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Insight
There is no trade off between wellbeing and business metrics. We’re at a turning point in terms of how we prioritise what matters in business and our own lives. Arianna Huffington shares her insights on how to thrive.
There’s so much more to business and life than money and power. Arianna Huffington should know. She shares how we can redefine what it means to thrive.
In modern times the idea of a ‘good life’ has shrunk to success; and success to money and power. In the process we have neglected the third metric of success – without it it’s hard to have a fulfilling, meaningful life. This metric includes:
They are all connected with building a thriving business.
We have been living under a delusion that to build a successful business we need to burn out – be always on and sacrifice our wellbeing. For the first time in history we have evidence from neuroscience, sleep science and business data that this is not true. When businesses take care of the wellbeing of their employees it improves the bottom line. The rise in stress, anxiety and mental health has an impact on engagement, absenteeism, productivity and attrition.
What I discovered the hard way is when we put on our own oxygen mask first we will be more effective and more successful and happier. Since the Industrial Revolution we’ve started humans as machines. The goal is to minimise downtime. But the human operating system needs downtime. The digital revolution has exacerbated this issue. But we have become addicted to our devices – we take better care of smartphones than ourselves.
But when we disconnect we’re better leaders. Jeff Bezos recently wrote a piece on why getting eight hours of sleep was good for Amazon’s performance. There’s a connection between cognitive performance and decision-making. More leaders are coming out and talking about their sleep, meditation practice and digital detoxes. The business people we celebrate – we have a new status symbol – the people who know when they learn to disconnect they will be much better leaders.
Wisdom is insight; clarity; seeing things before others; tapping into that place in ourselves and making decisions from that place. Multitasking makes it hard to connect with our own wisdom. We think it makes us efficient. But it doesn’t really exist and it is one of the most stressful things you can do.
In all my meetings devices are not allowed. Give people a notebook, make meetings shorter and purposeful and end the meeting multitasking that makes them so much less productive.
People are always buried in their phones; they rarely look up. When you connect with the wonder of the universe, life becomes so different and our problems come into perspective. Being in touch with nature is a great way to reduce stress.
Neuroscience demonstrates that giving is a short cut to happiness. It’s not just giving money or time; it is often giving of ourselves. Having a personal relationship with people we normally would have an impersonal relationship with. Being able to connect as humans rather than transactionally is the beginning of giving; it changes our attitude to life.
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