When you have the opportunity to ask some of the most interesting people in the world about their lives, sometimes the most fascinating answers come from the simplest questions. The Thrive Questionnaire is an ongoing series that gives an intimate look inside the lives of some of the world’s most successful people.
Thrive Global: What’s the first thing you do when you get out of bed?
Jenny Santi: Deepak Chopra taught me to R-P-M (Rise, Pee, Meditate!)
TG: What gives you energy?
JS: Being around animals.
TG: What’s your secret life hack?
JS: Don’t wrinkle your forehead.
TG: Name a book that changed your life.
JS: Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends & Influence People, which my dad gave me when I was about 12
TG: Tell us about your relationship with your phone. Does it sleep with you?
JS: I try to break up with it every now and then. But we often end up sleeping together.
TG: How do you deal with email?
JS: I love getting emails from thoughtful people with brilliant ideas.
TG: You unexpectedly find 15 minutes in your day, what do you do with it?
JS: Take a shower!
TG: When was the last time you felt burned out and why?
JS: After my book The Giving Way to Happiness came out. Writing it was probably the hardest thing I had ever done, and I didn’t realize how exhausted I was until after the book launch. I took a 6-month break afterwards (yoga, meditation, ashram time & isolation!) and had the time of my life.
TG: When was the last time you felt you failed and how did you overcome it?
JS: Everyday there are little successes and failures. I just try to keep going.
TG: Share a quote that you love and that gives you strength or peace.
JS: “Be kind, for everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about.”
Jenny Santi is a philanthropy advisor to some of the world’s most generous philanthropists and celebrity activists. In 2013 she founded Saint Partners, a consulting practice founded upon the idea that great wealth should lead to great philanthropy. Her clients have included signatories of the Buffett-Gates Giving Pledge, award-winning celebrities, and the world’s largest wealth managers, helping them channel their wealth, power and desire for meaning towards social good. For five years beginning at only 28 she served as Head of UBS’s award-winning Philanthropy Services department based in Southeast Asia. She holds an MBA from INSEAD, attended the Wharton School and New York University’s Heyman Center for Philanthropy & Fundraising, and is a Chartered Advisor in Philanthropy. Santi has lived in Manila, London, France and Singapore, and now lives in New York. She is an accomplished artist, a huge animal lover, a writer for the Huffington Post, and the author of the acclaimed book “The Giving Way to Happiness: Stories & Science Behind the Life-Changing Power of Giving” (Tarcher Penguin Random House, 2015).