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A review by nssutton
Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder by Arianna Huffington
3.0
A friend started reading this and asked out lady circle to consider it for our next group read. We had done Lean In together and share articles about life/work balance on the reg, so I went into it game for another discussion.
I wasn’t crazy about it, although I do think she makes some valid and important connections. It reads like a survey course, taking the best of others ideas and trying to make it work under the branding of a Third Metric. But that concept is never really clearly communicated and starts to sound like a platform to take Huffington into the next series of conventions, lectures, and HuffPo articles rather than a viable movement. Wisdom and Wonder are strong sections, connecting Huffigton’s own experiences to these themes in a way that was incredibly engaging. But there is still an overall feeling of this being cobbled together (frequent inclusion of quotes that take you outside of the writing, frequent callbacks to the work of others).
As with Lean In, the focus remains on women in positions of high-power, male dominated fields who put place central emphasis on their work. (“Right now you may just want to be better at your job, or help your company become more successful, and that’s the reason you start meditating, or practicing mindfulness, or sleeping more.” Right that – and not all of the health and wellness reasons she spent pages discussing prior to this paragraph). But it seems as if Huffington doesn’t know if it is a book just for women or just for those in positions of power/experiencing burn out.
Throughout each part, there is a great emphasis on disengaging with technology and connecting with a community and family. And yet, the appendix is largely tech tools to help you stop using tech. That’s sort of a good summation for the book as a whole – it bites its own tail too much.
I wasn’t crazy about it, although I do think she makes some valid and important connections. It reads like a survey course, taking the best of others ideas and trying to make it work under the branding of a Third Metric. But that concept is never really clearly communicated and starts to sound like a platform to take Huffington into the next series of conventions, lectures, and HuffPo articles rather than a viable movement. Wisdom and Wonder are strong sections, connecting Huffigton’s own experiences to these themes in a way that was incredibly engaging. But there is still an overall feeling of this being cobbled together (frequent inclusion of quotes that take you outside of the writing, frequent callbacks to the work of others).
As with Lean In, the focus remains on women in positions of high-power, male dominated fields who put place central emphasis on their work. (“Right now you may just want to be better at your job, or help your company become more successful, and that’s the reason you start meditating, or practicing mindfulness, or sleeping more.” Right that – and not all of the health and wellness reasons she spent pages discussing prior to this paragraph). But it seems as if Huffington doesn’t know if it is a book just for women or just for those in positions of power/experiencing burn out.
Throughout each part, there is a great emphasis on disengaging with technology and connecting with a community and family. And yet, the appendix is largely tech tools to help you stop using tech. That’s sort of a good summation for the book as a whole – it bites its own tail too much.