Arianna Huffington's live broadcast, "Thrive," was hosted by the Campus Life and the National Society for Leadership and Success, St. Patrick's Day evening. The event is a part of the launch of the book of the same title, the 14th for the creator of the Huffington Post.
"Our national society hosts three broadcasts every semester," Ashley Wellhousen, the president of EMU's chapter of the NSLS, said. "They tailor it to different ways of learning about how to be a leader and how to be successful."
EMU's chapter of the NSLS joined chapters from around the country to stream the event from New Jersey City University. Despite a couple of streaming hiccups, an audience of about 35 students watched the live stream in the Student Center Auditorium.
Huffington's 14th book started several years ago when Huffington fainted from exhaustion. She had built one of the worlds most used media platforms from scratch, worked constantly and one day she just passed out, hitting her head on the desk on the way down. After that, Huffington's world revolved around trip to doctor to doctor trying to figure out what was wrong.
"I had civilization's disease. And civilizations disease is burnout," Huffington said. "The way we have been running our lives is a little bit like trying to sit on a two legged stool. Because we define success in two measures: of money and power."
Huffington said that the stool's third pillar is well-being. She says if you can't get that, then power and money aren't worth it. Taking care of yourself will make you more effective in everything you do. In her half-hour long speech she talked about the importance sleep and of unplugging yourself from computers and your phone.
"I bet everyone here approximately knows how much battery there is on their smartphone," Huffington said to the audience, "because we take much better care of our smart phones than we take of ourselves."
One part of her book is about sleep. Since her accident, Huffington makes sure she gets enough sleep every day which makes her much more effective decisions.
A second party of her book is about getting time to decompress. Huffington says that the people who can stop and think without constantly getting information will be the most successful in the future.
Speaking of multitasking, that was the third "pillar" she talked about. Huffington said that multitasking is an illusion and that it's actually just constant refocusing. By trying to do several things at once, you miss more and are more likely to make mistakes. That is part of the reason why she emphasizes everyone unplug for certain times a day.
"The reason I came was because I'm a part of this society and it's always good to hear from someone who's successful. It's nice hearing wisdom, to hear someone who's already established their name, hearing what they have to say, tips they can pass down to their college student," Theo Issac, a sophomore majoring in computer science said. "I think I could (unplug). It would be really hard, but as long as it's not for more than like three hours a day."
"I am pursuing membership in this organization and I know it is an opportunity for networking and to learn about how to better myself," Cherelle McGhee, a grad student in social work, said. " I do unplug. I am a full-time foster care worker. I am completely overwhelmed most of the time. So when I'm not on my phone, it is a better time for me."
This was the last of three similar broadcasts for the semester. The next one will be in October.
At the end of the video there was a Q&A session. Students watching from around the country were able to tweet questions with #theNSLS for Huffington to answer.
"It just shows that being a leader doesn't mean someone in a political position or someone in power. It can be someone who we have every day contact with," Wellhousen said. "The purpose of these is to show success can be measured other than reaching your goals. Success can be finding success in yourself or success can be found in finding your passion."
