Arianna Huffington: Sleeping Your Way to the Top (B1-B2/v697)

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Introduction

Ariana Huffington, founder of the influential blog “The Huffington Post”, gives her advice on working more effectively.

Script

Arianna Huffington:  My big idea is a very, very small idea that canunlock 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, 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 are likely to tell you, “Eight o’clock is too late for me, but that’s OK, you know, 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 IQ does not mean that you are 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, you know, just being hyper-connected 24/7, maybe a sister would have noticed the iceberg because she would have woken up from her 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!

Quiz

1. Arianna Huffington learned the importance of sleep
2. When Huffington says that women will “sleep their way to the top” she means
3. When a man told Huffington with pride that he had got only four hours of sleep the night before she felt he was
4. Huffington feels that the most important role of a leader is to
5. Huffington suggests that Lehman Brothers might have survived if

Discussion

  1. Do you think sleep is an important part of how well you perform at work and in your life?
  2. How much sleep do you get on average every night?  Do you feel you get enough?
  3. What are some habits that you could share that help to ensure you get a good night’s sleep every night?

Resources

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