Thrive. The Webster Online Dictionary defines Thrive as to grow and develop successfully and to flourish or succeed. But what is success? Earning lots of Money? Attaining a position of power? Arianna Huffington challenges this popular, traditional definition of success in Thrive. She exhorts the readers to re-examine this universal definition of success and asks them to redefine success to align with their inner self.
Arianna Huffington is a Greek-American author, Co-Founder, and Editor-in-Chief of Huffington Post. She has also been named in the Time magazine’s 100 most influential people list and is on the Forbes Most Powerful Women list.
Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder
Hardcover: 352 pages
Publisher: Harmony (March 25, 2014)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0804140847
Book Review
Arianna Huffington was forced to ponder over the meaning of success and about the definition of living a successful life when she experienced a personal health tragedy in 2007. Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder took shape when the author was preparing for a commencement speech at Smith College.
The author believes that with money and power comes stress, and stress clouds our ability to think and make good decisions, which hurts the very reason businesses push their employees to work hard. The author of Thrive wants you to shun the traditional definition of success. Her argument is that people need to define their success and that success is relative.
The author proposes that there should be a third metric to measure or define success. The current definition, according to her, is a two-legged stool with us trying desperately to balance until we topple – and we do topple. Her view of success is a person leading a more balanced life atop a plank balanced by pillars of Well-being, Wisdom, Wonder, and Giving.
In Well-Being, Ariana Huffington talks about stress related problems and how they affect women more than men as they move up the professional ladder. She talks about benefits of meditation and how Huffington Post has created an environment and practices to reduce stress in the workplace. The book is full of data showing the ill effects of stress on workers and its impact on the bottom line. Throughout the book, the author urges the need to redefine success and rid the civilization of what she refers to as Burnout disease.
Wonder reminds us to not lose our childlike curiosity in the race to acquire the next symbol of success. When was the last time you looked at something and had time to say ‘I wonder . . . ?’ The author shows that it was the wonder in everyday things that led to the most profound discoveries and inventions in our history. The essay paints the current, digital world that is hyper-connected and demanding. A world full of incessant stimuli that demand constant attention to multiple things at a time and suck out any chance of contemplation on the present – a book we are reading, the movie that we just walked out of, or a derelict historical fort that we visited during a vacation. A world where we are perched to share on social networks the book we are reading or the vacation photos instead of spending time in experiencing those leisurely moments.
The author sums up that there is enough proof to tell us that we will never be satisfied and feel that we have enough. There will always be external stimuli urging us to make more money, be more ambitious, but none that tell us to attend to our inner world. Finally, the author urges the readers to define their own measure of success and build a thriving life full of happiness and passion.