BOOK
SUMMARY (3)
Thrive
·
Summary written by: Jill Donahue
"Have you ever noticed that when we die, our eulogies celebrate our
lives very differently from the way society defines success?"
- Thrive, page
15
When you think of success what two words pop
into your mind? For many, it’s money andpower.
If you are lucky, you have about thirty thousand days to play the game of life.
What you value will determine what game you play.
Arianna Huffington in Thrive shares
the scientific findings that show us that if you value money, you will never
feel truly abundant. If you value power, recognition and fame, you will never
really feel you have enough. And if you value saving time and live your life
madly rushing about trying to find and save time, you will live a frazzled and
stressed life.
She teaches us that over the long term, money
and power by themselves are like a two-legged stool. She learned the hard way
that you may be able to balance them for a while but eventually you will topple
over.
She teaches us the missing third leg or
metric that she discovered. It consists of four pillars: well-being, wisdom,
wonder and giving. These four pillars create the four sections of the book.
Through them she helps us learn how to thrive and live our lives with more
grace, more joy, more compassion, more gratitude and more love.
The Golden Egg
The four pillars
"...the
current way we lead our lives is not working… there are scientifically proven
ways we can live our lives differently – ways that will have an immediate and
measurable impact on our health and happiness.”"- Thrive, page 19
Daily positive changes in the four pillars of
the third metric can make a big difference in your life. Below are three things
you can do now to get started in each pillar. Which pillar will you start with
this week?
A) Well-being:
·
Get more sleep
·
Move your body
·
Meditate daily
B) Wisdom:
·
Let go of something you no longer need
(resentment, negative self-talk, a project you know you won’t complete)
·
Start a gratitude list and share it with two
or more friends who send theirs to you
·
Draw a line at night at which you turn off
your devices and remove the digital world from your bedroom
C) Wonder:
·
Become fully present: Focus on the rising and
falling of your breath for ten seconds whenever you feel tense, rushed or
distracted
·
Whenever you feel contracted think of
something that brings you joy and inspires a sense of wonder
·
Look at each day with newness and wonder by
forgiving yourself for any judgments you are holding
D) Giving
·
Make small gestures of kindness and giving a
habit
·
Make a personal connection with the people
you interact with daily – the barista, the sales clerk, the cleaning crew, etc.
·
Use your special skill or talent to help
someone who might need it
From these four pillars you will find
powerful lessons that speak directly to you. Perhaps they will be from the
well-being category. I remember the first time I heard these lessons (when I
read books like Eat,
Move, Sleep and Thrive:
Finding Happiness the Blue Zone Way) I
changed things in my life. Life changed again when I first became aware of the importance
of lessons in the giving category, through books like Give
and Take and The
Charge. So
today, I will delve into two of the lessons Arianna shares that have been
harder for me to learn.
Gem #1
Coincidence? I think not!
"One
pathway to awakening wonder in our lives is the serendipity of
coincidence."- Thrive, page 194
Arianna talks about the importance of
coincidence. I had planned a lovely retreat to Big Sur for my husband and me
for his 50th birthday
celebration. As the date approached, and my work stress heightened, I added a
conference to our short agenda. As the date drew even closer, I suggested we do
our 2015 business planning while away. After all, we had so much to do. I know
what you’re thinking and you are right! What a drag!
Of course I didn’t want a spare minute to be
wasted so I brought the next book on my list to read on the plane. It happened
to be Thrive. What a lovely coincidence. It
was exactly what I needed. It helped me recalibrate my compass.
Working in the pharmaceutical industry, I
value evidence and am highly skeptical of anything that is not proven. However,
Arianna taught me under the category of wonder to appreciate the coincidences in
life. Maybe we don’t have to know what coincidences mean. They can just simply
be reminders to maintain your sense of wonder, to stop and allow yourself to be
fully present in the moment and open to the mystery of life.
Gem #2
A new drug for stress
"This
effect is equivalent to discovering an entirely new class of drugs."- Thrive, page 43
Would you like to decrease the stress in your
life? There is a new drug that, in a study funded by the National Institutes of
Health, showed stress reduction resulting in a 23 percent decrease in
mortality, a 30 percent decrease in death due to cardiovascular problems and a
significant decrease in cancer mortality. The drug? It is at your disposal
whenever and wherever you want it! It’s meditation.
I’m sure you know some people who are really
great at tennis. How did they get that way? Well of course, they practiced a
lot! What about people you know who are really happy? How did they get that
way?
Luck? Birth?
Nope! We learn in Thrive that we need to view happiness not as
a trait but rather as a skill, like tennis. You have to practice to enhance
your happiness and well-being. In fact, every strand of scientific evidence
points to this.
Meditation is one way to practice.
Meditation is a wonder drug and like any
drug, it needs to be adhered to. I always say “showering works, but you still
have to do it everyday!” It is the same with meditation. It must become a part
of your everyday life to be effective.
Isn’t it time? Time to live your life with
more grace, joy compassion, gratitude and love. Time to create your own
definition of success and create a life that will achieve that.
We are bombarded by signals from society to
make more money and climb higher on the ladder. Have you seen many signals that
remind you to stay connected to the essence of who you are, take care of
yourself, reach out to others, pause to wonder and connect to that place from
which everything is possible?
Reading this summary may just be that signal.
How will you remake your world to help you achieve your definition of success?
A great start would be to pick up Thrive and find the ideas that speak to you.
As Arianna says “Onward, upward, and inward!”
No comments:
Post a Comment