In Thrive, Arianna Huffington makes an impassioned and compelling case for the need to redefine what it means to be successful in today’s world.
Arianna Huffington’s personal wake-up call came in the form of a broken cheekbone and a nasty gash over her eye — the result of a fall brought on by exhaustion and lack of sleep. As the cofounder and editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post Media Group — one of the fastest growing media companies in the world — celebrated as one of the world’s most influential women, and gracing the covers of magazines, she was, by any traditional measure, extraordinarily successful. Yet as she found herself going from brain MRI to CAT scan to echocardiogram, to find out if there was any underlying medical problem beyond exhaustion, she wondered is this really what success feels like?
As more and more people are coming to realize, there is far more to living a truly successful life than just earning a bigger salary and capturing a corner office. Our relentless pursuit of the two traditional metrics of success — money and power — has led to an epidemic of burnout and stress-related illnesses, and an erosion in the quality of our relationships, family life, and, ironically, our careers. In being connected to the world 24/7, we’re losing our connection to what truly matters. Our current definition of success is, as Thrive shows, literally killing us. We need a new way forward. – Goodreads
Let me preface this by saying I am a huge admirer of Arianna Huffington. She is a fantastic career woman to look up to—she is successful, put together, and has her stuff together. I also love the Huffington Post. Win-win! So I chose this book to review.
I’ve had Thrive for several months now. I’ve picked it up, read a few pages, and set it back down. Rinse and repeat. But I haven’t been able to sit down and really read it. Why? It simply didn’t click with me. There wasn’t any profound advice that I’d never read before—if anything, it read like an inspirational board on Pinterest.
I agree with many of her points (after I ended up flipping through and reading at random). After all, is there a universal definition of success? I don’t think so. I think it’s very individualized, despite what society tells us.
I think that this book will be great for those in college or just entering the workforce—for me, though, it contained many ideas I’d already read or heard before.
Ultimately, it was written well. It was engaging and fun (for the parts that I read).
Full disclosure: I received this book from Blogging for Books in exchange for an honest review. I read about 40% of this book and did not finish it.
lifebetweenreads.com 