Deepika Padukone’s LiveLoveLaugh is an initiative that aims to spread awareness about various mental health concerns we face in our daily lives. The
LiveLoveLaugh Lecture Series, which debuted in 2019, has showcased some of the world’s foremost thinkers and influencers, offering insights into the forces shaping the global mental health narrative.
In 2019, they had Pulitzer Prize winner and oncologist Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee as their speaker. Abhinav Bindra, India’s first Olympic gold medal winning shooter, was the featured guest in 2021. Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Executive Chairperson of Biocon and Anant Narayanan, founder of Mensa Brands, were the esteemed speakers in 2023.
This year, Deepika Padukone, Founder of LiveLoveLaugh, spoke to Arianna Huffington about the many aspects and nuances of taking care of mental health while hustling. Arianna is a trailblazing entrepreneur who transformed the media industry in the 2000s with the Huffington Post. Over the years, she has led a global movement towards mental well-being with Thrive Global.
Her journey from overcoming personal mental health struggles to empowering millions through her wisdom and determination is nothing short of inspiring. Her insights into prioritising self-care and fostering a culture of holistic mental well-being must be addressed on World Mental Health Day. Read on to dive into their insightful conversation:
Arianna Huffington’s outlook on failure
Arianna Huffington was born in Athens, Greece. She spoke about how her mother was the driving force behind her ambitions, risks, dreams and life. She said that she grew up living in a one-bedroom apartment in Athens with her mother and sister. Her mother always said that failure is a stepping stone to success and one should never be afraid of taking risks.
Arianna said, “One of the things she (her mother) taught me from a very early age is to take risks, not to be afraid of failing. She used to say failure is not the opposite of success. It’s a stepping stone to success. Even though we didn’t have any money, she always made us feel abundant. It was really a life where I felt I could try for anything I wanted. And that’s what happened one day.
She added, “I saw a picture of Cambridge University in a magazine. I brought the magazine home and I said I want to go there. And everybody said, don’t be ridiculous. You can’t go there. You have no money. You don’t speak English. It’s hard even for English girls to get into Cambridge. My mother said, let’s see how you can get there. Let’s find out how you can learn English and take your general certificates of education. She found out I could do it through the British Council and apply for a scholarship. We did all that. And what was amazing is that I never felt pressured. It was an adventure. I always felt that if I didn’t get into Cambridge, there would be another adventure.”
Arianna Huffington’s ambitions after penning her first book
Arianna Huffington studied Economics at Cambridge. She was also an active part of the Cambridge Union, a debating society. In fact she rose up to become the President of Cambridge Union and organised debates on topics she cared about. One of the debates was televised through which she got an opportunity to write a book.
But Arianna wanted to do more with her life. She talks about how she figured out how to take the next step and make the best professional decision for her.
“I absolutely loved the Cambridge Union. I loved seeing people’s hearts and minds being moved by words and learning to debate. When I started speaking, I was ridiculed because I had a very heavy accent. So it was really building grit and resilience and not letting the naysayers get me down,” Arianna said.
She also added, Standing for the election for the standing committee, then secretary, then vice president, and then becoming president of the union, was a pretty big moment in my life because part of being president means you organise debates around topics you care about. Mine was the changing role of women. That debate was televised. An English publisher saw the debate and asked me if I would write a book on the views I expressed in the debate. I wrote back, I can’t write. He wrote back, ‘can you have lunch?’ He took me to lunch and offered me a modest advance to be able to take a year, write the book. So at 23, I had my first book published. Amazingly, it was translated into 36 languages and did really well. But I studied economics. I haven’t done very much with my degree. It was kind of a hard moment. I felt like I was having a midlife crisis in my early 20s, because suddenly I was financially independent. I had a career I had not expected as a writer. I was asking the question, is that all there is? All my life, there was that spiritual sense that there is more to life than just our material success. And so that was a moment for me to go deeper.”
Beginning of The Huffington Post
Arianna moved to New York from London due to personal reasons. She admitted that there was a turn of events in her life that led her to start the Huffington Post. She also said that she believes in the concept of opportunity cost and has trusted it till now in her life to make decisions.
Arianna explained, “There is one concept I learned that still guides me—opportunity cost. Like that every time you decide to do something, you are foregoing doing something else. So it helps make sure this is what you really want to do. I left and moved to New York because a man wouldn’t marry me. And it turned out to be the best thing I did in my life. All the good things that happened after that, my children, my books, The Huffington Post, Thrive Global. I say to everyone, it happened because of something bad. Sometimes the things that go wrong open doors for things that spectacularly go right.”
Deepika Padukone added, “I also feel you need to be patient in that process. All the good things that come out of some of the bad things that happen in our life, you don’t necessarily realise in that moment. But as you power through and time goes by, it’s then when you look back at your journey and reflect, you realise, wow! That this opportunity actually forced me and pushed me towards doing something that I’d probably never thought of or imagined.
Deepika asked Arianna if she imagined that The Huffington Post would have happened if she never would have left. To which, Arianna responded—”Oh, absolutely not. Absolutely not. And even marrying a man called Michael Huffington. Because my maiden name is Ariana Stassinopoulos.Stassinopoulos Post does not sound as good, right?”
The hustle and challenges behind The Huffington Post
Speaking about the challenges in the beginning of starting The Huffington Post, Arianna said, “I remember the first day we launched The Huffington Post. I remember one of the reviews, I’ve learned it by heart. It said, ‘The Huffington Post is an unsurvivable failure. It is the movie equivalent of Gigli, Ishtar, and Heaven’s Gate all rolled into one. Now, in case you’re not clear, these are all major flops. Of course, that was pretty awful on day one. A year later, the same writer sent me an email and said, ‘I was wrong’. The Huffington Post has become an indispensable part of the Internet, and I’d like to write for you’.
She added, “I said, great. I would love you to write for us, because one of the things I learned from my mother early on is that holding grudges and resentments are the worst things you can doSo I really like to move through life releasing any grudges and forgiving, forgiving myself, first of all. Sometimes the hardest thing is for us to forgive ourselves for mistakeswe made, and then forgiving others so that we don’t carry that burden with us.”
Deepika Padukone and Arianna Huffington on dealing with criticism
Ariana and Deepika spoke about the first criticism they faced that pushed them to work harder and be better. Both of them have had bitter experiences with criticism in the beginning of their professional journeys.
Deepika said, “It’s normal and human to feel pain, anger, and some of these extreme emotions. I had a similar experience when my debut movie was released, Om Shanti Om, in 2007. I remember, of course, there were quite a few bad reviews, but I specifically remember this one bad review. I think it pushed me and prompted me to work on myself. It spoke about my accent, diction, talent and capabilities.”
She added, “I think negativity, sometimes, is a good thing. It’s what you make of it. I think that the larger picture is what do you do with that criticism? How do you use it positively? How do you work on yourself? You also realise that it’s not going to happen overnight. You’re going to have to put in the work and be patient and then eventually come out on the other side. Like you said (Arianna), the fact that that journalist eventually started, you know, writing for you is probably one of your biggest victories and a testament to your resilience.”
Arianna’s ‘micro steps’ to build healthier habits
Responding to Deepika’s experience with criticism, Ariana said that she, too, had to deal with her own criticism. She came up with something called microsteps that are small incremental steps that are intended towards building positive and healthy habits.
Arianna responded, “I found the hardest thing in my life was my own self-criticism. A voice in my head puts me down and focusses on my mistakes. In fact, I call that voice an obnoxious roommate living in my head. But I’ve learned to not be influenced by that voice. In fact, one of the micro steps we have at Thrive, micro steps are small little incremental steps that lead to healthier habits. One of them is to schedule worry time. So when that voice says, for example, the way you answered that question wasn’t good, people wouldn’t understand what you said. I can say to that voice that we have a worry time scheduled on Thursday at 2pm. So let’s handle it then. It’s amazing how it works. It’s based on neuroscience. We don’t have to address something right now so that we can move back in the present and not let our mind move into rumination, which also is one of the mental health problems. If we ruminate and focus on the negative, it’s much easier to get depressed or anxious.”
Arianna Huffington on prioritising self-care
Arianna Huffington went on to establish Thrive Global in 2015 after she stepped down as the editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post. Her company mainly focused on building scientific solutions for stress and burnout at the workplace. She speaks extensively about prioritising self-care to combat stress and burnout at the workplace. Her personal experience with exhaustion and burnout played a key role in her starting Thrive Global.
The wake-up call for Arianna Huffington
Arianna Huffington had a health scare while building up The Huffington Post. She suddenly collapsed due to overworking and exhaustion which led Arianna to rethinking her work and lifestyle habits.
She said, “It was two years into building The Huffington Post. I was the divorced mother of two little girls. I had bought into the collective delusion that in order to succeed to be a super founder and a super mom, I didn’t have the luxury to take care of myself. So I didn’t sleep a lot. I didn’t exercise. I ate whatever was there, literally putting myself last. One morning I was at my desk and I felt cold. I got up to go get a sweater and I collapsed. I hit my head on my desk, broke my cheekbone. That was the beginning of a journey. First of all, to find out what was wrong with me. When you suddenly collapse, they put you through echocardiograms and MRIs to see, did I have a brain tumour? Did I have a heart defect? What happened? And I was diagnosed with burnout.
The importance of downtime according to Deepika Padukone and Arianna Huffinton
Arianna Huffinton and Deepika Padukone Spoke extensively about the importance of rest and recovery. When you are constantly hustling round the clock, you need a down time to achieve your optimum performance. Arianna’s experience with overwork and exhaustion made her realise the importance of downtime and how not taking it seriously could eventually lead to burn out.
Arianna said, “At the time, burnout was not a term that was much in use. It was really something that completely changed my life because I learned through all my studies at the time that it wasn’t just my problem, it was a global epidemic. People all around the world were suffering from burnout. I wanted to understand why so many people were believing that that was the way to be most productive? It goes back to the first industrial revolution when we started working with machines and after machines, software. The goal with machines and software is to minimise downtime. But the human operating system is different. Downtime is a feature, not a bug. So we have to learn that. In fact, to be the most productive, you need downtime. We see that with athletes. You started life as an athlete. You know that recovery is part of peak performance.”
Deepika Padukone weighed in, “You feel like someone who makes time for themselves or takes a weekend off is someone who’s not driven, which I find so bizarre. Everyone’s output level is different. So it varies from individual to individual. But things have started to change to some extent post COVID but there’s still this thinking that if someone needs downtime, it’s like this person is not motivated. Okay, now let’s look for someone who’s willing to burn the midnight oil. And that person’s great because they’re so hardworking, committed and dedicated. What you said is absolutely right. For me, at least it comes from being an athlete that you need your rest, you need your recovery. You need it to perform better.”
Arianna continued, “We learn so much from athletes. We have a lot of athletes who invested in Thrive and are good friends. They talk often about how it’s not just your physical performance. I remember talking to Andrew Gudala, who said, it’s also when I’m sleep deprived or have eaten junk and go to play, that makes you less effective. So, both physically and mentally, you are not at your best.
She added, “That’s what we are learning now. In your work with mental health, which is so important, we see that these five key behaviours of sleep, food, movement, stress management, and connection are central, not just for our physical health, but for our mental health. I know when I’m sleep deprived, I’m more emotionally reactive. And that affects your mental health.”
Arianna Huffington’s important micro step
Arianna Huffington ensures to declare an end of her working day by switching off her phone and keeping it outside her bedroom. She said this habit has helped her wind down properly after a busy working day.
Arianna said, “My absolute favourite micro step is to pick a time at the end of the day that I consider the end of my working day. I declare an end by turning off my phone and charging it outside my bedroom.”
She added, “We have a mental health crisis among young people. Part of the reason is because they sleep with their phones and they wake up exhausted and therefore are more likely to become anxious or depressed.”
Arianna Huffington’s decision to start Thrive Global
Talking about her decision to start Thrive Global, Arianna said, “The first thing I did was I started covering these issues at The Huffington Post. So we would cover sleep and stress. I wrote two books on the subject—Thrive and The Sleep Revolution. Thrive was a more autobiographical book about how in order to live life, we thrive and not just survive. We need to go beyond defining success as money and status/power and include, what I call, the third metric of success, which is our health and well-being. So, that’s what a complete good life is.
She added, “After I wrote these two books, I was on a book tour. I realised that it wasn’t enough to raise awareness. I wanted to help people change behaviours. I wanted to create a behaviour change technology company to help people adopt these healthy habits. To do that, I had to leave the Huffington Post, which typically I never thought I would leave. It was like a third child. But I made that jump in 2016. So it’s now been seven years and it’s been an incredible journey.”
Thrive Global’s ‘Reset’ initiative
Arianna also spoke about one of Thrive Global’s initiatives called Reset. Basically, Resets are 60-90 seconds visuals that contain everything in your life that makes you happy and grateful.
Arianna explained, “Stress management is one of the five behaviours we need to manage. Stress is unavoidable. But cumulative stress is avoidable. So we’ve created these 60 second resets based on neuroscience. It takes 60 to 90 seconds to move us from the sympathetic to the parasympathetic nervous system. You’ll see that at the moment when you get some bad news or you’re feeling exhausted and stressed out, you can play this and in 60 seconds you can be reminded of what you love about your life. So you’ll see in mine are pictures of my children and quotes I love and also the music.”
Arianna Huffington’s message of hope
Arianna’s message of hope — “My message is to remember that we all have in us a place of wisdom, peace, strength, resilience. It’s like our birthright that divine spark if you want. Most of the time we are disconnected from it but we have the ability to reconnect with it again and again and again during the day and when we connect with that we really get that strength to go through life no matter what life brings our way and also to find joy and love in what we’re doing.”
She added, “This is an amazing moment that we are having this conversation and that we can use our own experience, the lessons we learned and to help people know that just by integrating these small steps every day, we can dramatically affect both our physical and our mental health. So my final message is you know how we always say onwards, upward? I like to say onwards, upward and inward because when we go inward the onwards and upward journey becomes both easier and more effective because ultimately the most important frontier is not outer space, it’s inner space.”
Social and lead images credits: LiveLoveLaugh
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