How To Succeed? Get More Sleep Says Arianna Huffington

Arianna Huffington, co-founder of Huffington Post, urges us to shut our eyes and see the big picture instead of bragging about sleep deficit.

Arianna Huffington went to Cambridge and married oil millionaire, congressman Michael Huffington (they divorced later). She’s author of 13 books.

Her parents were divorced when she was 11. Her second book was rejected 36 times. Then there’s her abysmal showing as an independent in California’s 2003 gubernatorial race: Although Huffington withdrew a week before the election, her name stayed on the ballot and she finished fifth with 0.55 percent of the vote.

On May 9, 2005, The Huffington Post was born. “The launch was greeted by a cacophony of ill-wishers,” Huffington writes in Fearless. Nikki Finke’s article in the LA Weekly—headlined “Why Arianna’s Blog Blows”—said Huffington has “made an online ass of herself…. This website venture is the sort of failure that is simply unsurvivable.”

Huffington cheerily reported that a year later, Finke had described The Huffington Post as “an asset to the Internet dialogue” that contains stories missing from mainstream news sites. Huffington says Finke even “e-mails us her stories to post on the site, which we are happy to do.”

“My mother instilled in me that failure was not something to be afraid of, that it was not the opposite of success. It was a steppingstone to success. So I had no fear of failure. Perseverance is everything. I don’t give up. Everybody has failures, but successful people keep on going…. She was my life mentor.”

While the multitasking increases efficiency, Huffington does not equate busyness or influence with success. “Increasingly I feel that life is not about being effective. It’s about finding joy and purpose in your life…. Success is experienced as joy.”