THRIVE

What we consider „success“ today, is a one-way street to unhappiness and imbalance. With THE THIRD METRIC Arianna Huffington will drive a necessary international discussion on how especially women can chart a course to a new, more humane, more sustainable definition of success in work and life.

The current model of success—which equates success with money, power, stress, sleep deprivation, sacrificing family time for work time, being connected 24/7—isn’t working. It`s not working for people. It's not working for companies, for any society, in which it's dominant, or for the planet. This definition of success —in which long business hours and burnout are badges of honour, practically virility symbols —was created by men. Because women are still outsiders in many sectors of the workplace, they're less invested in maintaining the status quo. And with even successful women still more likely to be managing their home lives in addition to their work lives, it will be women who inspire all of us to redefine what constitutes success. As we are forced in these challanging times to see „success“ in a different light, there is already a growing awareness - increasingly and overwhelmingly confirmed by scientific evidence - of the profound benefits of using techniques like mindfulness and meditation to reduce stress and improve our health and our well-being. So this is the perfect time for Arianna Huffington`s THE THIRD METRIC. It aims to free us from the very limited view of success that defines it in terms of just two metrics: money and power. THE THIRD METRIC frees us from being in a perpetual and destructive fight-or-flight mode. It will help us step off the hamster wheel and find the kind of happiness and peace that brings us an authentic love of life, enabling us to cope with the worst that life throws at us. It will show readers how to be more in line with what actually makes us happy, moving beyond money and power to include well-being, wisdom, our ability to wonder in order to make a difference in the world and create what we consider a successful life. While very likely that creation of the faulty definition of success by and large comes from the US, it's clear that it affects a globalized world. All over Europe countries are fighting back to regain balance for the lives of their citizens: According to the World Health Organisation, over 350 million people around the world currently suffer from depression. In the US, prescriptions for antidepressants have gone up 400% since 1988, in the UK prescriptions for thid class of drugs is up 495% since 1991, and in Europe, from 1995 to 2009, the use of antidepressants increased by nearly 20% per year. In Germany, the site of the next international edition of the Huffington Post to be launched in October, stress and burnout are taking a toll. Over 40% of German workers say that their jobs have become more stressful in the past two years. And in 2011, Germany lost 59 million workdays to psychological illness, up over 80 percent in 15 years. Both awareness of the problem and the fight for solutions are in full swing in Germany. Labour Minister Ursula von der Leyen estimates that burnout is costing the country up to €10 billion per year. "Nothing is more expensive than sending a good worker into retirement in their mid-40s because they're burned out," she said. "These cases are no longer just the exception. It's a trend that we have to do something about." Europe, like the US, is facing major challenges that our political and economic systems seem unable to deal with at the moment. THE THIRD METRIC is not a substitute for the accountability and large-scale change that the citizens of both Europe and America deserve. But once we learn to be more connected to our own wisdom, we will be more able to make better decisions for our work and live, which can make a world of difference. Maybe in 10 years time we will look back on the way we lead our lives today and say: 'What the hell were we doing?' The Huffington Post – both the US edition and those around the world – is already making the idea behind THE THIRD METRIC a mayor part of the editorial focus. The Huffington Post has grown to include sites in the US, UK, Canada, France, Italy, Japan, Spain, and in the Maghreb and will be launching in Germany in October 2013 and in Brazil and Korea 2014. Arianna Huffington is open to bringing her „Third Metric conferences“ abroad and would be happy to discuss trying to setting them up in different foreign markets to be timed around book publication there. Arianna Huffington is the chair, president, and editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post Media Group, a nationally syndicated columnist, and the author of thirteen books. In 2013, she was named to the Forbes Most Powerful Women list, and in 2006, and again in 2011, she was named to the Time 100, Time Magazine’s list of the world’s 100 most influential people. The full manuscript due to deliver by the end of 2013 and Crown will publish in spring 2014.