I was listening to an episode of the Diary of a CEO podcast with Arianna Huffington this week. Although I knew about her famous burnout experience while she was running the Huffington Post, I really didn’t know a lot more about her.
I was inspired by her early ambition and her mum’s support and guidance:
- for example. Arianna saw a magazine with Cambridge Uni on the cover during her walk home from school in her hometown of Athens.
- She arrived home, threw the magazine on the kitchen table and told her mum she wanted to go there. But it turns out she didn’t want to visit – she wanted to study there.
- She was living in another country, had English as a second language, her dad had left and she was being raised by her mum.
- She was also female (at a time when only 3 colleges accepted female students), so it seems somewhat remarkable that she was accepted.
- She then went on to be the president of the debating club (and only the 3rd female ever to be in that role).
- It seems she was well prepared for any challenge, and was able to overcome them with seeming ease + hard work.
Given my curiosity for what makes people tick and drives their behaviour (hello human behaviour and human design geek!), it was too tantalising to not dive headfirst into her Human Design to see where it all originates.
She’s a 6/2 Projector with a Wait for Clarity (Emotional) decision-making style (inner authority). Now aged 74 and launching a new AI business, I wanted to see how the burnout had played out, where her drive comes from and why she’s so interested in health and wellbeing now.
Let me break it down. If you’d like to play along at home, you can look up your own Human Design here and see what you have in common or different from Arianna.
Firstly, her Type: Arianna is a Projector. This is one of the 5 different types and makes up around 22% of the population. Projectors have an innate wisdom, ability to see the bigger picture, insightful guidance and a way of seeing how things can be improved, done more efficiently or systems and processes that will help. Energetically, their energy ebbs and flows but many Projectors have been conditioned to work, work, work and are susceptible to burnout for this reason.
Arianna burnt out at her desk at the Huffington Post when she got dizzy and faceplanted her desk, fracturing her cheekbone in the process and then went on a quest to find out what was wrong with her. Was it her heart, a stroke, a tumour? Turns out it was burnout. And it was a turning point and wake-up call for her to work smarter not harder, and not to take her health for granted.
“I’d bought into this delusion that in order to succeed I had to accept burnout as the price I had to pay to be a great founder of HuffPost and to be a great mom. I ended up collapsing and that was the beginning of me recognizing that sleep deprivation made me less productive, less effective, less happy.”
– Bustle
She was 57 years old by then.
In a Medium article she shared that:
When you don’t sleep enough, you bring out the worst version of yourself to the world. You become more impulsive and make horrible decisions.
– Medium
Making impulsive, spontaneous decisions is the opposite of her best decision-making method (called her Inner Authority) which is to give herself time to feel calm and clear about the next step.
She has a 6/2 Profile. The 6 line is all about being a role model and embodying the wisdom of the lessons learnt over time. She’s certainly doing this in her 3rd (and final) phase of this line. But the first 30 years of having a 6-line involve a trial and error, experimentation approach to life. This is where lessons become apparent. She says the best piece of advice comes from her mother:
Failure isn’t the opposite of success, but a stepping stone.
This is certainly true for that first (under 30) phase if you have a 6 line in your Profile. (eg 6/2, 6/3, 4/6) It’s also true if you have a 3 line (eg a 1/3, 6/3, 3/5). Arianna has taken the big picture approach and seen where she can adapt her life for more success (the signpost that she’s on the right track in her personal and professional life).
With a 2 line, she has natural gifts that come easily to her and it’s so important for her to have downtime alone to recharge. This is something she resisted in her younger years.
As a Projector, recharging her battery and making time to unwind and relax before bed is so helpful to a restful sleep. Here’s a routine she has shared that works for her:
I treat my own transition to sleep as a sacrosanct ritual. First, I turn off all my electronic devices and gently escort them out of my bedroom. Then, I take a hot bath with epsom salts and a candle flickering nearby — a bath that I prolong if I’m feeling anxious or worried about something. I don’t sleep in my workout clothes as I used to (think of the mixed message that sends to our brains) but have pajamas, nightdresses, even T-shirts dedicated to sleep. Sometimes I have a cup of chamomile or lavender tea if I want something warm and comforting before going to bed. I love reading real, physical books — especially poetry, novels and books that have nothing to do with work.
Forbes.
It can be tempting to think that working less will lead to lower productivity and potentially less ‘success’. But Arianna demonstrated that this just isn’t true, saying that the Huffington Post went on to even greater success after she’d burnt out and started working smarter, not harder. She says in the podcast that the first 2 metrics of success are money and power/status. But without the 3rd metric (health and wellbeing, connection to ourselves, sense of wonder and the small joys of life, and giving) it’s like a 2-legged stool that will eventually fall over.
With a defined Ego centre (the smallest triangle on the right of the chart is shaded), she has consistent willpower and motivation to do what her heart is in. However, it’s so important that those who have this are careful not to overcommit and overpromise out of a desire to prove.
She also has a defined Root centre which is responsible for having consistent drive, an ability to calmly manage a crisis and a high capacity for stress. However, if there isn’t a healthy way to manage stress this can build up and impact others. As well as leading to adrenal fatigue in more extreme cases.
Arianna has an undefined (white/unshaded) spleen and it makes so much sense that she’s sharing the lessons and wisdom she’s learnt about health and wellbeing. Her company Thrive Global was launched at age 66 and the company’s about page states that:
We’re on a mission to redefine productivity through wellbeing – improving the world’s health and productivity through science-backed behaviour change.
Thrive Global
Arianna said on the podcast that she has ‘an incredible belief in partnerships’. This is so apt considering she has a Collaborative (Split) definition.
With the channel of Competitiveness (25/51), and her Unconscious (Design) Sun in Gate 51 (Shock) this is all about shocking people into a better way of doing things. This is clear from her work with helping to bring health and wellbeing to organisations and companies and finding better ways to boost productivity and improve decision making (including getting enough sleep). She is also a bold early adopter (eg of the internet when she started the Huffington Post and of AI with her newest launch of an AI company focused on health). She enjoys being at the forefront of change and innovation.
With the channel of Depth (39/55) she harnesses this to provoke others into doing things differently and to experience the fullness of her emotional ups and downs and use these creatively to impact others.
With her Conscious Sun in Gate 39 (Provocation) as well as in her Conscious (Personality) Mercury, and having the channel of Depth (39/55), there are so many areas of her chart where she’s designed to provoke others into doing things differently and impacting them with her emotions, words and presence.
I want to finish with one of her quotes from the podcast. This sums up exactly what Human Design helps us to do. It’s one of the big reasons I love being a Human Design coach. I get to see the transformation and growth that happens when clients embrace this:
If we’re not connected with our own centre, then we’re at the mercy of every new fad, and whatever is happening on social media that we’re affected by.
– Diary of a CEO podcast
If we build that connection and strengthen that trust then everything changes.
When you understand how to use your energy, attract opportunities, make decisions and communicate in a way that is perfect and unique for you, you find your centre and shut out the noise.
Kylie
If you’d like to understand your Human Design better, book a 1:1 session; set up a 30-minute Clarity Call or get in touch regarding a Human Design for Teams workshop.
