#AskGaryVee Episode 213: Arianna Huffington, Nighttime Routines & The Importance of Sleep

– Hey Arianna and GaryVee. Arianna it was so good
to meet you last week. We had our sold-out premiere of
“Dream Girl” last night to 600 people at the Paris Theater. Got home at 4 o’clock woke up at
eight now heading to brunch with my parents and then to
Bloomberg for an interview. My question for you is when it’s this kind of
crunch time for an entrepreneur and your in launch
phase and there’s so much to do and you’re on the go and you’re
on the go, how do you recommend we rest during this really
intense couple of weeks? And sometimes months when we
can’t get that full eight hours when we’re just go, go, go? Thanks guys. – Thank you so much. First of all if something
happens and you are shipping a product are about
to get something,– – Moments in time.
– Moments in time. This is a moment in time and
you didn’t get your full night’s sleep try and get 20 minutes of
a nap as soon as you can during the next day. It will make you more
productive the rest of the time. It resets your whole system. – I apologize. Is that a general thing because
for me I’ll tell you, boy, if I took a 20,
I’m a momentum guy. I was thinking about
the mutation thing. I’m like, “Oh I wonder
if I’m a mutation.” – You might be.
You can check yourself. – I can?
– Yeah, you can have a test. There’s a genetic test. – I am going to do that. And the reason I said that is,
boy I am so momentum that if I was to take and I know and I’ve
heard about the naps and pods in offices and I’m fascinated
by this but I’m like ooh, it’s even tough for me to have a meal
in the middle of the day because for me to get started, I can
start but to take a 20 minute nap it’s so difficult. I rarely take naps I have
a lot of natural energy. I get all that. Is that back to your thing that
mutations but for most people that will work? Can most people take naps?
– Absolutely. I mean look at
Winston Churchill. I mean we’re talking about
regular naps in the middle of fighting the second world war. In a bunker he had a
way to take a nap. – Yes. – Charlie Rose who has his
morning show, his regular interview show he
takes three naps a day. – For how long?
Do you know? – Just 20 minutes each. – Have you started
doing the nap thing? – I don’t do naps because
I get enough sleep. – You’re a mutant?
– No. I now get eight
hours 95% of the time. – Is that right?
What about with the travel? Like you’re going
to Dallas tomorrow. – So here’s the thing, I can
make sure that you get enough sleep even when you travel. You need a transition to
sleep, that’s the key. This is the most important thing
I’m going to say other than the fact that the science is
in on sleep. Right? We’re not debating something. – Right, this is not subjective.
– This is not subjective. This is not some Greek
immigrant woman’s– – Crazy idea. You’re not from America.
Get out here with this crap. I was born in Belarus
so I have my own version. – But you have no accent
which makes me feel bad. – Well, I came when I was three. – It makes me feel I’m
tone deaf which I really am. – Go ahead. – But anyway beyond the 50 pages
of scientific endnotes the most important thing I’m going to say is that we need
a transition to sleep. If anybody who is watching
has children you know that you don’t just drop your baby
and your young child to bed. You give it a bath,
you put it in PJs. You sing it a lullaby. – Do you think the modern
parents are doing way too much of that transition? – No.
– I do. Some of the things have
become four hours long. – Well, four hours is
a little excessive. You sound like Chelsea Handler. Modern men and women have
dropped the transition. The transition is you are
texting, emailing you put your phone by your bed you turn off
the light and then what happens is that you may be exhausted
enough to go to sleep but your brain has not been given the
opportunity to wind down so it’s going to wake you up in the
middle of the night with all this innate chatter that is completely and
utterly unproductive. – Is it possible that I’m a
mutant because I can literally even though I am one second ago
complete insanity in my brain that if I turn on my sound machine will go to
sleep immediately? Have I trained my body? – And you go to immediately
sleep and you don’t wake up? – Yes. That’s right.
Like a rock. You can literally come into my
house punch me in the face and I will not wake up. – That means you’re
way too exhausted. – Got it.
– You know what I’m saying? – It would make a lot of sense. – You remind me of me
before I collapsed. – I don’t want to wake
up in a pool of blood. – Let me tell you
what happened to me. I would literally my friends
would joke that they would go to a movie house with me before the
movie started I would be asleep. They would put me in a
car, I would be asleep. I was so sleep deprived that
the minute I was in any darkened place or I didn’t have to
function, I would fall asleep. – I don’t do that. I’ve actually
never fallen asleep– – But you’re a mutant.
Can we all agree– – No, I’m gonna test myself. And honestly, by the way, I’m
getting a lot more seven and six, seven, and eight than
anybody would imagine that would and on weekends I’ll go 11. I think sleep is– – Now we’re getting the truth. Okay. So you actually give
yourself a lot of recovery. – What I’m doing is Monday
through Friday no question that game can be six and seven and
when I play basketball it can even be a little earlier because
of 6 AM tipoff so I have to get up at 5:30 but I almost
consistently will try to make up time Friday night to Saturday,
Saturday night to Sunday. I just don’t know. I’m a big believer that’s all. But now I’m not worried
about how much sleep they get. I’m worried about what
they do while they’re awake. – Okay but the two
things are connected. Because if you wake up fully
recharged it means you wake up ready to take on the world. You know that feeling? You wake up you say,
“Come on, bring it on.” It doesn’t matter how many
obstacles, challenges, setbacks. – I prefer those things.
– Okay. Perfect. Travis is a friend of yours.
– Yes. – I just joined
the board of Uber. Travis has a little bit of that.
– Yes. – He may be dealing with 30
crisis at the same time– – He eats it for lunch. – What happens and here’s the
key you just put something on your Facebook yesterday
that I loved which is it’s ultimately just business.
– That’s it. – It is not life-and-death.
– That’s right. – People who have a hard time
are the people who basically make it too important. Perspective is everything. And that’s really what
Stoic philosophers believe. You know who is my greatest
hero other than you Gary? – Yes? – I’ll pick a dead person.
Is Marcus Aurelius. I’ll tell you why he
was the Emperor of Rome. Pretty big job, you agree?
– Yes, the job. – Right in the arena
dealing with invasions, plagues, everything. And he was also a
Stoic philosopher. And literally
nothing ever got to him. He wrote a book about it. He called meditations and I have
by my bed and every time I’m beginning to get anxious about
something or worried I look at that book and the fact that
he considered life as though everything that happened
was a hidden blessing. – I agree with that. – I don’t know why, I don’t
know how but another favorite of mine, Rum,i the Persian poet,
he said live life as though everything is
rigged in your favor. – I think optimism
is the ultimate drug. – And we don’t know. We don’t really know enough
about what’s happening in life so whatever happens for me some
of my biggest heartbreaks led to my biggest moments of joy
and happiness and success. – India. I love that Arianna. I love that.
I believe that stuff so much. – Dr. Durgam.
– Doctor?

Hi Gary, I’m coming from you
from my dental office in North Bergen, New Jersey and my
question is in regards to sleep. How do you develop rituals for
your sleep and bedtime when your life is unpredictable as a
businessperson and a parent and you have a lot of obligations
and a lot of people contacting you at all hours of the day? Thank you. – Okay, well, first of all
you know what they tell you on airplanes put your
own oxygen mask first. – Yes.
– That is key. They don’t say that
because they are nice. They say that because you won’t
be much use to anybody else if you’re not breathing. So you’re not going to be
much use to your children, your patients anybody if you
let yourself burn out. Nobody should be able to reach
you at all hours unless you have what I have which is a dumb
phone that has no data for my daughters and for overnight news
editor if there is a crisis. But my regular phone that a lot
of people have that has all my life and my work on when
I’m asleep it is asleep and it is outside my bedroom. The same thing for me I have it by my bed but it is
completely on silent. It never wakes me up. Never know, I’m out. I totally agree with that
and I think it is binary. To answer your question, Doctor, either you are doing
this or you’re not. There is no half
pregnant in these strategies. For me with health two years ago
I went all in and so now I found the hour that I
didn’t think existed. Excuse me, it’s two hours ’cause
you got to get ready, shower after it’s just binary. If you want to, if you believe
it, if you read this book if you believe this thesis if you
Google, if you watch her interviews, if you believe in
this if this has been bubbling up, now if you have a job where
you have to get paged and come in firefighter, doctor – But it doesn’t
happen every night. – [Gary] No, it doesn’t. – Even if you’re a doctor– – I wanted to ask you how many
times has the news editor– – Never. – It hasn’t happened yet?
– No. – No major thing
has happened yet– – That woke me up? And touch wood, I haven’t
heard from my daughters either. It’s just a security blanket. – It makes you feel better. – It makes you feel better. But the point is that it is
absolutely critical to realize that we have been living
under a collective delusion. I have to say that. We are now where we were in
the 60s regarding smoking. The science was in but people
were still glamorizing smoking and there were doctors I saw an
ad that the other day from the 60’s of a doctor in a white
coat saying, “I smoke menthols “because they
refresh my throat.” So really that’s where we
always sleep deprivation. – Yeah, you know it’s funny over the last year and a half
and have probably not often enough and probably
why I had so much passion to do this with you so I have
something to point to I’ve sprinkled in a lot more
of hustle but that means what you’re doing when you’re
awake not don’t sleep. Don’t watch four hours
of “House of Cards” if you want to build a business. Don’t play video games for six
hours but get your sleep in. I’ve been thinking about more
evergreen pieces of content that I can point to when people are
like, “Gary you don’t sleep.” I’m like, “No, no watch
this episode with Arianna.” That had a lot that was a
deciding factor for me. – Because people
are looking to you. – And by the way,
I sell hard work. And I want to make sure that
it is clarified as in I’m more worried about playing Candy
Crush for an hour when you want to build a big business versus
taking that away from yourself. – Absolutely. Hard work is not the problem. I’m not talking about slowing down just look at what
I’m getting done. – [Gary] Right. – I’m talking about being your
most efficient best self when you show up for work. – How much does
that young man sleeping? – Tell him.
– I sleep eight hours– – [Arianna] Daniel is my
fabulous Chief of Staff. – every single night. – [Gary] Eight hours?
– Eight hours. Oh, we work hard.
We get it done. We hustle like crazy but
when I’m out, I’m out. – [Gary] And before? How long have you
guys been together? – [Daniel] About a
year and a half. – [Gary] And so before that? – Before that I honestly thought
that the hustle meant giving up wellness and sleep. I was convinced then. I had drunk that Kool-Aid. It’s a collective
delusion like she said. – So what were you
spending asleep? – Maybe five hours. – [Gary] Yeah. – Maybe because I
wanted to brag about it. I wanted to say hey folks I
don’t sleep and therefore I’m working my hardest. – You know it’s funny, Snapchat
has been interesting to me I guess last night, not last night
but man when I don’t six to me is the number I’m really, if I’m
under six I’m very concerned. And usually I’m under six
and you guys know this if you’re following
me on Snapchat is when I travel but then I
sleep on the flight to make sure I close that gap.
– Right. When you check into a hotel
especially after a flight I highly recommend a hot bath,
a hot shower there’s something wonderful about
water washing away. – Big fan, big fan.
You know, right? Remember those 10 seconds you
are an assistant when I was like shower before.
I’m a big fan. – I need to get him a shower
and they’re like “No he doesn’t.” – I buy hotel rooms from the
night before because there’s no early check-in just to
take a shower when I land. – Absolutely essential. There is no better investment
than investment in yourself. Don’t buy a bag,
buy a hotel room. How are you are going to show
the next morning, that is the key.
– India. – [India] One more?
– One more.