SM: Fear is actually the focus of your latest book On Becoming Fearless. What motivated you to write it?
Huffington: I was motivated to write the book when, looking at my two teenage daughters, I was stunned to see all the same classic fears I had been burdened with when I was their age: “How attractive am I?” “Do people like me?” “Should I speak up?” I had thought that with all the gains feminism has brought, my daughters would not have to suffer through the fears I did. Yet here is our younger generation, as uncertain, doubting and desperate as we were, trying to fulfill the expectations of others. I set out to explore what had happened to my bold little girls.

SM: What do you suggest women do to become fearless?
Huffington: One of the key messages of [On Becoming Fearless] is that fearlessness isn't the absence of fear—it's the mastery of fear. Being fearless means getting up one more time than you fall down. To live in fear is the worst insult to our true selves.

SM: In what areas do you continue to work on being fearless?
Huffington: You name it—I'm still working on it! It's definitely an ongoing process. Fearlessness is like a muscle, the more you use it, the stronger it becomes—and the easier it becomes to confront your fears and pursue your dreams.

And Arianna has flexed that muscle many times. After finishing her second book in her mid-twenties, Arianna faced rejection 36 times before getting published. She also had to face a public divorce after 10 years of marriage with politician Michael Huffington in 1997.