Arianna Huffington Opens Up About How to Avoid the Burnout and Why Women Need to Redefine Success For Themselves

Media mogul, author, and one-time contender for governor — there’s no question Arianna Huffington is a success. And while there’s still more to come, this mother of two is making time to help young girls achieve their own victories. We caught up with Huffington at her New York office to talk about professional achievement, life balance, and what girls need to know to make it.

BY ELAINE KUNDA
PHOTOGRAPHY BY CARLO ALLEGRI

The G(irls) 20 Summit is, among other things, about cultivating a new generation of female leaders. Every year the organization’s flagship event brings leaders in business, the arts, politics and science to a single location to pursue a common goal: to strategize ways for young delegates to improve the opportunities for women and girls in their home countries. This year, the summit was in Russia and Arianna Huffington was a keynote speaker. She was a perfect addition to a stellar roster of accomplished speakers.

One of the other goals of the summit is to expose our delegates to people who will inspire them with personal stories and first-hand accounts of mobilizing for change and confronting adversity. Life is full of lessons and wisdom comes from “doing,” but we believe we can create shortcuts from sharing.

Arianna is one of the most powerful women in media, and the woman behind one of the most influential online news sources in existence.

Born in Athens and educated at the University of Cambridge, Arianna founded Huffington Post as an online blog and news source, and turned it into the second-most-visited news aggregator. In the male-dominated media world, she solidified her place in business history by selling Huffington Post to AOL for $315 million and being appointed Chair, President, and Editor-in-Chief of the Huffington Post Media Group. Huffington has been featured in the Forbes Most Powerful Women, Forbes Most Influential Women in Media, and Time 100 lists.

A true leader and undeniable success, Arianna is also an incredibly open, and caring women who strives to make herself and the people around her stronger and more balanced. Recently, I sat down with her in New York City — I was on my way to Russia, for the G(irls) 20 Summit; she was on her way to one of her many daily meetings. She only had a few minutes to spare, but as we discussed the challenges and opportunities for women and girls, the importance of life outside of work, and missteps she’s made along the way, she gave me, and our conversation, her full attention.

ELAINE KUNDA: YOU HAVE BEEN AN INSPIRATION AND ROLE MODEL FOR GIRLS AND WOMEN OF EVERY AGE. CAN YOU SHARE SOME PERSONAL INFORMATION ON WHAT MAKES YOU TICK, WHAT MOTIVATES YOU?

ARIANNA: Well, first of all, I just want to say how excited I am to be speaking with you, and through you, to the girls [at G(irls) 20] because I have two daughters who are in college, and there is nothing more important to me than making sure the next generation of women leaders grow up feeling completely empowered to take on any challenge and achieve anything.

From my experience, the first thing is to overcome your own fears and doubts, that’s why I wrote Becoming Fearless [2006]. It was really for my daughters. Women tend to want to do everything perfectly, but we need to learn that perfection is out of this world and to learn not to let our judgments in the way.

In my case, I was a very self judgmental person. I had this voice that I called The Obnoxious Roommate living in my head that was constantly putting me down and making me question what I was doing.

EK: COULD YOU ALSO SHARE YOUR FIRST BUSINESS WIN, AND YOUR FIRST BIG DISAPPOINTMENT IN BUSINESS?
AH: I guess my first big failure was my second book. When I decided I wanted to be a writer, my first book was very successful, and then I wanted to write a book on leadership, and I wrote the book and it was rejected by 36 publishers.

During that whole time I started questioning whether I really was meant to be a writer, whether I had picked the wrong profession, and I also ran out of money. What really helped me, during that difficult period, was persevering, trusting, and not letting my fears and disappointments in the way.

When I was running out of money, I remember walking down St. James’s street in London, and I saw a Barkley’s bank. I went in and asked to see the bank manager and ask for a loan, and believe it or not he gave it to me. I still send him my holiday cards. But for me, this was a little bit about remembering that very often in our lives, if we look back, any one of us, we see that, like in fairytales when a hero or heroine is lost in deep dark forest, there are helpful animals, disguised as bank managers or whatever, ready to help us. So [we need to] remember that as we go through challenges, and we always will go through challenges.

EK: I’VE READ A LOT LATELY ABOUT YOUR IDEA OF REDEFINING SUCCESS AND I FIND THAT VERY INTERESTING. IT’S IMPORTANT FOR YOUNG WOMEN, AND ALL PEOPLE, TO UNDERSTAND WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE, AND I WOULD LOVE FOR YOU TO SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THAT.
AH: That is something that is incredibly important to me right now. We tend to define success as mostly two things, money and power. And this for me is like a two-legged stool; you know it really doesn’t work long term. That’s why we launched a section on the Huffington post, that we called “Redefining Success: the Third Metric.”

We deliberately did not give it a specific name because it includes a few things; the first is a sense of our own well-being. Very often people, especially when they’re starting in their careers, work around the clock, burn out, to the detriment of their health, and sense of well being, so we need to prioritize well-being, and consider well-being an element of success. Because what is the point of having power and money if your health has been impaired?

The other one is wisdom. We really need to make a point of connecting with our own wisdom, which often includes disconnecting from technology, in order to connect with ourselves.

EK: WHICH WE CAN ALL LEARN TO DO BETTER…
AH: Exactly. I’ve been meditating for many years, and I’ve found that an incredibly effective way to disconnect from all the everyday issues that I am dealing with, and connect with something deeper.

Then, two more things: empathy and giving, this is critical. We need to learn to be empathetic, that success isn’t just about taking, but about giving. And finally, a sense of wonder about life, there is something magical about life, and all its difficulties. Very often we will forget to notice the little things, and remembering that can add an enormous amount of gratitude to our lives.

EK: IS THIS SOMETHING THAT IS NEW IN YOUR LIFE? OR HAVE YOU ALWAYS BEEN ABLE TO EMBRACE THE 3RD LEG OF THE STOOL?
AH: You know…intermittently. But then in 2007 I had kind of a rude awakening when I fainted from exhaustion, broke my cheekbone, and got four stitches near my right eye. That was the beginning of really taking this thing much more to heart, and making it much more of a priority in my life.

EK: DO YOU THINK THAT’S SOMETHING THAT WISDOM IS, SOMETHING THAT COMES WITH AGE AND EXPERIENCE? OR IS THAT SOMETHING THAT THESE GIRLS [BETWEEN THE AGES OF 18-20] COULD BE LEARNING?
AH: Well obviously wisdom comes with age and experience, but I think that you can take a shortcut. There is no real reason why you need to go through all the same difficulties and tribulations. You have that wisdom in you right now; you don’t have to be my age to have that wisdom. It’s just a question of taking that time to tap into it.

EK: THAT IS THE VERY REASON WE BRING SUCH AMAZING PEOPLE TOGETHER TO SHARE WITH THESE GIRLS: SO THEY CAN FIND THESE SHORTCUTS. THERE ARE MANY POWERFUL MEN AND WOMEN WHO ARE SPEAKING OUT OPENLY AND FRANKLY ABOUT THE FACT THAT THERE IS AN ENORMOUS GENDER GAP IN BUSINESS AND SOCIETY AS A WHOLE — ORGANIZATIONS SUCH AS THE WORLD BANK, THE BILL AND MELINDA GATES FOUNDATION, INDIVIDUALS SUCH AS YOURSELF, SHERYL SANDBERG, ARCHBISHOP TUTU. SO MY QUESTION TO YOU IS, HOW DO WE TAKE THIS FROM CONVERSATION TO EXECUTION? AND WHAT STEPS NEED TO BE TAKEN TO GET WOMEN INTO THE BOARD ROOM AND IN POWER?
AH: I think two things. [What] Sheryl Sandberg is talking about—leaning in, overcoming our own fears, making sure we’re asking for what we want —is very important, but we also need to change the workplace.

Often, women do not want a place at the top if that means living a life that is fueled by burnout. Women want to be able to integrate all aspects of themselves. It’s going to be much easier to achieve a much larger number of women at the top of businesses and governments if workplaces are more humane and more sustainable. And that means we can redefine success for everybody, not just for women, but for men.

For women it is even more important because we internalize stress more, the data is very disturbing. Women in stressful jobs have a 40% greater risk of heart disease [than men] and 60% risk of diabetes. This is something very real so that is why we need to have work places that can reduce the stress that work produces.

Here, in the Huffington Post news room, we have two nap rooms, we have weekly yoga classes, mediation classes, breathing classes, and we’ve also launched an app which is free called GPS For The Soul, which gives you a proxy for your stress level, your heart rate variability, and then you can create a personalized guide to help you course-correct….

EK: INTERESTING, ARE THESE NAP ROOMS AND CLASSES WIDELY USED AND ACCEPTED?
AH: Yes, and it has made a huge difference in people’s lives in the office. We are opening a new office in Washington, which is going to have dedicated meditation, yoga classes, nap rooms, and I think it shows our employees that we actually care for them as human beings, and don’t just think of them as robots producing things. And in the end, there is no question that makes people more productive and more effective.

EK: RIGHT, AND I THINK IT’S IMPORTANT THAT YES WE ARE FOCUSED ON GIRLS AND WOMEN, BUT THIS IS APPLICABLE TO ALL EMPLOYEES AND IT IS NOT JUST ABOUT WOMEN.
AH: Absolutely, it’s just that women are leading the way to changing the way things are, since men made it the way it is.

EK: I ALWAYS SAY THAT IF THERE WERE MORE WOMEN IN THE BOARD ROOM, THE CONVERSATION WOULD CHANGE MUCH FASTER. SO THE DELEGATES WATCHING THIS VIDEO HAVE A UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY, THEY ARE GOING TO BE GIVEN A PLATFORM AND A VOICE TO PRESENT TO G20 LEADERS THEIR SUGGESTIONS TO WOMEN FOR CHANGE GLOBALLY. I’M SURE THEY WOULD LOVE TO HEAR YOUR THOUGHTS AND WHAT YOUR RECOMMENDATIONS WOULD BE FOR THEM WITH THIS GREAT OPPORTUNITY IN FRONT OF THEM. WHAT SHOULD THEY BE SAYING FOR CHANGE FOR WOMEN?
AH: Well the G20 leaders have already made a declaration in favour of equal rights, equal pay, equal access to education etc. I think the recommendation should be to move from declarations to actions. That is really the key now. It is no longer about talking, but about doing. And when we have hundreds and thousands of young women dying because of childbirth or pregnancy complications, a first primary step should be young women’s health. Then the next one is access to education, and STEM [science, technology, engineering and math] education. Even here in the United States we need women, after high school especially, to be encouraged, and to move into STEM college degrees, and STEM jobs which are in such high demand. Also, the G20 governments can see the power of social media to organize these young women all around these issues; we have a dedicated section in the Huffington Post about global maternal health, and also about service. A lot of these young women want their lives to be about service, they need to be helped along the way to overcome the very, very basic challenges that they are facing.

EK: IT’S INTERESTING THAT YOU MENTION STEM CAREERS. ONE OF OUR BIG MANDATES AND FOCUS FOR THE CONFERENCE IS HOW DO WE GET MORE WOMEN INTERESTED IN STEM-RELATED EDUCATION AND FIELDS. WE DID PRODUCE A VIDEO ON HOW TO GET MORE WOMEN INTO ENGINEERING IN PARTICULAR. THE NUMBERS ARE QUITE SHOCKING; THERE ARE SO FEW WOMEN IN ENGINEERING, AND ESPECIALLY IN TECHNOLOGY…
AH: What is interesting is that they drop off after high school, certainly in the States.

Meghan Smith at Google has a whole program around encouraging women in technology. Making sure they know about all the role models at our conference and redefining success. At our conference last week, we had Padmasree Warrior [chief technology officer at Cisco]. She’s absolutely amazing and she is doing it her own way.

She’s one of the top leaders in technology, but she also tells everybody that she gets seven hours of sleep a night, she writes haikus, she meditates. She can show a different way where she can do these different jobs at the top without in any way sacrificing the lives that many women want to have.

EK: RIGHT. AND IN MANY WAYS IT’S ABOUT AWARENESS. ONE OF THE THINGS THAT WE’VE REALLY FOCUSED ON IS THAT THE SUCCESS WOMEN HAVE WHEN THEY DO ENTER THESE PROFESSIONS IS QUITE PHENOMENAL. IT’S NOT THAT THEY CAN’T DO IT, OR DON’T HAVE A NATURAL INSTINCT FOR IT, THE PROBLEM IS JUST GETTING THEM INTO IT, WHICH IS ONE OF THE THINGS THAT WE ARE REALLY FOCUSED ON. IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE THAT YOU WANT TO SHARE WITH THE GIRLS BEFORE WE SIGN OFF?
AH: I just want to say congratulations for being part of this great journey, and I want to invite you to write about your journey and experience on the Huffington Post.

In order to make it easy, I am going to give you my e-mail address so you can write directly to me, Arianna@huffingtonpost.com.

Elaine Kunda is a G(irls) 20 Summit moderator as well as a serial entrepreneur and online media expert. The 2014 G(irls) 20 Summit will be held in Australia.
For more, visit www.girls20summit.com.