赫芬顿：成功的尺度不只是金钱和权力

    财富网(Fortune.com)定期从网站“250字”(250 Words)挑选最引人入胜的短文、趣闻轶事和作者访谈。美国西蒙与舒斯国际出版公司(Simon & Schuster)开发该网站，旨在探讨世界各地最新出版的商业佳作。

    Fortune.com selects the most compelling short essays, anecdotes, and author interviews from "250 Words," a site developed by Simon & Schuster to explore the best new business books—wherever they may be published.

    为撰写本期专栏，“250字”的山姆•麦克纳尼与阿里安娜•赫芬顿坐在了一起。

    阿里安娜•赫芬顿是赫芬顿邮报传媒集团(Huffington Post Media Group)董事长、总裁兼总编辑，全美供稿联合组织最知名的专栏作家之一，14本书的作者。2005年5月，她创办了《赫芬顿邮报》(The Huffington Post)。这个集新闻和博客于一身的网站迅速成为互联网上读者群最广，被链接次数最多，被引用最频繁的媒体品牌。2012年，凭借一组杰出的美国国内新闻报道，这个网站荣膺普利策奖(Pulitzer Prize)。阿里安娜•赫芬顿本人也屡获殊荣，曾先后跻身《福布斯》(Forbes)最具影响力女性榜单和《时代》百人榜(Time 100)，即《时代杂志》(Time Magazine)推选的全球100位最有影响力人物榜单。赫芬顿是希腊人，16岁时搬到英国，毕业于剑桥大学( Cambridge University )，获经济学硕士学位。21岁那年，她成为著名的辩论社团剑桥联合会(Cambridge Union)的主席，目前在多个机构担任董事，其中包括《国家报》(EL PAÍS)、西班牙传媒集团(PRISA)、公共诚信中心(Center for Public Integrity)和保护记者委员会(Committee to Protect Journalists)。

    For this installment, 250 Words' Sam McNerney sits down with Arianna Huffington.

    Arianna Huffington is the chair, president, and editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post Media Group, a nationally syndicated columnist, and author of 14 books. In May 2005, she launched The Huffington Post, a news and blog site that quickly became one of the most widely-read, linked to, and frequently-cited media brands on the Internet. In 2012, the site won a Pulitzer Prize for national reporting. She has been named to the Forbes Most Powerful Women list and the Time 100, Time Magazine's list of the world's 100 most influential people. Originally from Greece, she moved to England when she was 16 and graduated from Cambridge University with an M.A. in economics. At 21, she became president of the famed debating society, the Cambridge Union. She serves on several boards, including EL PAÍS, PRISA, the Center for Public Integrity, and the Committee to Protect Journalists.

    3月下旬，她的第14本书《茁壮成长：用第三尺度重新定义成功，创造一个充满幸福感、智慧和惊奇的人生》(Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being)由皇冠出版社(Crown)出版发行。上市不到一周，这本书就登上了《纽约时报》( The New York Times)非小说类畅销书排行榜的榜首位置。接受山姆采访时，赫芬顿畅谈了冥思的崛起，为什么应该“边走边谈”，惊奇和给予的重要性，为什么“病毒式传播已经变质”等问题。

    迈克纳尼：您能否简要解释一下“第三尺度”的含义，是什么促使你撰写《茁壮成长》这本书？

    赫芬顿：随着时间的推移，我们这个社会对于成功的概念已经沦落到了只用金钱和权力来衡量的地步。事实上，在许多人的脑海中，成功、金钱和权力其实已经成为一组同义词。这种成功观在短期内可能行得通——至少看起来是可行的。但从长期来看，金钱和权力自身就像是一条只有两条腿的凳子——你可能会保持一阵子平衡，但最终还是会翻倒的。越来越多的人都摔倒了，其中不乏许多大名鼎鼎的成功人士。为了过上我们真正想要和应得的生活，而不仅仅是安于现状，得过且过，我们需要一个“第三尺度”，也就是超越金钱和权力这两个指标，用来衡量成功的第三个标准。它包括四大支柱：幸福、智慧、惊奇和给予。

    我自己经历的痛苦警醒促使我撰写这本书。2007年4月6日上午，我倒在了家庭办公室的地板上，躺在一滩血泊中。倒地的时候，我的头不慎碰到办公桌一角，划伤了眼睛，就连颧骨也骨折了。突然晕倒显然是过度疲惫和睡眠不足所致。这次晕倒后，我赶忙去医院找各路医生诊断，还做了头颅MRI、CAT扫描和超声心动图等检查。我想知道除过度劳累之外，我是否还有其他潜在的疾病。所幸没有其他毛病，但候诊室的确是一个让人反思的好地方。我问了自己很多关于我正在过哪种生活的问题——大学毕业后，我们其实已经不再追问“什么是好生活”这类问题了。

    冥思是一件“很潮”的事情吗？我刚刚读完丹•哈里斯的《10%的幸福》(10 Percent Happiness)。哈里斯在书中记录了他自己如何利用沉思这门科学“驯服内心的声音”，同时还克服了滥用药物问题的经过。在你这本书讨论幸福的章节中，你列举了一些时常冥思的公众人物，比如福特汽车公司(Ford)董事长比尔•福特，Twitter联合创始人埃文•威廉姆斯和奥普拉•温弗瑞等等。请您解释一下冥思和幸福的联系。

    冥思的确“很潮”，因为它很有效果。我们正在经历一个令人难以置信的时刻，现代科学正在证实许多古老的智慧。多项研究显示，冥想深刻地影响着我们生活的每一个方面——我们的身体、头脑、身体健康、情感和心灵的安定。冥思的好处数不胜数，越来越多的人正在发现这一点。毫不夸张地说，冥思是一颗可医治百病的灵丹妙药。

    Her 14th book, Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder was published in late March by Crown. After less than one week on sale, it debuted at #1 on the New York Times nonfiction bestseller list. Sam talks to Huffington about the rise of meditation, why you should "walk the talk," the importance of wonder and giving, and why "going viral has gone viral."

    McNerney: Could you briefly explain what you mean by the "Third Metric" and what influenced you to write Thrive?

    Huffington: Over time our society's notion of success has been reduced to money and power. In fact, at this point, success, money, and power have practically become synonymous in the minds of many. This idea of success can work -- or at least appear to work -- in the short term. But over the long term, money and power by themselves are like a two-legged stool -- you can balance on them for a while, but eventually you're going to topple over. And more and more people -- very successful people -- are toppling over. To live the lives we truly want and deserve, and not just the lives we settle for, we need a Third Metric, a third measure of success that goes beyond the two metrics of money and power, and consists of four pillars: well-being, wisdom, wonder, and giving.

    My own painful wakeup call influenced me to write Thrive. On the morning of April 6, 2007, I was lying on the floor of my home office in a pool of blood. On my way down, my head had hit the corner of my desk, cutting my eye and breaking my cheekbone. I had collapsed from exhaustion and lack of sleep. In the wake of my collapse, I found myself going from doctor to doctor, from brain MRI to CAT scan to echocardiogram, to find out if there was any underlying medical problem beyond exhaustion. There wasn't, but doctors' waiting rooms, it turns out, were good places for me to ask myself a lot of questions about the kind of life I was living. I asked myself a lot of questions about the kind of life I was living -- and indeed questions that we stop asking after college about "what is the good life".

    Is meditation "in?" I just finished Dan Harris' 10 Percent Happiness. Harris documents how he used the science of meditation to "tame his inner voice" and overcome substance abuse problems. In your chapter on well-being you list a number of public figures—Ford Chairman Bill Ford, Twitter cofounder Evan Williams, Oprah Winfrey—who meditate. Explain the connection between meditation and well-being.

    Meditation is "in" because it works. We are living through an incredible time, when modern science is validating a lot of ancient wisdom. What study after study shows is that meditation profoundly affects every aspect of our lives -- our bodies, our minds, our physical health, and our emotional and spiritual well-being. When you consider all the benefits of meditation -- and more are being found every day -- it's not an exaggeration to call meditation a miracle drug!