How
to succeed? Get more sleep
Arianna Huffington
ted.com
December
2010
My big idea is a very, very small idea that
can unlock billions of big ideas
that are at the moment dormant inside us. And my little idea that will do that
is sleep.
This is a room of type-A women. This is a room of sleep-deprived women. And I learned the hard way, the value of
sleep. Two-and-a-half years ago, I fainted
from exhaustion. I hit my head on my desk. I broke my cheekbone, I got five stitches on my right eye. And I began
the journey of rediscovering the value of sleep. And in the course of that, I
studied, I met with medical doctors, scientists, and I'm here to tell you that
the way to a more productive, more inspired, more joyful life is getting enough sleep.
And we women are going to lead the way in this
new revolution, this new feminist issue. We are literally going to sleep our way to the top, literally.
Because unfortunately for men, sleep
deprivation has become a virility symbol. I was recently having dinner with a
guy who bragged that he had only
gotten four hours sleep the night before. And I felt like saying to him -- but
I didn't say it -- I felt like saying, "You know what? If you had gotten
five, this dinner would have been a lot more interesting."
There is now a kind of sleep deprivation one-upmanship. Especially here in
Washington, if you try to make a breakfast date, and you say, "How about
eight o'clock?" they're likely to tell you, "Eight o'clock is too
late for me, but that's okay, I can get
a game of tennis in and do a few
conference calls and meet you at eight." And they think that means that
they are so incredibly busy and productive, but the truth is they're not,
because we, at the moment, have had brilliant leaders in business, in finance,
in politics, making terrible decisions. So a high I.Q. does not mean that you're a good leader, because the essence
of leadership is being able to see the iceberg before it hits the Titanic. And
we've had far too many icebergs hitting our Titanics.
In fact, I have a feeling that if Lehman
Brothers was Lehman Brothers and Sisters, they might still be around. While all
the brothers were busy just being hyper-connected
24/7, maybe a sister would have noticed the iceberg, because she would have
woken up from a seven-and-a-half- or eight-hour sleep and have been able to see
the big picture.
So as we are facing all the multiple crises
in our world at the moment, what is good for us on a personal level, what's
going to bring more joy, gratitude, effectiveness in our lives and be the best
for our own careers is also what is best for the world. So I urge you to shut your eyes and discover the great ideas that lie inside us, to shut your engines and discover the
power of sleep. Thank you.
Glossary
Arianna
Huffington
is the owner of the news website The Huffington Post
to unlock
(ideas) = to release, open, free
type-A (women) = a personality type characterized by ambition, impatience, and
competitiveness, and thought to be susceptible to stress and heart disease
sleep-deprived (women) = suffering a
severe and damaging lack of sleep
to faint =
to pass out, lose consciousness, fall unconscious, collapse, black out
stitches = a surgical incision =
puntos
to sleep one’s
way to the top = to reach the top by sleeping
to brag = to
boast, congratulate oneself
one-upmanship = the art or practice of
successively defeating a competitor
to get (a
game) in = to manage to include
I.Q. = intellectual quotient
hyperconnected = excessively connected
24/7 = twenty-four hours a day,
seven days a week; all the time
