LESLEY: Well, as you’ve gone through your life and done all these many things – and I know you well enough to know that each one has been done with your total passion, and clearly that’s why you’ve been so successful, because you do throw yourself in. But I wonder how you would say you’ve changed, and I don’t mean politically. It’s obvious you’ve changed politically. But I mean as a person, as a woman.

ARIANNA: I find that my fundamental change has been to be a lot less reactive, a lot more centered. The way I say to myself is to move from struggle to grace. You know, there’s a lot of effort that goes into any kind of project, right? It’s not … it doesn’t just magically happen, whether it’s a book or a site or an article or a blog or anything, right?

LESLEY: I know exactly what you’re talking about.

ARIANNA: You know what I’m saying? There’s a lot of work.

LESLEY: It’s a wonderful way to say it. Where you can do whatever you’re doing gracefully.

ARIANNA: Gracefully and without anxiety.

LESLEY: Yes.

ARIANNA: It doesn’t mean that there isn’t a lot of work involved, but right now I feel that I’m going to be 59 on July 15 and I think a lot of it has to do with being older, and having done a lot of things through struggle and working. And now I’m really relishing the fact that … I’m loving what I’m doing so much more because that sense of struggling is not there.

LESLEY: You’re saying it’s so much bigger. I know —

ARIANNA: Everything. Everything. Yes.

LESLEY: — what you’re saying.

ARIANNA: And it’s really … you know how those of us who’ve worked all our lives and also brought up families and have been used to this juggling act have softened. I know certainly in my life, and in my case, I have tried to be very effective, very organized.

LESLEY: Yes. Holding everything together. You have to.

ARIANNA: Yes. Making sure every minute counts. Be productive, right?

LESLEY: Yes.

ARIANNA: So I feel now that the most important thing in my life is not anymore to be effective. I kind of know I can be effective. You know, if you have a deadline you’re going to meet it, OK? You reach the point where you’re not worried about meeting your deadlines. So my goal now is to be really enjoying what I’m doing.

LESLEY: And have you? Are you?

ARIANNA: I really am. That required a lot of changes in my life. For example, sleep has become incredibly important. I’m done with sleep deprivation.

LESLEY: I like that. We all need our sleep.

ARIANNA: You know, I find if I don’t have my seven to eight hours sleep a night I’m not as joyful during the day, I’m not relishing everything I’m doing in the same way.

LESLEY: I can’t believe you, Arianna, find seven hours a day to sleep.

ARIANNA: I do. And when I don’t, you know, for whatever reason, I make sure I catch up as quickly as I can, or I catnap, or I meditate during the day. I try to do something. Do I succeed every day? Absolutely not. You are absolutely right. But the difference between me now, when this is a priority, and me in the past, when I thought I could stand the candle at both ends and I would drag myself through the day like a zombie and keep doing things, no matter how I felt, that’s what has changed.