Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder

Have you noticed that when we die, our eulogies celebrate our lives very differently from the way society defines success?

One reason we give for allowing stress to build in our lives is that we don’t have time to take care of ourselves. We’re too busy chasing a phantom of the successful life.

There is a purpose to our lives, even if it is sometimes hidden from us, and even if the biggest turning points and heartbreaks only make sense as we look back, rather than as we are experiencing them.

I’m convinced of two fundamental truths about human beings. The first is that we all have within us a centered place of wisdom, harmony, and strength. This is a truth that all the world’s philosophies and religions—whether Christianity, Islam, Judaism, or Buddhism—acknowledge in one form or another: “The kingdom of God is within you.” Or as Archimedes said, “Give me a place to stand, and I will move the world.”
The second truth is that we’re all going to veer away from that place again and again and again. That’s the nature of life. In fact, we may be off course more often than we are on course.

Well-being, wonder. Both of these are key to creating the Third Metric. And then there is the third indispensable W in redefining success: wisdom.

When we include our own well-being in our definition of success, another thing that changes is our relationship with time.

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. These four pillars make up the four sections of this book.

The Female Woman

we can take care of ourselves and lead balanced, centered lives while making a positive difference in the world. As HuffPost is spreading around the world,

It was the happiness that comes from being a productive part of a community and contributing to its greater good.