I’m the founder and CEO of Thrive Global, a behavior change technology company with the mission of improving health and helping us move from merely surviving to thriving. I also founded The Huffington Post and have written 15 books, including Thrive and The Sleep Revolution.

I’m originally from Greece (and still have the accent to prove it!). When I was 17, I moved to England and studied economics at Cambridge University, where I frankly spent most of my time debating at the Cambridge Union.

I live in New York but also spend time in Los Angeles, and love being a Yiayia (Greek for grandmother) to my almost three-year-old grandson Alexander and his newborn sister Annabel.

My journey to focusing on health began with a fall. In April 2007, I collapsed from exhaustion and burnout and hit my head on my desk on the way down, breaking my cheekbone.
 
In the wake of my fall, I found myself going from doctor to doctor to find out what was wrong. Doctors’ waiting rooms were good places for me to ask myself a lot of questions about the kind of life I was living.

After all the tests, it turned out nothing was wrong. Except for the fact that everything was wrong. I was suffering from an acute case of burnout. I had bought into the myth that burnout was the price I had to pay for success. 

I became more and more passionate about the five daily habits that drive so much of our health: nutrition, exercise, sleep, stress management and connection. That led me to write Thrive and The Sleep Revolution. 

The books struck a chord, but I wanted to go beyond speaking and writing to helping people move from awareness to action. So in 2016 I founded Thrive Global, which helps people transform their health by combining Microsteps — small, science-backed daily steps — with technology, storytelling and community. And last year, with the OpenAI Startup Fund, we launched Thrive AI Health to build an AI health coach to democratize access to health coaching.

"My advice: Don’t beat yourself up over past mistakes – learn at least a little from them and move on. It is never too late to improve."

Great advice and powerful perspective from Warren Buffett, in one of his final letters sent as CEO to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, about the helpful lessons he learned from friends over the years. 

As he put it: "Get the right heroes and copy them.”

Arianna Huffington

Founder and CEO at Thrive Global | Passionate about Health and AI

Love this 💜

🎨: To You From Steph via Instagram

We all feel anxiety and fear — it’s part of life.

One way to manage it is to look at the things we can control.

And the things we can control start with our own daily habits.

Loved being with Erin Burnett OutFront on CNN talking leadership, women, and finding glimmers of light in the turbulence.

There's no better time to start. 

Love this from YUCH Studio.

Arianna Huffington is the founder and CEO of Thrive Global, the founder of The Huffington Post, and the author of 15 books, including "Thrive" and "The Sleep Revolution." In 2016, she launched Thrive Global, a behavior change technology company with the mission of improving health and productivity outcomes.

She has been named to Time Magazine's list of the world’s 100 most influential people and the Forbes Most Powerful Women list. Originally from Greece, she moved to England when she was 16 and graduated from Cambridge University with an M.A. in economics. At 21, she became president of the famed debating society, the Cambridge Union.

Her last two books, "Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being," "Wisdom, and Wonder and The Sleep Revolution: Transforming Your Life, One Night At A Time," both became instant international bestsellers. Most recently, she wrote the foreword to Thrive's first book "Your Time to Thrive: End Burnout, Increase Well-being, and Unlock Your Full Potential with the New Science of Microsteps."

We become virtuous by the practice of virtue, responsible by the practice of responsibility, generous by the practice of generosity, compassionate by the practice of compassion. 

And we become abundant by giving thanks for our blessings. 

Wishing everyone a wonderful Thanksgiving! 🧡

The data is clear: when companies are committed to women, sustained progress is achievable.

Today, in partnership with McKinsey & Company, Lean In released their 11th annual Women in the Workplace report — the largest study on the state of women in corporate America. And this year’s report shows corporate America is overlooking women.

Only half of companies prioritize women’s career advancement, and that number falls below half for women of color. What’s really worrisome is that 2 in 10 companies are placing “no or low” priority on advancing women — and that number is 3 in 10 for women of color. Some are also scaling back flexible work and career development programs designed to support women’s advancement.
Why does this matter? When companies take their foot oﬀ the gas, progress may stall, and women could lose access to opportunities before they even have a fair shot at reaching the top.

But here’s the most important finding: When women get the same sponsorship and manager support as men, the ambition gap disappears.

Do the labels you wear define you? 

The New Year is a great time to think about not just new things we want to do — as with most New Year’s resolutions — but who we are and who we want to be. It’s a time to reflect on the identities and labels we wear in life and let go of any that no longer serve us. Because while our diagnoses, maladies, jobs, titles, and sexual preferences are all real, they don’t define us. Or at least, they shouldn’t — because if our labels define us, we’re also confined by our labels.
 
The end of the year — and the start of a new one — is an opportunity to take advantage of the “the fresh start effect.” This is the science-backed idea that “temporal landmarks” like a new year are more likely to motivate us to make sustainable changes. 
 
Diagnoses and job descriptions tell us what we have or what we do — never who we are. No label, however authoritative, and no job, however important, can ever contain the full constellation of who we might become.
 
You can read more in my latest newsletter On My Mind. ⬇️

“Each time we let go of some old pattern or belief, a part of us passes on, revealing more depth and presence.”

That's from Elena Brower's inspiring new book, "Hold Nothing," out now. 

As she writes, “Opening to what’s true now takes courage, a touch of enthusiasm, and abiding patience.”

Women are 1.75 times more likely than men to choose primary care as a specialty — but at the same time, one in four women report being unfairly treated by a healthcare provider.

This is from a great new report, “Investing in Healthcare’s Power Users,” from Olivia Walton's Ingeborg Investments.

Why does this matter? “To effectively innovate within healthcare, like any other industry, an intimate understanding of your power user is vital,” write the authors. “In healthcare, women drive engagement both in terms of frequency and depth but fail to adhere to care as they encounter systemic barriers to access and limited solutions designed for their needs.”

Chairperson of Crystal Bridges I Founder & CEO, Ingeborg Investments and Ingeborg Initiatives

Ingeborg Investments

Anna Gurney

“When the world feels fast and fractured, it’s the slow, steady, and deeply present love of a parent that can change everything.”

That’s from Dr. Amit Sood’s great new book, “Dancing in the Elevator,” that he co-authored with his daughter, Gauri Sood, where they unpack decades of lessons in parenting, friendship, and growing up.

As they write, “Think of this book as a small care package from our family to yours—filled with science, stories, and practical skills, all wrapped in the promise that you are not alone. May it help us, together, nurture a kinder, happier, and more hopeful world for every child.”

James McCrae's poem on a soul's manual for becoming a human being: 

“On this planet, nothing is permanent. People and things will come and go. You will fall in love and form sentimental attachments only to lose everything you hold dear. So cling to nothing too tightly, even yourself, and when it’s time to let go, let go with grace, for nothing is owned, only borrowed.”

"Instructions Before Visiting Earth"

Or, as Montaigne said: "There were many terrible things in my life but most of them never happened."

📸: Werenotreallystrangers

Given how far down the road with AI we already are, it’s all the more essential to zoom out and to ask bigger questions about how to get the best out of this technology as it evolves, and, indeed, how to get the best out of ourselves as we co-evolve.
 
And that leads us to the famous alignment problem—the idea that to guard against the existential risk of AI taking over, we need to align AI with human values. But to align AI with human values, we ourselves need to be clear about the universal values we ascribe to. What are we training ourselves on to be able to lead meaningful lives?
 
Because right now we’re experiencing a profound misalignment. In our modern world, we’ve lost our connection to the spiritual foundation that our civilizations, both Western and Eastern, were built on. In order to train AI to align with human values we first need to excavate these eternal truths and reconnect with them.
 
As we build a transformational technology that’s going to change everything about our lives, we need to ensure that we train it on the fundamental and unchanging values that define us as humans.

Tom Stoppard, the brilliant, virtuoso playwright of our times died over the weekend. He was one of my favorite writers and there are so many passages from his plays imprinted on my heart and mind. Here’s one on being in love, full of his typical wisdom and brilliance, from his play The Real Thing: 
 
“It's to do with knowing and being known. I remember how it stopped seeming odd that in biblical Greek knowing was used for making love. Whosit knew so-and-so. Carnal knowledge. It's what lovers trust each other with, knowledge of each other, not of the flesh but through the flesh, knowledge of self, the real him, the real her, in extremis, the mask slipped from the face. Every other version of oneself is on offer to the public. We share our vivacity, grief, sulks, anger, joy…we hand it out to anybody who happens to be standing around…Our lovers share us with the passing trade. But in pairs we insist that we give ourselves to each other. What selves? What's left? What else is there that hasn't been dealt out like playing cards? A sort of knowledge. Personal, final, uncompromised. Knowing, being known. I revere that.”

Diagnoses and job descriptions tell us what we have or what we do — never who we are.

Because if we’re defined by our labels, we’re also confined by our labels.

No label, however authoritative, and no job, however important, can ever contain the full constellation of who we might become.

If you’re a manager, are you sure everyone on your team is as enthusiastic about AI as you are? 

The AI trust gap — the difference in enthusiasm for AI between executives and their employees — is real. We know CEOs are all in on AI. But a recent Pew poll found that in the U.S., only 10% of people are more excited than concerned, while five times that number — 50% — are more concerned than excited, up from 38% in 2022. 

Another Pew poll showed that lower and middle-income workers are more likely to believe that AI will lead to fewer job opportunities for them. And a LinkedIn survey found that 35% of employees feel nervous even talking about AI in the workplace because they're worried about looking uninformed and 41% say the pace of AI-driven change is damaging their wellbeing.

The most important quality that allows us to navigate times of change — and ours certainly qualifies — is resilience. But resilience isn't an equally distributed resource. And most leaders, by virtue of having successfully charted the path they’re on, are more likely to have developed ways to build resilience. So it’s easy for them to assume everybody else has as well. 

The good news is resilience isn’t a fixed quality, it can be nurtured and developed. So to succeed in plans to integrate AI, leaders need to be intentional about building resilience at all levels of the organization.

"I didn’t want my disease to get in the way of my mission. If you are able to give your all to a job, you can come up with a lot of accommodations that make it possible." 

That's from this great interview with Fidji Simo, OpenAI's CEO of Applications, by Zoe Schiffer in WIRED. As Schiffer notes, Fidji is a product visionary, and I’ve seen Fidji’s many talents firsthand through the years. And she’s doing it all while largely working from home because of a chronic illness. And that’s one of the reasons she’s so passionate about the potential of AI in healthcare. As she put it: 
 
“Because people never see someone senior with a chronic illness be public about it, a lot of people assume that that’s just not possible. And when I became public about it, I had a lot of people reach out and be like, ‘Oh my God, I realize there is a path.’ It’s not easy every day, just to be clear. I would much prefer to be able to do all the things. But it’s a matter of determination and prioritization. In a way, it has also made me more aware of product opportunities that I wouldn’t have been able to see before. My passion for health has allowed me to narrow in on things that we can do to help with health care.”

“Take two museum visits and one dance class each week.” That’s what a prescription from your doctor could look like soon. As Amanda Hoover reports in Business Insider, more doctors are prescribing experiences and activities to improve their patients’ health.

And it makes sense. We know that our daily behaviors – food, movement, sleep, stress management and connection – have a profound impact on our health.
As Dr. Euan Ashley, chair of Medicine at Stanford University, said recently, exercise is “one of the most potent medical interventions known.”

And the same is equally true for the other four daily behaviors. So why aren’t they used more inside the healthcare system?

That’s what the “social prescribing” movement is all about. Hoover cites the organization Art Pharmacy, which connects healthcare organizations to community groups and has 35,000 activities available for people to participate in and improve their health.

And the movement is spreading. According to a study from University College London researchers, there were an estimated 1.3 million social prescriptions in the U.K. in 2023. Activities can include things like knitting groups, run clubs, book clubs, gardening groups, art classes volunteering and many more.
The best part is: it works. A 2024 study by the Canadian Institute for Social Prescribing found that the programs reduced hospitalizations and lowered rates of stroke and heart disease.

It’s a great example of how the science on behaviors is changing the healthcare system. Plus, there are no side effects, if you don’t count having a lot of new friends to keep up with.

You can read more here: https://lnkd.in/dAFwpmsR

"I’m still placing my bets that AI can be a force for good. But it remains an open question. Right now, we’re at a fork in the road, where two different futures are possible.”

That’s from my conversation with Lucy Handley in Big Think in which we talked about the possibilities of AI and why it’s important for us to use our agency and build the AI future we want.

How young is too young to give a child a cellphone?

Catherine Pearson of The New York Times reports on a study that found that children who had smartphones by age 12 were at higher risk of depression, obesity and poor sleep.

“When you give your kid a phone, you need to think of it as something that is significant for the kid’s health — and behave accordingly,” said Dr. Ran Barzilay, lead study author and a psychiatrist at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
Dr. Barzilay is careful to note the study isn’t meant to shame parents. He has three children, and two of them got phones before age 12, but his 9-year-old won’t be joining them anytime soon.

“It doesn’t mean that every kid with a smartphone has a problem for life,” he said. “All it means is that us as parents — and, I hope, also policymakers and society — are going to do something about it together.”

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