At HubSpot’s 2013 Inbound Conference, keynoter Arianna Huffington outlined how success should be redefined. She was also very funny.
In her Inbound Conference keynote, Arianna Huffington outlined how success should be redefined:
- Well-being
- Wisdom
- Capacity to celebrate life
- Our ability to give back
She also surprised the audience by mentioning that her talk should have been titled “From Politics to the Boardroom to the Bedroom: Fearless Leadership.”
She shared how sleeping more has transformed her life, and how she has made her bedroom an electronic device-free zone to improve how she sleeps, feels and performs every day. And she encourages her employees at the Huffington Post to do the same.
And instead of encouraging everyone to do more, she encouraged the audience to rest more and be diligent about what they choose NOT to do.
But she also made the crowd laugh with some well-timed jokes that, despite her thick Greek accent and busy job running The Huffington Post, indicate she may be considering a career move to standup comedy. But seriously, folks:
- I didn’t relax about my accent until I moved to the States and met Henry Kissinger. And he said to me, “Never worry about your accent – in American public life you can never underestimate the advantages of complete and total incomprehensibility.”
- Take a nap. If you are tired, it’s much better to stop, take a nap and get back to work. At the Huffington Post we have two nap rooms. And at first everybody was saying “Nobody’s going to want to be seen walking into a nap room in the middle of the afternoon.” Now they are perpetually booked. We’ve had to open a third nap room. And the other day I was walking by one of them and I saw two people walking out together and I said to myself “Whatever it takes to recharge in the middle of the afternoon!” Just don’t tell HR.
- Men have to a large extent been responsible for equating sleep deprivation with virility. I had dinner with a guy recently who bragged that he’d only gotten four hours sleep the night before. I didn’t say anything but I thought to myself “You know, if you’d gotten five hours sleep, this dinner would have been a lot more interesting.”
- We are living in a state of absolutely dreadful upward mobility which has really become downward mobility. We’re number ten in upward mobility around the world. We are now behind Spain and France. And being behind France in upward mobility is a little bit like France being behind America in croissants and afternoon sex.
Below is the keynote in its entirety, which is well worth a watch. Enjoy. And try the veal!
