hello everybody I’m dynamic welcome to
this extra special event with an extra
special guest Arianna Huffington she’s
obviously a woman who needs no
introduction but her name is synonymous
with success and she’s living proof that
hard graft and dedication really can
lead to jaw-dropping achievement the
woman behind the hugely successful
Huffington Post is not just an author of
14 books I’ve written one and that took
more than enough out of me she sits on
numerous boards and is also frequently
cited as one of the world’s most
powerful and influential people she has
now turned her hand to something that
resonates very deeply with a school of
life work-life balance what a truly
successful life looks like and the
benefits of living a more emotionally
healthy life tonight is going to tell
you about her third metric the third leg
in the stool of success when the school
of life heard that she was coming to the
UK we knew that we had to have her one
of our events for those of you who are
new to the school of life it’s devoted
to developing emotional intelligence
through the study of culture there were
what we I call a clever self help we
have classes and special events which
deal with everyday themes like love
works and our social and leisure lives
the central hog fan shop and venue for
many of our classes and in marchment
streets who do pop down if you get a
chance the speed with which this event
sold out on our website tells you as
much of other popularity of Arianna the
philosophy behind our third metric as
well as the relevance of the School of
Life ethos living a more fulfilling life
has moved far out of the margins and
right bang into the mainstream it’s very
much what I think is a zeitgeist think
and not a moment too soon I say so
ladies and gentlemen please welcome on
stage one of the world’s most unique and
truly successful figures Arianna
thank you so much this was definitely
the best introduction I have ever had
she didn’t tell us about her mini
wake-up call that she writes beautifully
about today in on The Huffington Post
this very very quickly I kind of loved
it because it shows what our brains can
do she was shopping with her son and her
mother it wasn’t really going very well
you know kind of nobody particularly
wanted to be there and suddenly her
mother says where’s your bag and you
panic and the description of the panic
is absolutely wonderful I don’t want to
take anything away from you reading it
because suddenly you said you’d been in
war zones you’ve been in prisons but you
had not felt this fight-or-flight fear
of losing your handbag and you run out
of the shop trying to find the thief who
had run away with your bag and there was
nobody there and then you come back and
your mother says maybe you left it in
the car and that’s where the bag was and
that’s yeah I love how your son
described it to his dad which his mom
went out of the shop running after an
imaginary thief with stuff where it’s
stolen her imaginary bag and had run
away in an imaginary car so my wake-up
call came seven years ago when I
collapsed from exhaustion burnout and
sleep deprivation broke my cheekbone got
four stitches on my right eye and as I
came to in my own pool of blood I asked
a lot of the questions that you are
asking here at this school that we often
stop asking after we leave college
questions like what is a good life and
what is success
and while by conventional definitions of
success are successful by any sane
definition of success if you come to in
a pool of blood of your own and
so I started reading and studying
philosophy science trying to piece
together what was happening not just in
my world but in our world and I had
always loved philosophy I had remembered
you know what the Greek philosophers had
taught us about studying three things
what do we need to know how do we govern
the city and what is a good life and
gradually in the last two centuries the
question what is a good life was
abandoned and we defined a good life
with a successful life and we shrunk
success down to this two metrics of
power and money which is really like
shrinking the whole realm of human
possibility down to our to-do lists and
so that’s when I came up with this idea
of the third metric because the two
metrics are like the two legs of the
stool you cannot sit on that stool for
too long without falling over it’s not
sustainable the third metric consists of
these four pillars and each one of them
is a section in the book first of all
our well-being second wisdom how do we
tap into our own wisdom third Wonder and
Alain de Botton writes a lot about
wonder I love all that how do we bring
it into our lives through art through
nature through being awake through not
multitasking and the fourth one is
giving how do we create a culture that
celebrates not just go Gators but go
givers and I wanted very much the book
to be a bridge between knowing what you
should be doing and actually doing it
and so as well as having 45 pages of
scientific and endnotes because I feel
it’s extraordinary that modern science
now is fully validating ancient wisdom I
wanted to have all these practical steps
so it’s chapter ends with very with
very small baby steps that each runners
can take right now to begin to bring
about this incremental changes and I’m
sure a lot of you are already doing a
lot of that for me just very quickly to
go through three little steps and then
we’ll start a conversation for me the
first step was sleep
I know it’s dismissed especially by men
as completely unnecessary I had dinner
with a guy recently who brought that he
had only gotten four hours sleep the
night before and I thought to myself but
I didn’t say it you know what if you had
gotten five this dinner would have been
a lot more interesting and the science
now is incontrovertible in fact I told a
graduating class that I gave a
commencement to it Smith a graduating
class of women I told them that my
advice to them is to sleep their way to
the top and the fact that now is seen as
a miracle drug by science you know
improving our health our mental clarity
our joy shows how far our culture has
gone from what is true the second step
has to do with their relationship with
technology we have become addicted which
is why I chose 12 steps and and our
addiction to technology is something
which we really need to cure ourselves
from otherwise technology is truly
becoming our master and a very simple
step is at the end of each day to pick
just one particular time it may change
from day to day when you take all your
devices you turn them off and then you
because that’s the time if no other time
to reconnect with yourself and have a
transition from your day life to your
recharging renewing time I remember
being in laksa a few years ago and going
to the sleeping chambers of the Luxor
Temple and realizing what a ritual sleep
was it was a time to actually let go of
the day and allow other wisdom and and
and other deeper understanding to come
into your life what we do in modern life
largely is just we crush and then the
alarm wakes us up and we – immediately
to our smartphone lest we miss anything
during the night and just one more step
which doesn’t have to do with our bodies
but it has a lot to do with their minds
and our souls and this is at the end of
each day find something that no longer
serves you and drop it it can be a
grudge resentment something you’re angry
about or it could be a project that
you’re not really going to invest time
and energy into one project I recently
gave up is skiing learning to become a
good skier I decided you know what I was
not really going to become a good skier
South it was very liberating to realize
that you can actually complete the
so a skiing is done for me I actually
when my daughter’s going to go skiing
guys
I can sit by the fire drink hot
chocolate and read a good book so let me
wrap this up by saying that if were like
you who have 30,000 days to play the
game of life and how we play it depends
on what we value and if we primarily
value this to first matrix who are never
going to have enough because there is
always somebody who has more and as the
Army on headline puts it death rate
holds steady at 100% and those of you
who are studying philosophy know that
the Greeks like Socrates urged us to
practice death daily and the Romans used
to carve mmm memento mori memento mori
on statues and trees not out of a sense
of being morbid but out of a sense of
wanting to put life and everything that
happened to us including losing an
imaginary bag in perspective so if
you’ve been to a memorial recently you
know that eulogies have nothing to do
with their resumes you’ve never heard
anybody during a eulogy say something
like George was amazing he increased
so every religion and many scientists
have really said the same thing that we
all have been as a place of wisdom
strength and peace and it is as close to
us as our next breath if we only take a
little time to cultivate what in modern
life has become for most of us a
deserted garden so as Archimedes the
Greek mathematician put it give me a
place to stand and I can move the world
so thrive is a really a book to help us
chart a pathway to that place and from
that place leave our lives according to
our own definition of success with more
compassion more gratitude more peace more joy and yes more sleep thank you
this extra special event with an extra
special guest Arianna Huffington she’s
obviously a woman who needs no
introduction but her name is synonymous
with success and she’s living proof that
hard graft and dedication really can
lead to jaw-dropping achievement the
woman behind the hugely successful
Huffington Post is not just an author of
14 books I’ve written one and that took
more than enough out of me she sits on
numerous boards and is also frequently
cited as one of the world’s most
powerful and influential people she has
now turned her hand to something that
resonates very deeply with a school of
life work-life balance what a truly
successful life looks like and the
benefits of living a more emotionally
healthy life tonight is going to tell
you about her third metric the third leg
in the stool of success when the school
of life heard that she was coming to the
UK we knew that we had to have her one
of our events for those of you who are
new to the school of life it’s devoted
to developing emotional intelligence
through the study of culture there were
what we I call a clever self help we
have classes and special events which
deal with everyday themes like love
works and our social and leisure lives
the central hog fan shop and venue for
many of our classes and in marchment
streets who do pop down if you get a
chance the speed with which this event
sold out on our website tells you as
much of other popularity of Arianna the
philosophy behind our third metric as
well as the relevance of the School of
Life ethos living a more fulfilling life
has moved far out of the margins and
right bang into the mainstream it’s very
much what I think is a zeitgeist think
and not a moment too soon I say so
ladies and gentlemen please welcome on
stage one of the world’s most unique and
truly successful figures Arianna
thank you so much this was definitely
the best introduction I have ever had
she didn’t tell us about her mini
wake-up call that she writes beautifully
about today in on The Huffington Post
this very very quickly I kind of loved
it because it shows what our brains can
do she was shopping with her son and her
mother it wasn’t really going very well
you know kind of nobody particularly
wanted to be there and suddenly her
mother says where’s your bag and you
panic and the description of the panic
is absolutely wonderful I don’t want to
take anything away from you reading it
because suddenly you said you’d been in
war zones you’ve been in prisons but you
had not felt this fight-or-flight fear
of losing your handbag and you run out
of the shop trying to find the thief who
had run away with your bag and there was
nobody there and then you come back and
your mother says maybe you left it in
the car and that’s where the bag was and
that’s yeah I love how your son
described it to his dad which his mom
went out of the shop running after an
imaginary thief with stuff where it’s
stolen her imaginary bag and had run
away in an imaginary car so my wake-up
call came seven years ago when I
collapsed from exhaustion burnout and
sleep deprivation broke my cheekbone got
four stitches on my right eye and as I
came to in my own pool of blood I asked
a lot of the questions that you are
asking here at this school that we often
stop asking after we leave college
questions like what is a good life and
what is success
and while by conventional definitions of
success are successful by any sane
definition of success if you come to in
a pool of blood of your own and
so I started reading and studying
philosophy science trying to piece
together what was happening not just in
my world but in our world and I had
always loved philosophy I had remembered
you know what the Greek philosophers had
taught us about studying three things
what do we need to know how do we govern
the city and what is a good life and
gradually in the last two centuries the
question what is a good life was
abandoned and we defined a good life
with a successful life and we shrunk
success down to this two metrics of
power and money which is really like
shrinking the whole realm of human
possibility down to our to-do lists and
so that’s when I came up with this idea
of the third metric because the two
metrics are like the two legs of the
stool you cannot sit on that stool for
too long without falling over it’s not
sustainable the third metric consists of
these four pillars and each one of them
is a section in the book first of all
our well-being second wisdom how do we
tap into our own wisdom third Wonder and
Alain de Botton writes a lot about
wonder I love all that how do we bring
it into our lives through art through
nature through being awake through not
multitasking and the fourth one is
giving how do we create a culture that
celebrates not just go Gators but go
givers and I wanted very much the book
to be a bridge between knowing what you
should be doing and actually doing it
and so as well as having 45 pages of
scientific and endnotes because I feel
it’s extraordinary that modern science
now is fully validating ancient wisdom I
wanted to have all these practical steps
so it’s chapter ends with very with
very small baby steps that each runners
can take right now to begin to bring
about this incremental changes and I’m
sure a lot of you are already doing a
lot of that for me just very quickly to
go through three little steps and then
we’ll start a conversation for me the
first step was sleep
I know it’s dismissed especially by men
as completely unnecessary I had dinner
with a guy recently who brought that he
had only gotten four hours sleep the
night before and I thought to myself but
I didn’t say it you know what if you had
gotten five this dinner would have been
a lot more interesting and the science
now is incontrovertible in fact I told a
graduating class that I gave a
commencement to it Smith a graduating
class of women I told them that my
advice to them is to sleep their way to
the top and the fact that now is seen as
a miracle drug by science you know
improving our health our mental clarity
our joy shows how far our culture has
gone from what is true the second step
has to do with their relationship with
technology we have become addicted which
is why I chose 12 steps and and our
addiction to technology is something
which we really need to cure ourselves
from otherwise technology is truly
becoming our master and a very simple
step is at the end of each day to pick
just one particular time it may change
from day to day when you take all your
devices you turn them off and then you
because that’s the time if no other time
to reconnect with yourself and have a
transition from your day life to your
recharging renewing time I remember
being in laksa a few years ago and going
to the sleeping chambers of the Luxor
Temple and realizing what a ritual sleep
was it was a time to actually let go of
the day and allow other wisdom and and
and other deeper understanding to come
into your life what we do in modern life
largely is just we crush and then the
alarm wakes us up and we – immediately
to our smartphone lest we miss anything
during the night and just one more step
which doesn’t have to do with our bodies
but it has a lot to do with their minds
and our souls and this is at the end of
each day find something that no longer
serves you and drop it it can be a
grudge resentment something you’re angry
about or it could be a project that
you’re not really going to invest time
and energy into one project I recently
gave up is skiing learning to become a
good skier I decided you know what I was
not really going to become a good skier
South it was very liberating to realize
that you can actually complete the
so a skiing is done for me I actually
when my daughter’s going to go skiing
guys
I can sit by the fire drink hot
chocolate and read a good book so let me
wrap this up by saying that if were like
you who have 30,000 days to play the
game of life and how we play it depends
on what we value and if we primarily
value this to first matrix who are never
going to have enough because there is
always somebody who has more and as the
Army on headline puts it death rate
holds steady at 100% and those of you
who are studying philosophy know that
the Greeks like Socrates urged us to
practice death daily and the Romans used
to carve mmm memento mori memento mori
on statues and trees not out of a sense
of being morbid but out of a sense of
wanting to put life and everything that
happened to us including losing an
imaginary bag in perspective so if
you’ve been to a memorial recently you
know that eulogies have nothing to do
with their resumes you’ve never heard
anybody during a eulogy say something
like George was amazing he increased
so every religion and many scientists
have really said the same thing that we
all have been as a place of wisdom
strength and peace and it is as close to
us as our next breath if we only take a
little time to cultivate what in modern
life has become for most of us a
deserted garden so as Archimedes the
Greek mathematician put it give me a
place to stand and I can move the world
so thrive is a really a book to help us
chart a pathway to that place and from
that place leave our lives according to
our own definition of success with more
compassion more gratitude more peace more joy and yes more sleep thank you
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