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

A good and very sincere book written by a very successful businesswoman. The main idea is both highly simple and very old: it's high time to redefine what means to be successful in life or "what is a good life?" Over time "success, money, and power have practically become synonymous in the minds of many" but this idea works – at least appear to work – only in the short term. As A. Huffington (AH) writes "over the long term, money and power by themselves are like two-legged stool – you can balance on them for a while, but eventually you are going to topple over". So, we – people - need to have a third measure of success – she calls it a Third Metric. In her eyes it consists of four constituents: well-being, wisdom, wonder and giving. In fact the book is devoted to a careful discussion around these four notions. All logic of AH is based on two assumptions. "The first is that we all have within us a centered place of wisdom, harmony and strength…The second … is that we're all going to veer away from that place again and again and again". Then in the first chapter she step by step discusses the problems of the present-day society linked closely with well-being: Burnout – as a result of a zeal to overwork that leads to high level of stress and decreases productivity; The link between the health of employees and bottom lines; Overconnectivity of modern life and the state of being drowned in plenty of data; The constant lack of time for all our tasks and our multitasking fever. Her recipes: sleep enough, meditate, do not overwork, turn off your gadgets regularly, use general well-being instead of GDP as an indicator of economic success Next chapter is about wisdom. In fact she is speaking about the same problems as in the previous chapter but at another point of view: "Wisdom is precisely what is missing when – like rats in the famous experiment by B.F. Skinner … -we press the same levers again and again even though there is no longer any real reward". Here AH mentions in passing about the notion of Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom and Big Data. Her recipe: listen to your inner wisdom, break bad habits, change yourself… A chapter named Wonder is about the purpose of life itself – and "that purpose is self-actualization…"; about silence – "ask your soul"; about coincidences which awaken wonder in our lives; about death which is inseparable side of life. At last the chapter Giving is about compassion and altruism: "helping others makes us happier"… "Onward, upward, and inward!" – these are the last words of this book. It's worth noting that the author gives a lot of examples both from scientific studies and from her life and the life of her family as well as from the lives of her close friends. Especially touching – at least for me – were the pieces where AH tells about lessons that she got from her mom and about her mom's death. All mentions on people, events or names are carefully described in Notes. There are Appendices as well where a reader can find references about tools/sites for meditation, relaxing, giving, volunteering, etc. What I don't agree with: The third metric model tacitly equals the human side of human being with money and power. I think that money are necessary only as the means for self-actualization but can't be the purpose of a wisdom man. The more the power may be a purpose only for a very limited number of people. Of course AH is right when she writes that modern society forces us to think that money and power mean success but nevertheless I consider them as lower steps of Maslow hierarchy. And my second doubt is about the assumption "… that we all have within us a centered place of wisdom, harmony and strength". I'm afraid that not all have… and I don't know what is the part of those who have… Of course potentially all people may have… but in reality …

Yes, that is the message this well recognized and publigshed literary figure expresses, not only to a graduating class she is addressing, but throughout her message on how to create a life. It might surprise some folks that she needed a wake call in her personal life for this message to come to her when she collapsed on the floor from over work, mental, physical and emotional exhaustion. But, it should not surpise you when it is stated, as she does, how a majority of us in these busy days have become overwhelmed and swamped with work, techology connecting 24/7, and a personal life that for many has disappeared from their landscape. Arianna combines recollections of her childhood and Mother, who was emotionally well founded, had our eye on enduring personal values and could relate to anyone; with well selected quotations and references to sustain her thesis that: People need to find time for their inner selves and a presence of "mindfulness" as they go about daily living. She, rightfully, contends that without a presence of the self an individual will experience poorer health, a shorter lifespan, limited connection with those closest to them, and a really insignificant life. Maybe the most significant weakness in this useful premise is the more than once reference to Steve Jobs, some of his aphorisms, and a speech he made to the Stanford graduating class. Yes, Steve is a recognizable person in recent American culture and maybe one with undo influence as information about him has been publicly disclosed after his death. It may be debated whether he was virtuous or virtuless, or somewhere in between. But, Arianna needs to reflect on the window into his soul that may have been opened when he stated, "The customer's job is not to decide what he/she needs." That paraphrased expression, used for this review, reflects an underlying dogma that Arianna actually stands up against in all the rest of this book as she argues for one to find oneself. Maybe she, too, needs to recognize that the many visible players with whom she is able to associate from her cultural and business role are not always as she trys to portray them in "The Third Metric..." Over all, this is an invaluable expression of advice that is well documented and points to the disasteous direction many have taken in recent years as they followed a path that led them afar from where they may have started and wanted to be.

I have been a spiritual seeker for many years and from much reading, I not only thrive but have met the most wonderful and talented people in the world. Recently I had the privilege of learning even more from Arianna Huffington's incredible book Thrive, which touched me as no other book I've read. After reading Thrive, I was elated that one of the world's most influential woman, Arianna redefines success, money, and power, all of which she believes are founded on well-being, wisdom, wonder, compassion and giving. They have truly been the key principles and values credited to how I lived successfully for the past 25 years and it was thrilling to see these principles spelled out so wonderfully in Arianna's words. Thrive is without a doubt the richest collection of researched science, wisdom, and compelling life stories that our world needs to see. There is a message for every one of us - whether we're down to our last dollar or counting our millions, or going to the next level of greater achievement. As Arianna shows, we will not thrive unless we use these higher principles and values in our daily lives. Arianna's power of story, and experience - in her words "And time inherently creates a story. Things begin and they end. How they end is the story. Or maybe it's what happens between when they begin and end that's the story." Thrive redefines and teaches us the true meaning of success with another pillar of Giving. 3. "Use a talent or skill you have - cooking, accounting, decorating - to help someone who could benefit from it. It'll jumpstart your transition from a go-getter, to a go-giver, and reconnect you to the natural abundance in your life." I'm already benefiting from Arianna's advice with an extra hour of sleep. It's brought more balance of well-being in my life. Thank you Arianna for sharing your love to the world so that we all can thrive! Catherine Nagle Author of Imprinted Wisdom

In this book, the author redefines the definition of success in today’s world. Money and Power alone is not everything. The author compares Money and Power to two legs of a three legged stool. With a two legged stool may temporarily hold up but it would eventually topple over. We need a third metric for defining success and to lead a healthy, meaningful, productive life. In order to lead a meaningful life, the third metric comprises of well-being, wisdom, wonder and giving. The four sections in this book elaborates on these 4 topics of Well being, Wisdom, Wonder and Giving. Well Being: A New blueprint is required to renovate the architecture of our lives. What we really value is out of sync with how we live our lives. Our work culture considers exhaustion and burnout as a badge of honor. Burnout has become a common disease that we are willing to live with. Burnout, stress and depression has become common epidemics. So in this section on Well Being, the book covers in detail how to take care of your physical / emotional well being / health. Healthy Employees, Healthy Bottom Lines – There is a direct correlation between the long term health of a company’s bottom line and health of the employees. Meditation – It is not just for Enlightenment anymore. One of easier way to be healthier and happier is through mindfulness and meditation. Meditation practiced regularly can transform your health and life. Over connectivity – The snake in our digital garden of Eden. Due to the ever increasing creep of technology into our lives, families, bedrooms and our brains, it is much harder to renew ourselves. Securing your own mask first – Meditation, Yoga, Mindfulness, napping and deep breathing are important for our well being and better performance. When people are taking care of themselves, they will be more effective in taking care of others. Sleep your way to the top – Most basic shift in redefining success in our lives is to do with our strained relationship to sleep. We have a mistaken belief that success is proportional to the amount of time we put in work, instead of the quality of the time we put in. Hence to gain time we sacrifice on sleep. Our creativity, ingenuity, confidence and decision making can be enhanced simply by getting enough sleep. Wisdom Wisdom is about recognizing what we are really seeking; connection and love. 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. Power of the Hunch – When your inner voice speaks, shut up and listen – This section elaborates on the importance of intuition – our inner knowing. It is important to understand that intuition is not intellect. Meditation, Yoga and Mindfulness help us to still noise of the world so we can listen to our inner voice. iParadox – Your smartphone is not making you Wiser. This section elaborates on how our increasing dependence on technology is making it harder to connect with our wisdom. Hurry Sickness and Time famine – This section elaborates on the importance of slowing down. It is important to overcome the obsession with time and deficit crisis. Evicting the obnoxious roommate in our head – The self talk within our head that is putting us down and strengthening our insecurities and doubts. This section is all about how you stop all the negative self-talk. Breaking bad habits – what we can learn from minotaurs, seat belts and stoics – This section is all about liberating ourselves from our old habits, building new healthy habits. It is important to find the thread that work for us. It is important to listen to our inner wisdom and let go anything that we no longer need – something that is draining our energy without benefitting in anyway. Disconnecting from the digital world will help you reconnect to the inner wisdom, intuition and creativity. Wonder Wonder is not a product of what we see – of how beautiful or mysterious or singular or incomprehensible something may be. It is a product of our state of mind, our being, the perspective from which we are looking at the world. Countless things in our daily lives can awaken the almost constant state of wonder. Silence, My Old Friend – The silence in our lives is under assault on all fronts; headline news, alarms, buzzing and chirping smart phones etc. This section is all about how to gain our silence in our lives. Coincidences – Life’s secret door to wonder – The pathway to awakening wonder in our lives is the serendipity of coincidence. This section elaborates on the important role coincidences play in our lives. Memento Mori – This section elaborates on the role of death and how it results in transformation and renewal. Giving Giving is all about widening the boundaries of our caring. Well being, Wisdom, Wonder – All are critical to redefining success and thriving, but they are incomplete without the fourth element of the Third metric – giving. Giving, loving, caring, empathy and compassion, going beyond ourselves and stepping out of our comfort zones to help server others – this is the only viable answer to the multitude of problems the world is facing. Don’t wait for a Natural Disaster for us to Tap into our Natural Humanity – We live in a connected world and every action of ours touch people every day in ways we may never know. This section elaborates on the importance of giving and helping not just in time of disaster but going beyond that. Go-Getters are good; Go-Givers are Better – The topic itself is self explaining. Science Proves – Love Grows Brains – There are studies that proves that volunteering activities were more likely to engage in brain building activities that lowers the risk of diseases. All about giving and how it impacts our lives. Press 1 to Donate – Technology meets philanthropy – This section is about how technology has leveled the giving field. Lessons in giving – It is not a trade but an offering. Giving is not bartering is the message. “Onward, Upward and Inward” We are living in a world of distractions. What is required is to find your place of wisdom and peace and strength. Remake the world in the our own image, according to our own definition of success, so that all of us can thrive and live our lives with more grace, more joy, more compassion, more gratitude and more love. In summary, I liked this book and its message. It would have been better if the author has split the sections in each topics into separate sub chapter. There are places where the presentation was monotonous.

Absolutely loved this book. Ended up getting copies for close friends and associates who are regularly "pushing the needle to the red" as Jon Anderson croons in It Can Happen . Huffington's own exhaustive collapse set her on a new direction. One of moving from a purely Alpha-driven state, to one where you cycle between driven=>reflection=>rest. Repeat. Few books on entrepreneurial balance do such a good job of escorting us through the process. And she helps us address The Why. That's the big thing. Once we know WHY we do things. Then the HOW becomes much more manageable. Much more meaningful. Don't look to this work as a how-to. For that, might I offer Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz excellent guide in Energy Management (vs Time Management) The Power of Full Engagement . A brilliant piece on how to apply Huffington's prose in meaningful and manageable ways. I also highly recommend SleepNutrients Sublingual SleepSpray as one tool to help address our Type-A personalities. A few sprays under the tongue, and the sheep will all but count themselves. You'll awake far more energized if you get the right kind of sleep, with good Delta and REM cycles performing Memory Consolidation and helping assist the brain in its natural detoxification cycles (there's a great TED talk on sleep as well - search for Jeff Iliff - One More Reason to Get a Good Night's Sleep - really helps explain how the cardiovascular system and the brain sync during sleep to make us healthier). Huffington is clearly a master of her craft. And a passionate evangelist as well. Enjoy the book. More importantly - apply the lessons here. The journey will be much more worthwhile. ANd you'll be well-rested as you cross the finish line (however you define it).

North American intensity has evidently escalated since I opted out of that frenetic race to live a simpler life in Greece. However, nowhere in the civilized world are we completely free of the habits we unconsciously embrace against our own best interests. Until, that is, like Arianna, we have a startling wake-up call. I particularly enjoyed the blend of journalistic fact and research with the very tender sharing of intimate personal challenges; her broken marriage, her daughter’s drug problem and the so sweet sharing of the night her mother died. Arianna illustrates that what many of us would choose to avoid become our most precious moments and lessons on a greater meaning to life. I am reassured to have Arianna Huffington, with her synthesis of business acumen and sensibility running a global news site - in particular the creation of The Third Metric which grew out of the experience shared in "Thrive". This is the sort of thing that powerful women do with hefty life lessons. It is the necessary counterpoint to so much media propaganda. The world is being served though HuffPost and books like “Thrive” with the balanced male/female energy that will see true change in the world we live in and how we function in our relationship to one another, the planet and most importantly with ourselves. I read the book quickly with highlights to revisit and have recommended “Thrive” to many friends.

As an editor-in-chief for a small publication, I have experienced many stress and joy from my job at the same time. I always enjoyed reading articles on the Huffington Post. I have become a fan of Arianna Huffington over the years because she has an ambition to make changes in the world in a way she believes to be right. This book has helped me to reduce some of the stress and re-think my life-purpose. The key of the book is about the third metric to redefining success, telling us that success is beyond money and fame. She promotes meditation, develop a better bedtime routine and redefine the power of money and fame. Although most of her books is made of common sense ideas, her excellent writing has made it interesting. Huffington's has a very different writing style than other self-help book writers. It is very factual, but also personal. The book's tone is more like a very long well-written news article. Some of my associates found it not humorous enough. I guess it's a matter of what you are expecting and looking for in a book like this. In her book, she mentioned her effort in educating other successful corporate executives about the third metrics. However, I wonder how practical these tips are to young people who are still chasing the American dream. Being in my late twenties, I can't be sure if this book has come to me at the right time or a little early. Often I feel the need to run toward a success that is defined by money and fame. It is hard to feel the need to rest when you feel you have so much to do. While reading the book, it seemed that I have seen the light toward a balanced life. However, I must confess, it is hard to meet both a well-balanced life and successful career in the modern society. For young people in 20s and 30s, it is extremely hard to do. You don't want others to view you as lazy or crazy. I like the practical tips and tools at the end of the book. I got the digital version and read it on Kindle, but I wish I had the hardcover to flip through and review it more.

I purchased Arianna's book because I took her and Oprah's online "Thrive OCourse" back in April. One of the wonderful aspects of "Thrive" is that you can skip around and open the book to anything without feeling like you've missed something. Her course actually demanded that you read it in this way for the most part. We've all had "wake-up calls" in our life even if we do not recognize them right away. Arianna shares her call in a vulnerable way which created thinking in me about my own. Reading her words of thriving in this chaotic world allowed me to focus a bit more on what is truly important in life and what I am passionate about which allows a further focus on what my purpose is. Listening to our inner voice is a big deal with me. Thanks to Arianna, I began a meditation practice during her course, but specifically when I read her words on page 136, "Meditation, yoga and mindfulness can help us to still the noise of the world so we can listen to our inner voice." She's right. These words lead me to where I am now with a Primordial Sound Meditation practice I learned from the Chopra Institute. When you read a book that leads you to other transformational aspects of your life, which also continue, then you've read a great book. I highly recommend, "Thrive". Five stars.

We may focus on achieving money and power however that is not enough. If we want lasting happiness then we need to also focus on the third metric and to know that you will have to devour this book.

Motivante. Accattivante. Persino l'impaginazione risulta piacevole. Consiglio di leggerlo in coppia con Lean In di Sheryl Sandberg. . . .

It is as if Arianna Huffington took off her high heels and climbed into my head. For the past week I have devoured her latest book, Thrive. It is not as if she says anything new, but reading her book is like getting a whole year’s supply of self-affirmations in one sitting. In essence, she tells the reader: “You are not crazy to feel overwhelmed. I was too. And I decided to do something about it.” I have long known that Arianna is a great champion of sleep. So am I. I have no problem getting enough rest. But the quality of it has seemed to suffer over the past few years. Life’s challenges have awoken me in the middle of the night and robbed me of dreams. Technology and my ambition to keep up have left me feeling depleted. When it comes to our digital diets, less really is more. Arianna’s premise is we must redefine the meaning of success to include well-being, wisdom, wonder and community. The message of her book can be boiled down to one word — ‘love’. The more I think of it, the more I realize the limits of our minds. We have no love in our minds, only thoughts. When we react from the mind, we are entangled in the web of our own making. In fact, every stressor we feel comes down to one thing — our reaction. Stress comes from a lack of trust that everything is going to be alright. The truth is if we define “alright” to be That Which Is, then yes, everything will be alright. In fact, everything is alright all the time. Everything is indeed in alignment with the Universe. Our trouble begins when we ourselves are not. Love can change that. When we come from our hearts’ center, we are free. Thrive is a smart piece of work that cites Greek and modern-day philosophers alike. She even quotes Carl Honoré, whose thinking about the Slow Movement greatly influenced mine. My favorite part of her book is her discussion about time. She speaks of it in terms of physics. Time, in the physicist’s view, is a landscape in which past, present and future can be seen. Like a mountain and a meadow and a wildflower all converging into one big thing. If that is true, than we needn’t rush. All of time rests on a single canvas. This book insists that we can not only survive, but actually thrive, even in our 24/7 world. As with all things, the quality of our lives is not informed by our bank account of Facebook fans or Twitter followers. The beauty of our existence is informed solely by the depth of our hearts.

Súper interesante! Lectura positiva

Very good book, touched a nerve and makes you seriously think about redefining what is important in your life. There is nothing surprising in the book but that is what makes it such a good read. We all know about priorities we should make for our work life balance but most of us do not follow any kind of common sense. This book refocuses this and reminds us that we don't have to feel burned out or unhappy but that as we are in charge of our own lives we can do what is right for us and there are some tips in the books which you may not have tried. May even make some of us better people...you never know! Thanks Arianna, well written easy read, sorry I have lent it to some friends hope you don't mind that I didn't encourage them to buy the book.