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Arianna Huffington

Lesson 5 from: 30 Days of Genius

Chase Jarvis

Arianna Huffington

Lesson 5 from: 30 Days of Genius

Chase Jarvis

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Lesson Info

5. Arianna Huffington

Next Lesson: LeVar Burton

Lesson Info

Arianna Huffington

Hello everybody. I'm Chase Jarvis. Welcome to another episode of Chase Jarvis Live on Creative Live and specifically the 30 Days of Genius series. This series is where I sit down with the world's top creatives, entrepreneurs and game changers and I sit down with them and I pull all of this actual information out of their brain, sharing it with you in hopes that you can live your dreams in career, hobby and life. If you're new to this series go to CreativeLive.com dash 30 the number three zero days of genius press the little blue button and then you will get one of these interviews in your inbox every day for your perusal and pleasure. My next guest you will know her from the long list of accomplishments. I'm gonna keep it brief because I wanna maximize the conversation with her. She is the co-founder of the Huffington Post. She might have that name in her name. She's also done 15 books, a New York Time's Best-Selling Author. You'll know her from Thrive more recently and her new book Th...

e Sleep Revolution. My guest today is none other than Arianna Huffington. Tada. Thank you Chase. Welcome. (rock music) (clapping) They love you. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much. I came all the way to New York to sit here and talk with you and I Oh. Thank you so much. We could've done this on a Greek island but Next time. Next time. Next time. I have all of the traditional Greek islands, Ios, Skiathos, Paros, Santorini, but I'm sure you could tell me a lot of other. Antiparos. We talk about that next time. Okay, next time. Thank you so much first of all and it's I would say virtually impossible for anyone in our audience to not know you from what I think the world knows is your biggest project The Huffington Post. I feel like I took that for granted for a long time. I just was like oh, it's The Huffington Post it was very much like some, the New York Times as the thing that existed in the world because it went from me not knowing it to it being everywhere very quickly so before we get into one of the things that I think is our biggest topic today which is sleep, give a little bit of backstory because I don't actually know the story behind the start of The Huffington Post and our audience out there I feel like they probably wanna know too. So if you give me a little bit of backstory that'll help frame our conversation. So The Huffington Post is just over ten years old. We built it in 2005 and as you mentioned in your introduction, I've been a writer all my life but I could see that the conversation was moving online. Yes. And I wanted to not only be part of that conversation but also create a platform where this conversation could take place. And so from day one Huff Post was both a journalistic enterprise. We now have 850 editors, reporters all around the world in 15 countries but also a platform. We have over a hundred thousand contributors, you wake up and you have an idea and you put it on your Facebook page, you put it on your own site, wherever you want. We want people to also cross post on the Huffington Point because it's not about exclusivity anymore. Yes. It's about ubiquity. You know, you produce content. You want it to live everywhere. That's very true. So that's how we've managed to keep growing. We're now over 200 million unique visitors. And a very, very vibrant community that focuses a lot actually beyond politics and news which is kind of our bread and butter on weighing less and how can people lead lives that are more fulfilling, less stressful and more creative. I've sat down with so many top performers in the world and there's a handful of patterns that have emerged one of which is people that have this sort of career in stamina, with longevity, and they do great things not just once but over and over and it's great habits. And when we were talking before we started rolling the camera about sleep of course, are there a set of habits that you feel like you have lived throughout your life, and this is assuming that life is a roller coaster but are there a handful of habits that helped you build Huffington Post and publish you said 15, 15 books now. Is there a set of habits that you feel like that have helped contribute to that? So, the most important habit that I keep getting better and better at but I'm still not as great as I'd like to be at is remembering that I'm not my job. And I think the minute we completely identify with our jobs we lose our ability to take risks, to be more detached from what we're doing because very often if we're trying to be creative and doing new things you have no guarantees. There are no guarantees. And anytime you want to be completely secure and do only things that are guaranteed to succeed whatever that may mean, you are not going to do very creative things. So for me, that realization which was imbued to me by my mother when we grew up in a one bedroom apartment in Athens, Greece she always made me feel like we could aim for the stars and if I failed she wouldn't love me any less. Or moving onto the, to my own spiritual practice as I'm meditating when I was in my teens Oh, we'll have to talk about that. So I kept sort of bringing all those things into my life but despite all that I was like you. That's why I so identified with your journey. A type A personality who completely bought into the cultural delusion that if I'm really going to achieve a lot of things, I will have to burn out in the process. Our failure is just like the price. You have to pay. That's true. So literally in 2007 two years into building The Huffington Post, having just come back from taking my oldest daughter on a college tour, and our agreement was I wouldn't be on my Blackberry, that's how long ago it was. I would end up going to a hotel room at night with her and started working after she was asleep. So bottom line, I returned home and I collapsed. I hit my head on my way down break my cheekbone, come to in a pool of blood, and really being forced to ask this existential questions Yeah. Hey is this what success looks like? (laughing) A bloody bathroom floor. Oh my gosh. And so, that's when I started getting interested in changing the cultural assumption around burnout and success. The habits that people most identify with when I'm talking to them about this, it has very much to do with creating a life that's sustainable Yes. And I feel like there's so many heroes in our culture that have achieved something and then obviously the 28 year old artist with Janis Joplin, Jim Morris and people who Kurt Cobain, who have ended their own lives. That is something that is it's a catastrophe culturally and the people that I know who have become successful on a long arc are people who actually take care of themselves. Put your own oxygen mask on Yes. Before assisting other people. Do you feel like that you were a part of the delusion for your whole life up until that moment? Yes. And was that literally changing you? Absolutely. I feel that I was part of the delusion and when I started changing, you know how they talk about your keystone habit? Yes. I mean, I changed many things but my keystone habit was around sleep. It was really the recognition that even when I went from four to five hours which is what I was getting to seven to eight hours which is what I needed, every thing would be transformed. That I would be more effective, that I would be more productive, that I would be more creative, that I would be healthier. That my relationships would be better and also, that I would actually have more fun. Yeah. The fun part is so critical. That I would bring more joy to my life. And that became more and more important. You know? I used to really only care about effectiveness. Getting stuff done. And now, I really care about bringing joy into everything I'm doing. You know, I'm here with you. I'm sort of loving this conversation. I feel really present. I had eight hours sleep though. Normally I would have had four and I would be like going through the motions. I would be like doing this conversation and then moving onto the next thing and looking at my watch and you know, we've all been there. Yeah. Right. Going through Guilty. The motions of our day. Guilty. Getting stuff done. Texting until the last minute in bed. Turning off the light. And waking up often in the middle of the night because our mind hasn't stopped slowing down. Many times I made up, I talked a lot about the gremlins in your head that visit you at three o'clock Yes. And the gremlins, that's a term I borrowed from Brene Brown. I don't know if you know Brene Yeah. I love Brene. Incredible. And concept of the gremlin cycle. I like the obnoxious roommate living in your head (laughing) because it's that voice that tells us we're not good enough, that goes over the day pointing out all the things we did wrong or you know, you could've answered that question better. You forgot to so and so, and it's the most draining thing (laughing) we can do. It is. So not only are we not sleeping but the fact of not getting sleep is putting us in this cycle where we wake up in the middle of the night, we beat ourselves up, which undermines our sleep which is a vicious cycle. So it's fair to say then that there's a component of stamina to living the life that you want to live and obviously you've just made the, you've rubber stamped sleep as the thing that you've put in your crosshairs so I do want to go, let's just go right to your book which is The Sleep Revolution. You've written 15 books. Why this? Why now? Because I feel we're at this cultural moment when we desperately need to reevaluate our relationship with sleep. The casualties have become unsustainable. Last year was a year when we had executive after executive collapsing on their treadmill. Some Dave Bolenburg. Ended up dead. RIP Dave. Jamie Lee the head of M and A and JP Morgan, the CEO of United Airlines collapsed, ended up with a major heart attack. He's still not back at work. The CEO of BMW collapsed during a press conference. Isn't it time for us to pay attention? Yeah and these are the ones that are in the media because of their position culturally and for everyone of those there are tens if not hundreds of thousands. Absolutely and what is interesting here is that we have somehow convinced people whether they do it or not that exercise and nutrition are important. But the third leg of the story is sleep. So true. So that's why you have these exhausted executives collapsing while they're trying to work out. Because they're type A, you know, I'm gonna get up at four in the morning and work out before my busy day. That's completely not just acceptable but celebrated. But the truth of the matter is that all the science tells you that staying in bed an extra hour is more important for everything including your weight and your health. Like if you are trying to lose weight, the worst thing you can do is go to the gym when you're sleep deprived. And work out for 50 or 60 minutes on the treadmill. Right. When you're like exhausted. Because what happens and again we have all this science for that is that your body will then crave all the wrong foods. Fats and carbs. And the hormone of satiety of actually making you feel that you've had enough is not activated. And also of course we all know that from our own experience. That's when you're most likely to get a cold Oh. Because your immune system is suppressed. So also if we look at our lives, we see that in the end we probably end up in bed. (laughing) It puts you there whether it's One way or another, right? That's the way I've learned to think about is you can either voluntarily go to bed on your own terms and take care of yourself or your body is a very, very high functioning organism and it will shut it down for you. Exactly. Either by getting a cold or worse or by breaking something. Yeah. Because you are not as present in your life. Or can't. I mean there's a lot of linkage between cancer, I mean I don't think Yes. The cannon of science hasn't wrapped its head around this fully yet but there's a lot of connection between cancer and the cancer in our society and these sort of this terrible cycle Loops and also heart disease. Yeah. And that's really why this sudden new science is so fascinating. And dramatically changing the way we look at sleep both in terms of health but also equally fascinating for people watching now who care about their creativity sleep and the brain. Yeah. That's Let's go there because I think from again there's a range of ages who tune in to our shows here, this show, my show on Creative Live and if we put it in terms of like, oh this is sort of a life or death matter or there's just the ability to push that off, right? Yes absolutely. Because we're immortal. That's right. Didn't you know that? Young and hungry and head charging. Or as Jon Bon Jovi sung, I'll sleep when I'm dead. Yes. So, let's turn that into instead of this sort of Health. Doomsday let's talk about creativity specifically. I will tell you that I track ten behaviors everyday just and it started off as I realized that I don't have some goal of losing weight or achieving X thing it says if I do these then things, I'm a better friend, I'm a better creative, I'm a better husband, I'm smarter, sharper, whatever. And first thing on that list is sleep and that is a hundred percent new to me. So, talk about the relationship if you will between sleep and what I do for a career which is take pictures, direct things and build companies. So talk to me about the link between creativity and sleep. You said you've got science in here but tell me a little story. What's the narrative around sleep and creativity? Well first of all I'm so happy to hear that. It's a huge change. I just love it because I think you're going to be able to influence so many people because people need to hear it from different sources. Yeah. And guys may need to hear it from you then more than they need to hear it from me. So we are all going to (laughing) you know, we are all going to reach different audiences. And for me, I love, I love having macho looking guys like you talk about sleep. That's I'll take it. You got that on camera, right? That's incredibly important because honestly parenthetically I had dinner with a guy recently who bragged that he had only gotten four hours sleep the night before. Truly bragged. It just like wearing it like a badge of honor and I didn't say it but I wanted to say so badly, you know what? If you had gotten five this dinner would have been so much more interesting. (laughing) But so changing that. You know, changing the the assumption that if you're really smart and dedicated and creative, sleep is for losers. You know, you snooze you lose. Look at all the language in our culture. So all the evidence now shows first of all, that contrary to what we believe, sleep is not a time of inactivity but a time of frenetic activity in the brain. Okay. It's the time when all the accumulated toxins and wastes from the day are cleaned out and as one scientist put it just think of it, you can either entertain the guests or clean up the house. The brain can not do both at the same time. That has huge implications for memory, for retrieval of information and for also tapping to a different part of ourselves which is when we are most creative. That's the truth. So if you want to operate on the surface and be purely transactional, you know, answering emails, cleaning your closet, whatever it is, sure you can do it and be sleep deprived. If you really want to create, you need to be able to tap to a deeper place. That's absolutely an entire, for me it's an entirely different mode of operating. I put time on my calendar because I believe that doing something everyday is a great way to get into a habit but I absolutely 100% know that if I am not rested in all these things that great ideas don't come. It's like trying to have a great idea in the middle of a party (laughing) you know, there's this, we are able to take in information and get influence but sort of the synthesis of new ideas only happens for me in quiet. Right. And in quiet when I actually have some sort of a health paradigm going on. So talk to me a little bit about so there is scientific correlation between productivity or creativity and sleep. I'm sure there's a host of other things. So talk to me a little bit about the bigger picture. If we're cleaning our house, like what's actually happening at a scientific level? So, literally what's happening is that what is known as the lymphatics system which is the plumbing system of the brain Mmhmm. Is activated during sleep. And that's when the cleaning up takes place. So if you want to use a different metaphor (laughing) I've bet you been up for days, right? You've been working on this for some time. We used to think that when you sleep it's like putting your car in the garage and turning the ignition key off. No. Think of it as though your car becomes a driverless car. And runs essential errands for you. And that's why dreaming is so important too. I have an entire section on dreams because so many creative people came up with some amazing ideas during dreams. Dreams have been super, I worked for years to lucid dream. It became a very important thing for me. It's become less important but dreams they definitely for myself and a lot of other folks that I know, tell me about the relationship between sleep and dreams. Well, first of all if we are sleep deprived, we are much, much less likely to remember our dreams. Kay. Because first of all we're never going to wake up naturally. We always need an alarm clock to wake up and just think of it. The word alarm. Is a terrible word. I've never thought of that It basically means that the minute you wake up, you're in a fight or flight mode. Which is the worst way to create. Absolutely. I really don't remember the last time I needed an alarm to wake up. I sometimes will set my alarm if there is something really important I have to do. Sure you gotta catch a flight early or something. Just to be absolutely sure that I will be up. But always invariably, if I've gotten enough sleep, I'll wake up naturally. And that is really a completely different experience. So let's talk about the flip side which is we're busy people. Life gets after us. We do enough beating up of ourselves. We talked about that in the middle of the night sometimes. How militant do we need to be about sleep? Is it like life gets busy sometimes is it okay? Can you sleep two hours one night and 15 the next? So talk to me a little bit about the reality of sleep. Already you're negotiating. (laughing) I'm just trying to be, I want Realistic. Okay. Yeah, I wanna be. I've also made dramatic changes in my own life but I also know there was a processing period for me Absolutely. Where I really was negotiating. You're raising a very important point. Okay. First of all, the most important thing is for nobody to judge yourselves. Because the truth is that it's not our fault that most of us have been living under this delusion that sleep is negotiable. Our culture Yes. It's so true. Is clearly believes that so profoundly it's like if we're living during the age when everyone believed the world is flat. You know, that was the prevalent assumption. So we were brought up during an age when sleep was seen to be dispensable. And I have a whole section to explain why. Because my goal, the way I built the narrative of the book was to first of all talk about the crisis. Here is the crisis. It's obvious give all the data. Then, talk about the science which is amazing and proves why sleep is so essential and we have a whole dedicated section on Huff Post about that and then the third thing is explaining how did we get here. How did we get to this sleep crisis. And that's the history section which starts with the first industrial revolution when we started thinking we could treat human beings like machines and minimize down time. Let's go into that. I think to me that's really, really interesting. I make a connection between our educational system and the factory. Which is a derivative of the first industrial revolution specifically coming out of Germany. They got very, very good at the factories of making widgets and the thing about widgets is that they're designed. You put some raw material in, things move through a system and that system is very regimented. Everything happens at the same time to every single piece in that project and it comes out. And the goal of a factory is to make like items. Right. So when you think about our education system, we it is very effective at the thing that it does of moving people through a system but do we think everyone learns the same? Obviously we know that's not true. Do we think everyone needs to learn at the same pace? Obviously that's not true. But we have this system and we want a culture that is ripe with creativity and innovation and yet we have a system that is completely antithetical to that. So, if the factory, the industrial revolution was a paradigm for a terrible paradigm for creating an educational system for us. Are you saying that that same industrial revolution was terrible for us and for sleep? Absolutely. And so we literally began to trade sleep, as Thomas Edison said, when he invented the lightbulb as something which future generations would completely eliminate. So you have a He said that? Yes. You have a cultural icon. You missed one there Tom. You're somebody who is revered. Who actually said that sleep he considered it was the one thing that reduced dramatically people's effectiveness. So it became like seen as a weakness. Yeah. And I, we had a sleep clinic in Harlem to help people who are struggling to put food on the table to reprioritize sleep and literally, I had people coming up to me and blaming themselves for being tired after four hours sleep as though this was some weakness in them which very successful people like Chase and Thomas Edison in the past You heard that too. Me and Thomas Edison. Same sentence. But you know what I'm saying. I do. It's like we had so many CEOs, you know, congratulating employees for working 24/7. How many times have you heard that? Which is the cognitive equivalent according to the latest science of coming to work drunk. I'd rather do that. (laughing) than come sleepy. But the point. When I look at I work very hard but I'm always careful to caution. Like make sure you take care of yourself. Put your oxygen mask on before you're helping somebody else. But, our culture is still not doing that and I understand you're setting out to change. You've set out to change the paradigm of publishing. What is going to get us to listen? Well, I think it's a combination of two things. It's all the latest science. So even the most stubborn skeptic can be convinced by data. But it's also opening our eyes to the casualties. Both in our own lives, in the lives of those we love and also in the news. You know, the minute you become aware of it, more and more data Yeah. Is coming your way everyday. And all that Chase is connected also with our relationship with technology. More and more creative people are reevaluating their relationship with technology and that's very connected with sleep. Interesting. Keep going. Keep going. How is it connected? Well what's happening first of all is that right now we take better care of our smartphones than we take care of ourselves. Like I bet everybody watching now knows approximately how much battery remains on your smartphone. But when This is a painful, this is a painful analogy (laughing) And if it gets like, if it gets like below 13% we begin to get anxious and look around for any charging shrine. (laughing) Less something would happen to our precious smartphone. And now you're always plugging it in. You're always plugging it in because it's so precious and my god, what would happen if it died, right? So, if you had asked me the morning I collapsed, Arianna how are you, I would've said fine because I had forgotten (laughing) what fine was. I had forgotten what it was to be operating on 100% battery. So the fact that I was actually below 0%, I was unaware of until I collapsed. So, I think if we don't recognize that technology is there to help us lead our lives, we need to stop giving it the power to run our lives. And especially for creative people. Yes. What happens now is that we're living in what has been called partial attention all the time. And creativity is about unitasking. Creativity is not about multitasking. Can't do it. You can't be creating something and being on social media or answering your texts, et cetera, et cetera. And that's also extremely connected to sleep because what has been missing, the single most important thing I'm going to say tips and techniques which is that last section of the book. Yeah I do wanna get there for sure. I think it's terribly important not to jump to that section because (laughs) we are all like Trying to optimize our reading. We all want to optimize our reading and say okay tell me what to do. No. Because it doesn't matter how much I tell you what to do if I haven't convinced you of the importance of changing habits, it's not going to stick. So that's why I want to take people through this journey. Understanding the crisis, understanding the science, 50 pages of scientific notes you can skip the end notes but at least you can see the science, understanding how we got here, the history dreams because that will convince you that amazing people from great scientists to Larry Page who came up with the idea of Google in a dream. Wow. Came up with amazingly creative ideas in dreams. So once all that has been absorbed then you can move to the tips and techniques and the most important tool (laughing) is to recognize that any body who has a child will relate to that you need to transition to sleep. This is where the technology comes in too, isn't it? That's where the technology comes in. Exactly like, if you have a baby or a young child you never just dump it in bed, right? (dumping noise) Here's your iPad. Put yourself to sleep. No. You give it a bath. You put it in its PJs. You sing it a lullaby. You lower the lights. We need to have a similar ritual for ourselves. I offer dozens of techniques. We need to become our own scientists and experiment and see what works for us. I have found that what works for me and I do it every night wherever I am. Whether I'm in my room, in my own bedroom or in a hotel room. 30 minutes before I'm going to go to sleep, I turn off all the devices. And gently escort them out of the bedroom. If you're in a hotel room, put them in the bathroom. Whatever. Away from your bed. Then I have a hot bath. If you prefer a shower, have a hot shower. But it's like a ritual. It's like a cleansing ritual when you are washing the day away. Even the most blessed life, everyday is a mixture. So true. Of good things and bad things. Of obstacles and challenges so we need to just literally call it a day (laughing) and this is it. Yeah, put a pin in that. Put a pin in that. Is there, how important is the length of the ritual? Because I understand ritual means sort of a set of behaviors that you're doing over and over. And do the things that make up the ritual matter? And is the key to have some of those things that you did mention like what you would do with a young child where you'd lower the lights, you'd sing a lullaby (laughing) I don't think we need to sing ourselves lullabies, maybe we do but is it, what of the, you talked about this minute period. What about the content of that 30 minutes? Yes. Is it important? Well first of all, I think you are raising a very important point. If you can't start with 30 minutes start with ten. The important thing is to start somewhere. Yeah. It's not to make the 30 minutes the doctrine. You know, start. Yeah, this is that realistic part. That's the realistic part. I started meditating and I, you know I had to do TM so I was told 20 minutes in the morning, 20 minutes in the evening and I found it very challenging at first. Right. Start with five. Yeah. Absolutely. And pretty soon I started realizing that oh man, this is my time. Yeah. And so now I sort of, I flipped some switch in myself where I started carving out that precious time so your advice I'm gonna paraphrase here take five if you have time Whatever take anything. Take anything. But the first essential thing is separate yourself from your devices. Okay. That's probably the most important thing. Even if it's five minutes before you're going to turn off the lights escort them out of your bedroom. I like the escort. It sounds so formal. I love it. Goodbye iPhone. Goodbye, I'll find you in the morning. (laughing) I think having like a bath or a shower even if it's like five minutes Yeah. Is just a symbolic ritual of water. Putting on, unless you're sleeping naked, put on PJs or a night dress or a tshirt that you don't also wear to the gym. Which is what I used to do. I used to wear my gym clothes to bed. Not literally the ones that I wore that day. (laughing) The same clothes and as a result your brain now science tells us gets conflicting messages like are we going to the gym or are we powering down Oh, that's interesting. Very simple. Yeah, very simple but obvious you can see it. You can see it and then I personally only read real books in bed. And I read nothing that has to do with my work. I mean you study philosophy and I love to read philosophy. I love to read poetry. I love to read spiritual books, anything that reminds me that I am more than the Huffington Post. I'm more than The Sleep Revolution. I'm more than all my projects. So powerful. And that means that you're ready to sort of cross that bridge to a mystery because sleep is such a huge mystery even with all the new science it still remains a huge mystery in the same way that human life is such a huge mystery. Whether you're an atheist or a believer it's impossible not to recognize that we don't know all these things. We don't have a lot of explanation. And this is kind of the time when we are entering that mystery. Is there a reverence, should we revere sleep? Or should we think of it as a utility. Like, help frame it for me. Well there's definitely a reverence. So this is a very interesting point because of course in ancient times whether it was ancient Rome or ancient Greece or ancient Egypt, sleep was revered. There were temples that were literally sleeping temples where people could go to incubate their dreams, to ask healing advice. Now, a lot of people who are recognizing the importance of sleep are coming to it as a performance enhancer. You know, you're an athlete and you recognize that if you're sleep deprived you're going to be not as good on the field or in the court. I quote a lot of athletes whether it's Kobe Bryant or Andre Iguodala from the Golden State Warriors whose game improved tangibly and measurably because they're now getting enough sleep. So, as far as I'm concerned, I don't really care how you start. One of the things that I say in the book is come for the job enhancing benefits and stay for the life enhancing benefits. That mirrors my personal example. I wanted to be better at work. I was taking on a bunch of new challenges and the, what I was surprised was how fast I moved from that state into I'm a better human. Yes. And you mentioned joy. Is there some connection between sleep and joy? Absolutely. Huge connection. I spent a large part of my life when I measured my days based on how much stuff I got done (laughing) Yes. And now I just, if I have a measure it's how much joy did I bring into my day. And into the lives of those I touched. And how much did I love my day. And that includes the challenges of the day. Yeah. I mean I've become so much less reactive. So when bad things happen (laughs) to good people (laughing) I just take them in my stride. Because that's life and because I'm in a place where I can do that. So what's happened to go back to your question about building habits Yes. So I started with some discipline. I needed to build any new habit you need a little discipline. Yes. But not a lot because I started with very microscopic steps. Adding 30 minutes more to my night sleep and I didn't go from four to eight. Yes. That's again unrealistic. Yeah. And then what happened little by little it became like a magnet that drew me. So I needed less and less discipline. Because what happened is that I stopped liking the person I am when I'm sleep deprived. I don't really want to be around me. (laughing) Would you call it the obnoxious roommate? The obnoxious roommate, the reactive person, the person who gets upset at everything. You look at me the wrong way and I take it personally. You know. I mean Yeah. That's what happens to me at the more obvious level when I'm sleep deprived. Also, categorically I've been a better leader. I've been more creative in my own work and in terms of leading the Huffington Post. I've been much clearer about where we needed to go. And what we needed to do. Much clearer about whom I wanted to bring into the operation. I would say categorically every hiring mistake I made and as an entrepreneur, Yeah, that's your people are you Huge mistake. That's everything. Was because I was tired. And I was literally wanted to cross that thing off my todo list and so I ignored all the red flags and all the little intuitive feelings that we get. Intuition was the thing that I felt change in me the most and the willingness to listen to it. And I don't know, there's probably some sort of chemical connection between the two things but when you said intuition I was like that's the thing that changed in me the most and with hiring, with all these other things what, like I wanna try and put a little bow around our conversation. So, if I was to, if you were to, I'm gonna put a couple on, I'm gonna start the conversation and then you finish it so you've told me that you've taken people on a journey here in The Sleep Revolution. You've given a little background, you've given the science, the why, how we got to where we are. Then you give us a couple of tidbits. What am I not asking you about sleep that I should be asking you? Is there anything in your, again if I was to ask you to summarize what's the bow that you can put on this conversation, what have I not asked about sleep that you think that I should? So, given that everybody watching is particularly interested in the creativity Yes. And how to tap into the creative being that they are. I would say categorically that sleep is absolutely key here. And, if you look at many creative people who've talked about how their best ideas have come out of stillness, whether it's Steve Jobs talking about having his best ideas after zen meditation Yes. Or Bill Gates talking about taking time and going out in the woods without devices. All these people who are really after all the architects of the technological ecosystem we live in and yet, they talk about that are just reminders of the fact that however magnificent our jobs may be there is something more magnificent in us and that's the place from which we truly create. And whether we're creating a piece of art or we're creating a new company, we need to tap into that. And that's why so many people have their best ideas in the shower. Yeah. (laughing) I'm actually terrified that somebody will invent a smartphone that you can take to the shower and that will be the end (laughing) We'll have no good ideas. No more good ideas. No more good ideas in the shower. You're thinking about that and you're an entrepreneur out there, don't do it. I am incredibly grateful for having spent the last hour with you. The book is The Sleep Revolution. I believe that you saw around the corner with publishing in the future you said sort of everywhere information it's not something that we want to keep tight but we wanna distribute. You've brought hundreds of thousands of creators to your platform. I think you're onto something. I'm grateful for you bringing it up. You've made me want to be a steward of your idea and I will do that for as many people as I can. So, thank you, debt of gratitude. Thank you. Thank you so much. I appreciate your time. The folks out there in the internet who are paying attention, I hope you took some serious notes. This is the real deal. Sleep is going to be your friend if sleep isn't the next six months for you then you actually call me personally and I'll let you know why you're wrong. Thanks so much for paying attention what it is that we do here at Creative Live. You can relisten to this as many times as you want 'cause there's a very important message. Thanks a lot and have a great one. (electronic music)

Ratings and Reviews

Rory
 

I have watched all 30 days so far and the first thing that blows me away is how Chase interviews all these different people, totally relaxed and he listens to everything they say and finds a question that relates so clearly to the subject being talked about. He also brings in quotes and snippets for other people, how he remembers all this stuff is just amazing. This is what I have taken away from the first 5 interviews. Mark Cuban started the series theme with the concept: you can start from nothing and become something by way of the HUSTLE. Although it sounded like whatever he touched turned to gold immediately, there was a huge amount of hustle that went with it to get it all going. Seth Godin was down to earth and lead with "happiness is a point of view", so do something today that will make tomorrow worthwhile being there. Be prepared to fail to succeed. Marie Forleo the Jersey girl made good. Her dad told her to do what you love. So she set out to do just that. It didn't happen over night, loads of job frogs kissed, until the life coaching vibrated through her life with the help of intuition and she was set on her path to success. Navigate passed those that will drag you back or down was another insight from Forleo. Using the concept from her Mom, ‘everything is figureoutable’, stood her in good stead all her life. Having a close community to help you is essential. Stop whining and just do it. Read Cameron Herold's double double, lean into your future. Tim Ferriss, the whirlwind learning man, using the simplistic steps to learn anything is the Ferriss way to go. you want to be a Tango champion, go to Argentina and learn from the best. Hard work has its place but control it. Another Ferriss phrase is 'what would this look like if it were simple', following this concept takes the complexity out of what you are doing and leads to you accomplishing the task you are undertaking. Celebrate the small wins and you accomplish the large ones. Meditation makes one more effective. Play at creativity to keep creative. Don't retreat into the story of the voices. Arianna Huffington, what Greece as a country could do with to get itself out of the slump. Remember you are not your job, don’t stifle your creativity. You don’t have to burn yourself out to succeed in life. The obnoxious roommate the keeps you awake and hurts your creativity. Sleep is not only life affirming but also imperative for the brain to reboot and spam filter.

Mich
 

I just paused this course to take a breather, overwhelmed with how people are willing to share advise, stories and insight....such powerful ones to help each other!!! I think the world is an amazing place and these times are the best that we could be in...yes sometimes life is tough but we have so many great people and so many people doing such great work....i love and admire Chase Jarvis and what he has done with creative life!!! Thankyou Chase, this is just wowwww!!!!

Alicia Amundson
 

Loving this course! Amazing insights from such a great range of people. Much gratitude to Chase, the Creative Live team and all of the guest speakers for the opportunity to learn in a way that's fun, interesting and inspiring. Thank you!

Student Work

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