A recent visit from media mogul Arianna Huffington to the Miracle Mile offices of media-buying agency Universal McCann has had the firm buzzing, about – of all things – getting more ZZZ’s.
It started when Karen Hunt, 45, global managing partner at the firm, brought Huffington into the office to talk candidly about her ascent to media stardom. Her appearance was part of a series of talks that has brought in the likes of Harvey Levin from TMZ and Dick Glover from Funny or Die.
Huffington, who once fainted at her desk from exhaustion, spoke to the crowd of more than 100 about all manner of personal things – but emphasized avoiding electronics before bed, getting a solid night’s rest and not expecting her employees to answer her emails over the weekend. The idea is to avoid burnout and be more productive with the hours at work.
Now, Hunt said she and her employees have been taking some of the advice to heart – although it’s not entirely possible in the round-the-clock business of media buying.
“The next few days everyone was asking, ‘How many hours did you get?’” she said. “It’s been funny. A lot of people have said, ‘You don’t have to answer right now (to emails).’ Those types of discussions matter.”
Peaking at right time
Some people spend years preparing to climb the world’s best-known mountains. But Jodi Meade hardly planned at all before ascending both Mount Kilimanjaro and Machu Picchu.
The director of automotive properties in CBRE Group Inc.’s downtown L.A. office always has been a fitness buff: She has a black belt in tae kwon do and is an avid snow skier, but she had never climbed a mountain. That changed a couple of years ago when a friend who was planning to scale Kilimanjaro asked Meade to fill in for another climber who had backed out 30 days before the climb.
“When I got the phone call, I was happy that I had just finished 15 weeks of beach boot camp, so I was in good shape,” Meade, 51, said.
With hardly any training, Meade and her friend made it to the top, at more than 19,000 feet.
This year, Meade’s cousin decided to celebrate her 50th birthday in Peru. So with only a few months warning, Meade headed south and spent five days scaling Machu Picchu in May.
She said the experience was life changing but she doesn’t have plans to climb another mountain just yet.
“I guess I’ll wait 30 days to find out if I climb something else,” she laughed. “I probably won’t take on Mount Everest but will always be game for an adventure I haven’t done.”
Staff reporters Jonathan Polakoff and Jacquelyn Ryan contributed to this column. Page 3 is compiled by editor Charles Crumpley. He can be reached at [email protected].
