Connecting with your best ideas, creativity and wisdom requires pulling away from all the connectivity, says Arianna Huffington, media mogul and self-made millionaire.
"My best piece of advice is to make sure that entrepreneurs connect with their own wisdom and creativity, and that's becoming harder and harder because we are so addicted to technology," Huffington says, speaking to CNBC at the iConic conference in New York City Wednesday.
"Seventy percent of people sleep with their phones by their beds; we are constantly engaging in notifications, social media, texts, emails. And yet the most creative moments come when we put all that aside. That's why sometimes people's best ideas come in the shower. So as an entrepreneur, make time for that reflection, ability to connect with your best ideas, and not to be constantly distracted."
Huffington launched her namesake media company in May 2005, and when she sold it in 2013 to AOL for $315 million, she still owned about 6.6 percent of the company, leaving her with $21 million.
She stepped down from her role running the Huffington Post to launch her newest company, Thrive Global, a media start-up focused on spreading the importance of taking care of yourself, getting sleep and unplugging from technology.
I, like millions of other people around the world, had been suffering from the delusion that in order to succeed, we have to burn out.Arianna Huffingtonjournalist, entrepreneur, self-made millionaire
Huffington's journey toward Thrive Global started 10 years ago, two years after launching Huffington Post, when she collapsed from burnout and exhaustion, breaking her cheekbone as she fell.
"That was really the beginning of reevaluating my life and recognizing that I, like millions of other people around the world, had been suffering from the delusion that in order to succeed, we have to burn out," she says.
"And yet all the latest science disproves that. It actually proves that we need time to recharge, to sleep, to unplug from technology, and I became such a passionate evangelist for this message."
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