891 The Power of Rest

OVERWORKING ISN’T THE GOAL. So often, we get a pat on the back when we run ourselves into the ground. We get recognition for always staying late at work. We answer emails at night and on the weekend. People ask us, “Wow, how do you manage to DO IT ALL?!” But what we’re really doing is destroying our minds and our bodies. We can only operate at 110% for so long. Professional athletes know the importance of rest and recovery. They work it into their schedule, and they never skip it. Why shouldn’t the rest of us do the same? For this Five Minute Friday, I revisited a conversation I had with Arianna Huffington where she shared how she reshaped her life and health after collapsing from burnout. Arianna Huffington is the founder of The Huffington Post, the founder and CEO of Thrive Global, and the author of fifteen books. She’s no stranger to hard work, but a life-changing event made her drastically change her approach. Learn how to thrive and stop being exhausted in Episode 891. In This Episode You Will Learn: Why Arianna collapsed from exhaustion (1:30) What athletes know better than most people (2:30) What Arianna implemented at Huffington Post (3:00) Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is Five Minute Friday.

• 0:11Lewis Howes?

  Welcome everyone to today's episode with the one, the only Arianna Huffington. For those who have not heard of her, then you've probably never been online because she runs the incredibly successful and popular Huffington Post. And in 2012, the Huffington Post became the first commercially run US digital media enterprise to win a Pulitzer Prize. And as of 2014, she is listed as the 52nd most powerful woman in the world by Forbes. She is also a TV personality and New York Times bestselling author for her newest book called Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success in Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder.

• 0:55Arianna Huffington?

  Eight years ago, two years into launching the Huffington Post, I collapsed from exhaustion, burnout, and sleep deprivation. And that started me on this journey of recognizing that it wasn't just me, that our whole world is suffering from what a Belgian philosopher has called civilization's disease, burnout. And that we are all living under the collective delusion that burnout is the only way to succeed. And I'm really excited now that modern science is proving this wrong.

• 1:34Arianna Huffington?

  And that's why at the end of Thrive, I have 55 pages of scientific endnotes to prove that in fact, contrary to what we have believed for decades, sleep, meditation, pauses to renew ourselves, are performance enhancement tools. And I'm actually thrilled to be talking to you because you come from the world of sport, originally. And athletes.

• 2:00Lewis Howes?

  We need our sleep.

• 2:01Arianna Huffington?

  You know, you're ahead of business people. You're ahead of the rest of the world in recognizing that there is no trade-off.

• 2:08Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 2:08Arianna Huffington?

  Between taking care of yourself and winning.

• 2:11Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 2:11Arianna Huffington?

  In fact.

• 2:12Lewis Howes?

  Because our muscles won't recover unless we sleep.

• 2:13Arianna Huffington?

  Exactly. I mean, as a marathon runner, Olympic marathon runner said, he said, "I can run really hard, the problem is recovery."

• 2:24Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 2:24Arianna Huffington?

  And that's why I'm just launching this Thrive e-course with Oprah, which launches on May 3rd. And every week, it's a six-week course. Every week, we work on two steps and have a different guest teacher. So my first guest teacher is Kobi Bryant. Because I wanted to have somebody unexpected to talk about sleep and meditation.

• 2:48Lewis Howes?

  He's probably one of the best.

• 2:49Arianna Huffington?

  And Kobi talks to everyone on the course, well, we will talk when we start on May 3rd, about how important sleep and meditation has been on his performance. And also on his ability to be a good dad and a good husband. But even if somebody only cares about the performance at work, which I hope is not the case.

• 3:09Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 3:10Arianna Huffington?

  And we have done it wrong. You know, we've been congratulating people for working 24/7.

• 3:17Lewis Howes?

  And not taking care of themselves.

• 3:18Arianna Huffington?

  For not taking care of themselves, not taking a vacation. And all these things may make people actually less productive and less creative and less healthy.

• 3:27Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 3:27Arianna Huffington?

  In Germany, for example, a lot of companies are taking measures to reduce stress in the workplace because they are seeing the impact of burnout on the bottom line. Like Volkswagen gives employees smartphones that are automatically turned off at 6:00 PM and turned on at 7:00 AM.

• 3:50Lewis Howes?

  Wow, that is interesting. So they can't work at night.

• 3:52Arianna Huffington?

  So they can actually take time to be with their children, their loved ones, themselves. Because, again, the science shows that people need predictable time off. If your boss expects you to be on all the time in case they send you an email, you can never really unwind and truly recharge. And therefore, you're not going to be as effective in the morning.

• 4:21Lewis Howes?

  Hey guys, if you enjoyed this inspirational clip from a past episode of the show, then you'll love the free book I'm giving away right now. It's called The Millionaire Morning. It includes some of my best tips for starting off your day with a millionaire mindset. Get your free copy at themillionairemorning.com and just pay shipping. Again, check it out right now, themillionairemorning.com.