for links and show notes…

Selected Links from the Episode

• Connect with Arianna Huffington:

Website | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook

• The Sleep Revolution: Transforming Your Life, One Night at a Time by Arianna Huffington
• Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder by Arianna Huffington
• Thrive Global
• The Huffington Post
• Bulletproof Coffee
• The Tim Ferriss Radio Hour: Meditation, Mindset, and Mastery
• The Pilot’s Pen Night Writer
• Transcendental Meditation (TM)
• Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness
• Paradoxical Intention Therapy Is an Easy Technique to Help You Sleep by Martin Reed, Insomnia Land
• University of Cambridge
• Arianna Huffington: ‘My Mother Said Failure Was a Stepping Stone to Success’ by Decca Aitkenhead, The Guardian
• Arianna Huffington Recalls Being Elected President of the Cambridge Union, 1971 by Ellie Pithers, The Telegraph
• The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer
• The Female Woman by Arianna Stassinopoulos Huffington
• Women’s Liberation Movement
• After Reason by Arianna Huffington
• Maria Callas: The Woman behind the Legend by Arianna Huffington
• Picasso: Creator and Destroyer by Arianna Huffington
• The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss
• Deep Throat and Me: Now It Can Be Told, and Not for the First Time Either by Nora Ephron
• Jeff Bezos: Why Getting 8 Hours of Sleep Is Good for Amazon Shareholders, Thrive Global
• Selena Gomez on Strength, Burnout and Staying Healthy, Thrive Global
• Why You Need a “Deloading” Phase in Life
• The 4-Hour Chef: The Simple Path to Cooking Like a Pro, Learning Anything, and Living the Good Life by Timothy Ferriss
• Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
• The One Thing Arianna Huffington Always Does in Job Interviews by Zoë Henry, Inc. Magazine
• The Gods of Greece by Arianna Huffington

Show Notes

• Introductions. [05:13]
• What does Arianna have for breakfast? Lunch? [05:52]
• What practices have stuck with Arianna over her life of experimentation? [06:48]
• What type of meditation does Arianna practice, and what does a typical session look like? How has it affected her sleep habits? [09:15]
• How did Arianna make the transition from reclusive bookworm to socialite? [15:10]
• What led Arianna to move from Greece to the UK (even though she didn’t speak English at the time)? [16:50]
• The life lessons and parenting approach Arianna inherited from her mother. [20:03]
• What turned Arianna from someone who never intended to become a writer to someone who has15 books under her belt? [26:20]
• What was Arianna’s stance on feminism in the early ’70s? [28:57]
• Would Arianna give the same advice to a young man and a young woman charging into the business world? [30:42]
• What ultimately led to Arianna relocating from London to New York? [32:53]
• How has Arianna’s writing and editing process changed over time? What has made her output so prolific? [37:11]
• How did The Huffington Post come to life? [41:15]
• How did Arianna recruit so many big names to write for The Huffington Post at launch? [44:15]
• Where did Arianna hone her persuasive pitch acumen? [47:37]
• How would Arianna best prepare a small class of young students for professional business life? [49:25]
• Tools Arianna would recommend for defending against burnout. [51:35]
• Helpful microsteps for positive changes. [54:52]
• Arianna tells us what her typical morning looks like — and how it’s influenced by the previous night’s bedtime. [58:03]
• Arianna talks about the health scare that led her to radically change her lifestyle, become a sleep evangelist, and create Thrive. [1:05:07]
• What speech does Arianna give during interviews with prospective hires? [1:18:30]
• What advice does Arianna have for people not used to initiating difficult conversations? [1:22:28]
• As far as Greek gods and goddesses go, is Arianna more of an Athena or Hermes? [1:24:18]
• How Henry Kissinger got Arianna to embrace her Greek accent instead of trying to change it. [1:26:59]
• Parting thoughts on the power of sharing stories. [1:29:20]

People Mentioned

Posted on: October 18, 2017.

Please check out Tribe of Mentors, my newest book, which shares short, tactical life advice from 100+ world-class performers. Many of the world's most famous entrepreneurs, athletes, investors, poker players, and artists are part of the book. The tips and strategies in Tribe of Mentors have already changed my life, and I hope the same for you. Click here for a sample chapter and full details. Roughly 90% of the guests have never appeared on my podcast.

Who was interviewed? Here's a very partial list: tech icons (founders of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Craigslist, Pinterest, Spotify, Salesforce, Dropbox, and more), Jimmy Fallon, Arianna Huffington, Brandon Stanton (Humans of New York), Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Ben Stiller, Maurice Ashley (first African-American Grandmaster of chess), Brené Brown (researcher and bestselling author), Rick Rubin (legendary music producer), Temple Grandin (animal behavior expert and autism activist), Franklin Leonard (The Black List), Dara Torres (12-time Olympic medalist in swimming), David Lynch (director), Kelly Slater (surfing legend), Bozoma Saint John (Beats/Apple/Uber), Lewis Cantley (famed cancer researcher), Maria Sharapova, Chris Anderson (curator of TED), Terry Crews, Greg Norman (golf icon), Vitalik Buterin (creator of Ethereum), and nearly 100 more. Check it all out by clicking here.