How Can You Create a Life of Well-Being?

It isn’t often that a successful entrepreneur comes forward with a practical method to achieve that ever elusive state of mind know as “well being”. Especially when the author has used the method successfully themselve. Read on about Arianna Huffington, who has done both.

How would you like to thrive, be successful, and create a life of well-being, wisdom, and wonder?

To help you do just that, Arianna Huffington, wrote the book Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder.

In addition to being a nationally syndicated columnist and author of 14 books, she’s also the chairman, president, and editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post Media Group.

Arianna is a role model for many, and her Huffington Post site is one of the top 100 websites in the world. Her motivation for writing the book Thrive was a deeply personal one.

“As I was writing and then later starting The Huffington Post, I think I was under the collective delusion that burnout is necessary for success,” Arianna says.

“Two years into launching The Huffington Post and having just come back from taking my oldest daughter around colleges to pick the college she wanted to apply to, I collapsed from burnout, exhaustion, and sleep deprivation.

I hit my head on my desk on the way down, broke my cheekbone, and got four stitches on my right eye. That was seven years ago. That was the beginning of the process of learning, understanding, and making changes in my own life that led to the publication of Thrive.

Basically, I started asking myself questions [about] what a good life is and what success is. I saw by looking around at my colleagues, friends, and the world at large that we had defined success simply in terms of two metrics: money and power. That was like trying to sit on a two-legged stool.”

The Third Metric of Success: Wellbeing

Her self-reflection resulted in a new definition of success, which includes a third metric; the third leg of the stool. This third metric consists of four pillars:

  • Health and well-being. If you sacrifice your health and well-being in the pursuit of success, you’re really paying an insanely high price. The result of this sacrifice includes everything from diabetes to heart disease, and other stress-related afflictions like depression, alcoholism, or drug addiction.
  • Wisdom. As Arianna says: “We have a lot of very smart leaders around making terrible decisions. The problem is not that they don’t have a high IQ; the problem is that they are not connected with their inner wisdom. Taking time to connect with the source of our inner wisdom and strength is essential.”
  • Joy and childlike wonder. It’s also important to bring joy into your everyday life –what Greeks called “enthousiasmos”—and to connect with the sense that you’re part of “something larger.” This includes appreciating ordinary beauty and small everyday miracles.
  • Giving. No complete life is ever lived just for oneself.

When you integrate giving, wonder, wisdom, and well-being together with the first two metrics of money and power, you can really have a complete life, filled with meaning and purpose.

Reconnecting with Your Self

Unfortunately, many are so disconnected from themselves and the people around them that connecting with their own inner wisdom sounds like a near impossible task. How do you begin if there’s no app for that? To help you connect with and develop sensitivity to you inner wisdom, Arianna included a “12 step program” in her book.

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