I studied, I met with medical doctors, scientists, and I’m here to tell you that the way to a more productive, more inspired, more joyful life is: getting enough sleep.
Women still have an uneasy relationship with power and the traits necessary to be a leader. There is this internalized fear that if we are really powerful, we are going to be considered ruthless or pushy or strident - all of those epithets that strike right at our femininity. We are still working at trying to overcome the fear that power and womanliness are mutually exclusive.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Women often feel conflicted about embracing power due to societal perceptions of femininity and leadership traits.
Arianna Huffington's quote highlights the challenges women face in asserting their power while navigating societal expectations. It reflects an internal struggle where the traits associated with effective leadership, often perceived as aggressive or unyielding, clash with traditional notions of femininity. This tension creates a barrier to women fully embracing leadership roles and power, as they fear being labeled negatively and being seen as less feminine in the process. The quote calls attention to the need for a cultural shift that allows women to be powerful without sacrificing their identity or being judged harshly.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
During a women's leadership workshop, this quote can be used to inspire participants to embrace their power.
More from Arianna Huffington
All quotes →Don't buy society’s definition of success. Because it’s not working for anyone. It’s not working for women, it's not working for men, it's not working for polar bears, it's not working for the cicadas that are apparently about to emerge and swarm us. It’s only truly working for those who make pharmaceuticals for stress, sleeplessness and high blood pressure.
Women need to lead the way to change our culture of burnout - both for their sake and also for the sake of successful men who desperately need a new model of success. And the still-very-macho world of STEM is a great place to start.
Don’t just climb the ladder of success - a ladder that leads, after all, to higher and higher levels of stress and burnout - but chart a new path to success, remaking it in a way that includes not just the conventional metrics of money and power, but a third metric that includes well-being, wisdom, wonder and giving, so that the goal is not just to succeed but to thrive.
We think, mistakenly, that success is the result of the amount of time we put in at work, instead of the quality of time we put in.
Failure is not the opposite of success; it's part of success.
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