Arianna Huffington: Thrive Global and the Huffington Post

00:00:00.000 | The following is a conversation with Arianna Huffington.

00:00:03.080 | She's the founder of the Huffington Post in 2005

00:00:06.260 | and the founder and CEO of Thrive Global in 2016.

00:00:10.200 | She's the author of 15 books,

00:00:12.160 | most recent to being Thrive and Sleep Revolution,

00:00:15.280 | both international bestsellers.

00:00:17.520 | These books explore how to both work hard

00:00:20.660 | and keep a lifestyle that seeks well-being,

00:00:22.600 | wisdom and wonder.

00:00:24.400 | We got a chance to sit down for this quick chat

00:00:26.240 | after a conference we both spoke at

00:00:28.400 | and got right into the big topics of mortality,

00:00:31.480 | obsession, meaning, happiness and love.

00:00:35.280 | This conversation is part of the Take It Uneasy podcast.

00:00:38.560 | If you enjoy it, subscribe on YouTube, iTunes

00:00:41.720 | or simply connect with me on Twitter

00:00:43.560 | at Lex Friedman spelled F-R-I-D.

00:00:46.200 | And now here's my conversation with Arianna Huffington.

00:00:50.040 | You tell a story of getting recognition for your first book,

00:00:54.240 | The Female Woman, when you were 23 and sitting in a hotel

00:00:57.880 | and wondering is this all there is?

00:01:00.440 | The old question of meaning and purpose.

00:01:05.080 | So now, just a couple of few years later,

00:01:08.240 | let me ask from your perspective now,

00:01:10.840 | what is the purpose?

00:01:12.760 | What is the meaning of life?

00:01:14.160 | - Well, if you believe as every major philosophy

00:01:23.360 | and every major spiritual tradition argues

00:01:28.360 | that life does not end with death,

00:01:31.320 | but that there is another dimension of consciousness,

00:01:36.840 | then clearly a full life, a meaningful life

00:01:41.320 | includes exploring that dimension.

00:01:43.800 | And for me, that exploration has been part of my life

00:01:49.700 | from my teenage years.

00:01:53.160 | I went to Shantaniketan University in India

00:01:57.600 | when I was 17 to study comparative religion.

00:02:00.880 | And I always wanted to understand what life was about

00:02:05.880 | because I never believed that all this whole experiment

00:02:11.040 | ends with each individual death.

00:02:13.960 | So that's for me at the heart of my life.

00:02:18.400 | I mean, I've always been very active with books,

00:02:22.760 | with The Huffington Post, now with Thrive Global,

00:02:24.960 | but that's been an underlying dimension

00:02:27.440 | that I think gives real meaning to life.

00:02:29.920 | - So mortality is a really interesting question

00:02:32.440 | at the core of all of these philosophies.

00:02:34.680 | So you mentioned also memento mori,

00:02:37.880 | the Latin remember death,

00:02:39.600 | the idea that reflecting on one's own mortality

00:02:43.240 | puts things into perspective.

00:02:44.440 | - Yes.

00:02:45.280 | - In a tough question, perhaps, perhaps not,

00:02:50.080 | do you often think about your own mortality

00:02:52.760 | and what perspective does that help you gain?

00:02:56.680 | - Yes, I think about it a lot.

00:02:59.400 | And it does give me perspective

00:03:02.080 | and it does help me focus on the things that matter to me

00:03:05.400 | in terms of my children, my close friends,

00:03:10.320 | the impact I want to have through what we're doing at Thrive.

00:03:13.480 | I have zero interest in what is known as legacy

00:03:18.480 | because since I don't think life ends with death,

00:03:22.800 | I'm just much more interested in what happens to my soul

00:03:27.440 | and then what happens to my legacy on earth.

00:03:32.440 | - Do you have a sense of what happens after you die,

00:03:37.440 | of soul, is it more of a feeling

00:03:41.880 | or do you have a more concrete sense spiritually?

00:03:44.760 | How do you see the world or what happens to your soul

00:03:48.120 | to whoever the heck you were while you were here on earth?

00:03:52.120 | What does that become in time?

00:03:55.380 | - So my sense is that who we are, our personality,

00:04:01.320 | the body, the mind is like a car that we rented

00:04:06.680 | and we return at the airport and get on a plane.

00:04:17.280 | - And go to another city and rent another car?

00:04:19.840 | - No, well rent another car if you believe in reincarnation

00:04:23.480 | depending on where you are in your state of evolution.

00:04:27.000 | But definitely that what survives is the soul.

00:04:30.680 | And that's why how we live our lives

00:04:34.460 | and the choices we make and how we treat others

00:04:38.440 | is so central to what happens after our death.

00:04:42.720 | - All of those elements you believe kind of feed the soul.

00:04:46.280 | - Yes.

00:04:47.240 | - So you've also mentioned that

00:04:49.160 | on the harsh, challenging part of life

00:04:54.600 | that failure is an essential part of life.

00:04:57.560 | So what may be a major failure

00:04:59.520 | that stands out to you for yourself?

00:05:02.800 | One of the toughest ones for you psychologically

00:05:05.120 | to have bounced back from if you ever did bounce back from?

00:05:09.480 | - Yes, well first of all, I don't think there is an if.

00:05:12.440 | I don't think there is a single successful person

00:05:16.320 | who has not failed along the way.

00:05:18.320 | I mean, I challenge you to find one.

00:05:21.240 | If you do, let me know.

00:05:23.040 | But in my experience, everybody has failed along the way.

00:05:26.600 | And I think it would be great

00:05:28.640 | if successful people talk more about their failures.

00:05:32.560 | The difference is resilience

00:05:35.920 | and how quickly do you get discouraged.

00:05:39.000 | In my case, actually, probably the hardest failure

00:05:43.240 | was when I was 28.

00:05:45.800 | And my second book, you mentioned my first book,

00:05:50.800 | which did very well.

00:05:53.280 | My second book, which was on the crisis

00:05:55.960 | in political leadership in the West,

00:05:58.480 | was rejected by 27 publishers,

00:06:04.840 | you know, one after the other after the other.

00:06:07.360 | And by that time, I had run out of money.

00:06:13.560 | I had been living off the proceeds of my first book.

00:06:16.400 | And I remember walking kind of depressed

00:06:21.560 | down St. James Street in London where I live

00:06:24.200 | and thinking, well, maybe my first book was just a fluke

00:06:28.960 | and I'm not really a writer and I have to go get a real job.

00:06:32.880 | And then I saw Barclays Bank in the corner

00:06:35.560 | and I walked in and asked to see the manager

00:06:38.080 | and asked the manager for what the Brits call an overdraft,

00:06:42.040 | which is a loan.

00:06:43.560 | And I had nothing, I had no assets.

00:06:47.760 | And for some reason, the manager,

00:06:49.520 | whose name is Ian Bell, gave it to me.

00:06:52.800 | And that kind of changed my life

00:06:54.520 | because it made it possible for me to keep things together

00:06:57.320 | for another 13 rejections.

00:06:59.400 | And at that point, I got an acceptance

00:07:02.120 | and I sent Ian Bell a holiday card every year.

00:07:06.480 | And he's a little bit like, you know, in fairy tales,

00:07:09.800 | when the hero or the heroine gets lost in a dark forest

00:07:13.480 | and suddenly a helpful animal comes out

00:07:18.480 | and guides them out of the forest.

00:07:21.880 | Well, sometimes helpful animals in our lives

00:07:25.000 | are in the form of a bank manager.

00:07:27.480 | They take funny disguises.

00:07:31.680 | - A modern fairy tale.

00:07:33.440 | So I spoke with Elon Musk recently on the podcast

00:07:37.520 | and you've had a friendly exchange with him on Twitter

00:07:41.440 | last year about work hours and sleep.

00:07:44.400 | So I, myself, as an engineer,

00:07:46.040 | I'm obsessed with the work I do.

00:07:48.240 | I keep a schedule closer to one that Elon does, I would say.

00:07:52.640 | Plus I'm Russian,

00:07:53.560 | so I believe suffering is good for the soul.

00:07:55.840 | So how does a singular obsession

00:08:00.400 | in the sort of the turmoil of innovation

00:08:03.480 | fit into a lifestyle you discuss and thrive?

00:08:05.920 | One focused on wellbeing, wisdom, and wonder.

00:08:08.640 | So how do you score that with like singular obsession?

00:08:12.000 | - Oh, I think singular obsessions are wonderful.

00:08:15.120 | All my favorite people are addictive

00:08:18.400 | and obsessive personalities.

00:08:20.400 | But if you're obsessed about whatever it is

00:08:25.280 | you're looking to achieve,

00:08:26.840 | whether it's in research or electric cars

00:08:31.320 | or going to the moon or anything,

00:08:34.320 | you need to look at the science and the data

00:08:37.080 | that shows that you're going to be more creative

00:08:39.800 | and more productive and more likely

00:08:42.240 | to achieve the results of your obsession

00:08:45.040 | if you actually take some time to recharge.

00:08:49.880 | That's really what we're talking about.

00:08:52.280 | - So your senses, so science and data,

00:08:56.180 | these things you talk about,

00:08:58.040 | are things of rational people.

00:09:00.880 | So you think the impossible can be achieved

00:09:04.900 | by rational people or does madness play a role?

00:09:09.200 | - Madness plays a role.

00:09:11.120 | But also looking at the results needs to play a role.

00:09:16.120 | And listen, I have huge admiration for Elon Musk

00:09:20.360 | and I wrote the open letter to him with that in mind,

00:09:24.040 | kind of lovingly and admiringly.

00:09:27.000 | And helping him, I hope, look at the laws of human energy.

00:09:32.000 | Because if you violate the laws of human energy,

00:09:38.640 | it's like violating the laws of gravity.

00:09:42.040 | There are consequences and he's facing the consequences.

00:09:45.240 | He's being distracted from his amazing obsession.

00:09:50.240 | - And you think there's a way to do better?

00:09:52.000 | - Absolutely, I mean, I think he should look

00:09:54.080 | at what happened.

00:09:55.040 | The results of tweeting in the middle of the night

00:09:57.560 | because his cognitive impairment makes him do things

00:10:01.480 | which he knows he should not be doing.

00:10:03.960 | And ending up having to step down as chairman,

00:10:07.560 | pay 20 million, having to go to court to deal with the SEC.

00:10:11.760 | Who needs that when you are building

00:10:13.720 | something amazing for humanity?

00:10:16.320 | - You think a more balanced sleep cycle?

00:10:18.880 | - It's not really about balance.

00:10:20.560 | I hate that term.

00:10:22.080 | Because I agree with you that

00:10:24.960 | there's no balance when you are trying

00:10:27.880 | to achieve something big.

00:10:29.840 | I mean, there are times when I've pulled all-nighters.

00:10:33.120 | There are times when people at Thrive

00:10:35.320 | have pulled all-nighters to ship a product.

00:10:39.200 | In fact, we make that very clear when we hire people.

00:10:42.840 | We're not a nine to five operation

00:10:45.000 | where you just balance things.

00:10:47.160 | But you need to, after that, take time to recharge.

00:10:50.640 | And the faster you do it,

00:10:52.200 | the more effective you're going to be.

00:10:53.800 | We call it Thrive time.

00:10:55.160 | So let's say you pulled an all-nighter,

00:10:57.440 | take some time the next day to recharge

00:11:00.280 | before your exhaustion becomes cumulative.

00:11:05.280 | Either you do stupid things or you fall sick,

00:11:08.360 | or all the things that we are seeing around us.

00:11:11.120 | - Catches up to you.

00:11:12.800 | On another topic, you have evolved throughout the years,

00:11:17.120 | your political views from, maybe you can correct me,

00:11:21.200 | but from right of center to left of center.

00:11:26.000 | Can you take me through your journey of political thought

00:11:28.400 | and how you see the evolution

00:11:29.840 | of the greater political landscape

00:11:32.360 | along with your evolution

00:11:34.240 | throughout the last several decades?

00:11:37.640 | - So my evolution was from being a kind of Republican

00:11:42.640 | that's practically extinct now,

00:11:46.000 | kind of pro-choice, pro-gay rights,

00:11:48.640 | pro-gun control Republican.

00:11:51.320 | (both laughing)

00:11:53.440 | To someone who realized that my understanding

00:11:58.200 | of the role of government was limited.

00:12:00.840 | I really was a Republican because I thought

00:12:03.440 | that the private sector would step up

00:12:06.200 | and address inequalities and the need to take care of people

00:12:11.200 | at the lower socioeconomically ranks.

00:12:15.760 | And I saw firsthand this wasn't going to happen

00:12:18.200 | and that you needed the raw power

00:12:20.000 | of government appropriations to be able to achieve that.

00:12:24.880 | So it was my shift in my understanding

00:12:27.920 | of the role of government

00:12:28.960 | that led to my shift in political views.

00:12:32.320 | I think what's happening right now,

00:12:34.080 | we're at this moment when the chickens

00:12:39.080 | are coming home to roost.

00:12:41.720 | Like a lot of problems that we've seen coming,

00:12:47.600 | that we've been discussing at endless conferences.

00:12:50.200 | I don't know how many conferences I've been at

00:12:52.360 | with titles like inclusive capitalism,

00:12:54.920 | the dangers of growing inequalities.

00:12:57.960 | We talked about them,

00:12:58.920 | but didn't really do anything about them.

00:13:01.920 | And so the results are different forms of right-wing

00:13:06.760 | or left-wing populism.

00:13:08.960 | And it's a very serious moment,

00:13:11.200 | but I don't think it's going to be solved

00:13:14.680 | by living in a perpetual state of outrage.

00:13:18.000 | - So you've also launched this incredible platform

00:13:21.880 | in 2005 of Huffington Post,

00:13:23.920 | HuffPost as it's now called.

00:13:27.480 | What impact do you think it had over the past 14 years

00:13:31.080 | on the nature of public discourse?

00:13:32.840 | So if you look at what that discourse is today,

00:13:35.640 | the divisiveness,

00:13:37.200 | what impact does the digitization of our conversation,

00:13:41.720 | the online, of Twitter,

00:13:43.720 | and then of more journalistic type of content

00:13:46.720 | like Huffington Post contains,

00:13:48.400 | what do you think it has done for our discourse?

00:13:52.760 | Was it been a positive thing?

00:13:54.560 | Was it been a catalyst for the divisiveness?

00:13:56.520 | Or did it simply reveal the divisiveness

00:13:58.440 | that was latent there already?

00:14:00.640 | What do you think?

00:14:01.480 | - Well, the Huffington Post

00:14:03.040 | helped democratize the conversation.

00:14:06.960 | It helped elevate what blogging was.

00:14:10.440 | When we launched the Huffington Post in 2005,

00:14:13.960 | blogging was dismissed as something

00:14:16.040 | that people who couldn't get a job

00:14:17.560 | were doing in their parents' basements.

00:14:21.000 | And because we brought in people

00:14:23.440 | who could have written for the New York Times

00:14:25.720 | like Walter Cronkite and Nora Ephron and Larry David,

00:14:30.720 | we elevated the opportunity afforded to all of us

00:14:35.360 | to express ourselves.

00:14:37.040 | But we had very, very careful guidelines.

00:14:40.720 | So for example, everything was curated.

00:14:46.440 | We did not allow ad hominem comments.

00:14:49.920 | At some point before I left the Huffington Post,

00:14:53.280 | I even ended anonymous comments altogether

00:14:56.680 | because it was becoming too hard to police them.

00:14:59.720 | So from the beginning,

00:15:01.120 | I wanted to democratize the conversation

00:15:03.840 | side by side with investigative journalism

00:15:07.600 | and all the things that I loved and honored.

00:15:11.360 | But at the same time,

00:15:13.360 | I saw the dangers of the toxicity

00:15:17.200 | that can infiltrate these conversations

00:15:22.160 | if they're not monitored and if there is no real curation.

00:15:26.160 | - So one of the core things

00:15:28.240 | that emerged from the Huffington Post is,

00:15:30.600 | I mean, there is a little bit of a viewpoint

00:15:33.120 | underlying it, it is left of center.

00:15:35.760 | - I don't call it left.

00:15:37.160 | There's definitely a viewpoint.

00:15:39.120 | In fact, we called our journalism beyond right and left.

00:15:43.120 | I think the right-left divisions,

00:15:45.920 | the way of looking at the world in terms of right and left

00:15:48.800 | is incredibly obsolete.

00:15:50.840 | Being concerned about growing inequalities

00:15:57.000 | is not a left-wing position.

00:15:58.720 | If you are somebody who cares about law and order,

00:16:01.880 | you should care about that,

00:16:03.960 | unless you want the country to be turned

00:16:05.880 | into a banana republic with rich people

00:16:08.680 | living behind gates with security guards.

00:16:12.520 | If you care about climate change,

00:16:17.000 | does that mean you're on the left

00:16:18.720 | or does it mean that you want to preserve the planet?

00:16:21.600 | So I think by looking at the world in right or left,

00:16:25.640 | we're simply polarizing the conversation.

00:16:29.240 | - But, so that's a beautiful idea and I share it,

00:16:33.600 | but nevertheless, it seems that

00:16:35.920 | there's a strong gravitational field

00:16:37.640 | that pulls people into left and right.

00:16:39.680 | And no matter what,

00:16:40.600 | they will place different venues into those polars.

00:16:44.380 | So it seems that in the public perception,

00:16:48.560 | Huffington Post kind of gets into the left

00:16:50.400 | and there's these opposing forces, Breitbart and so on,

00:16:54.320 | that get placed somehow into the right.

00:16:57.400 | And then there's the red team and the blue team.

00:16:59.840 | I guess my question is, do you see, do you notice this?

00:17:03.320 | And do you see a path forward in the coming decade

00:17:06.360 | in the era of our current president

00:17:08.400 | of maybe bringing us back together

00:17:11.680 | and having a healthy disagreement on the issues

00:17:15.320 | as opposed to having teams and tribes of red and blue?

00:17:19.560 | - I absolutely do.

00:17:20.880 | I think there are two things that are essential

00:17:23.040 | in order to achieve that.

00:17:24.320 | One is a reverence for facts.

00:17:26.700 | - Hmm.

00:17:27.540 | - You and I have the right to our own opinions,

00:17:31.620 | but we don't have the right to our own set of facts.

00:17:34.460 | - Yes.

00:17:35.300 | - So that's number one.

00:17:36.580 | And number two is to end the view of journalists

00:17:41.580 | that Jay Rosen has described as the view from nowhere.

00:17:46.620 | Like I think climate change is not a matter of opinion.

00:17:51.620 | So a lot of journalists feel that their position

00:17:55.960 | is to have one person who thinks climate change is real

00:18:00.140 | and another person who thinks it's not,

00:18:01.980 | and their job is to stay in the middle

00:18:03.860 | and play Pontius Pilate.

00:18:05.780 | To me, that's like not at all great journalism.

00:18:10.780 | And the Huffington Post definitely had a viewpoint,

00:18:15.500 | as you said.

00:18:16.340 | - Mm-hmm.

00:18:17.620 | - But it was a viewpoint based on facts.

00:18:20.420 | - And I actually recommend that people listen

00:18:22.900 | to your podcast with especially conversation

00:18:25.540 | with Neil deGrasse Tyson that kind of emphasizes,

00:18:28.500 | it talks about science and the importance

00:18:30.900 | of that people have in terms of the seriousness

00:18:35.900 | amongst our leaders towards science

00:18:38.540 | as a thing that you shouldn't politicize.

00:18:41.180 | Well, last question.

00:18:42.360 | How do you balance love and ambition?

00:18:49.900 | Thinking about your work with Thrive,

00:18:53.100 | this obsession towards whether it's building electric cars,

00:18:57.380 | going to Mars, building Huffington Post,

00:19:00.620 | obsession with your work life,

00:19:02.780 | and a genuine deep obsession with your family

00:19:05.980 | or people in your life that you love.

00:19:08.060 | How do you balance that time and energy?

00:19:11.900 | - Well, let me give you an example.

00:19:14.460 | Right now, Thrive Global is an obsession,

00:19:19.740 | ending the stress and burnout epidemic is our mission.

00:19:24.740 | And I see it as having a huge impact on our health,

00:19:30.900 | on our mental health, and on our performance.

00:19:34.660 | But at the same time, I have two daughters that I adore.

00:19:39.660 | And everybody in my office knows that when I get a call

00:19:43.660 | from one of my daughters at any point, I will take it.

00:19:48.180 | And that they are a priority.

00:19:51.020 | That doesn't mean that I can't also be obsessed

00:19:54.820 | about what we're doing and our growth.

00:19:58.100 | I think this is sort of false dichotomies

00:20:00.460 | because I think when we nurture the part of us

00:20:05.460 | that is about love, that is about connection,

00:20:09.980 | we also nurture the deeper parts of our humanity.

00:20:14.780 | And it's from those parts that wisdom and creativity come.

00:20:18.980 | - So more love will strengthen all parts of your life

00:20:21.900 | and improve productivity in all aspects.

00:20:24.340 | - Exactly.

00:20:25.180 | And interestingly enough, Jack Ma,

00:20:27.580 | hardly a wilting violet in the obsession department,

00:20:33.180 | said in Davos last year that what's going to win the future

00:20:40.300 | is not just IQ or even EQ, emotional intelligence,

00:20:45.300 | but LQ, the love quotient.

00:20:48.040 | Which is something surprising coming from Jack Ma.

00:20:52.700 | But I think it's part of the shift that's happening

00:20:56.300 | where we recognize that while AI and machine learning

00:21:01.300 | are going to take over huge parts of our life

00:21:05.420 | and destroy many jobs, the things that AI

00:21:08.740 | is not going to be able to do

00:21:10.380 | are the distinctly human things.

00:21:13.240 | And loving is one of them.

00:21:15.460 | - And so I think it's a beautiful place to end on is love.

00:21:19.460 | Arianna, thank you so much for talking today.

00:21:21.260 | - Thank you so much.

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Arianna Huffington: Thrive Global and the Huffington Post | Take It Uneasy Podcast

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