The Anxious Achiever: Recent Episodes
Morra Aarons-Mele
Host Morra Aarons-Mele is on a mission to reframe how we think about anxiety and mental health in the workplace. Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the U.S. We desperately need better models for leadership and a more holistic view of mental health. Our culture tells those of us who suffer from anxiety and depression that we can’t succeed, but we tell a different story — without sugarcoating the tough stuff. We feature stories from people who’ve been there and experts who can help you thrive.
Dean Yates was a foreign correspondent and worked for Reuters for decades until the traumatic events he witnessed took their toll. Over time, he realized he was struggling with PTSD - while at the same time realized his company was pushing him out. He shares his story of why he began reporting in the first place, the uncomfortable truths about PTSD, and how he wants workplaces to change.
The public school system in the U.S. lost at least 300,000 public school teachers and administrators between February 2020 and May 2022, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Post-pandemic, some of that strain has abated, but many of the underlying causes for quitting, burnout and other mental health challenges remain. At the start of the school year, we speak to Houston-based middle school teacher Crystal Frommert about the unique challenges and anxieties that teachers face in their profession and what she’s learned about better handling those challenges.
You can check out her book here: https://www.amazon.com/When-Calling-Parents-Isnt-Your/dp/B0BZFLDRSR#:~:text=When%20Calling%20Parents%20isn't%20Your%20Calling%20is%20a%20how,night%2C%20conferences%2C%20and%20more
The first time that Russell Glass tried meditation, he wasn’t really sure what to make of it. Flash-forward several years and lots of practice later, Glass is now the CEO of Headspace, the mental health and meditation app. He speaks with host Morra Aarons-Mele about his own experience with anxiety and imposter syndrome as an entrepreneur, why he was drawn to Headspace as a company, and loneliness and the importance of human connection at work. They also talk through the bold policies he has in place to continue to make sure Headspace practices what it preaches as an organization.
Host Morra Aaons-Mele has an informal chat with author and entrepreneur Meredith Arthur about how Wegovy - a drug similar to Ozempic - has changed her life, and reduced what she calls “food noise”.
Tara McMullin was diagnosed with autism at the age of 38, and it put her previous struggles with work and the structures we have around work in a new light. Now, she knows how to build her work day and work relationships in a way that’s healthier for how her brain works. The author and business coach shares what work was like for her before and after diagnosis, and what anyone in the work world can learn about controlling how and when they work. You can listen to Tara’s podcast here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/what-works/id1054027973
Do you ever wonder if you are “aging out?” This week, Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with executive coach Nihar Chhaya about the realities of age bias, expectations, and the stress it brings. Catch more of Morra and Nihar’s LinkedIn Live sessions here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/morraaaronsmele/
High achievers and those who struggle with mental health often find it hard to give themselves compassion. We revisit one of our favorite episodes about self-compassion, featuring Mark Goldstein, a lawyer at Reed Smith who speaks about his journey with depression, OCD, and breaking down stigmas; and psychologist and author Dr. Kristin Neff on how people can build more self-compassion to impact their work and lives.
Learn more about Mark Goldstein’s story: https://abovethelaw.com/2019/02/biglaw-depression-story/
Dr. Kristin Neff’s Self-Compassion Exercises: https://self-compassion.org/category/exercises/#exercises
We don’t always immediately see the ways that anxiety, trauma, or institutional inequities show up for us - and our bodies - at work. Deepa Purushothaman began her career as a classic overachiever, until she couldn’t physically do it anymore. She was done “ingesting” toxic work culture and “acting in” her emotions, as she puts it. She came to realize a lot of the ways that corporate America can be toxic for women of color in particular, and she set out to change that. Purushothaman is the cofounder of nFormation, and she wrote the book The First, The Few, The Only: How Women of Color Can Redefine Power in Corporate America.
Today, Jeff Dewing runs a successful facilities management technology corporation. He’s had a dramatic career. Mark began his career in refrigeration repair but quickly got bit by the entrepreneurship bug. Over his lifetime he’s seen the ups and downs of his industry and the working world, and has learned to embrace vulnerability and mental health concerns on his way to running a better company. That includes a moment during the pandemic where he cried during an all-staff meeting - and had to admit, “I don’t know what to do.” Learn what he’s learned from great successes and great failures, and how he believes leadership today is changing.
Older generations have heard the stereotypes, and maybe seen anecdotal evidence that supports these biases: Gen Z, newish to the workforce, is a bit too aware of their feelings and their mental health; but sometimes we just need them to do the work. In this LinkedIn Live session, Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with executive coach Nihar Chhaya about ways to reframe intergenerational conflict at the office, especially as it pertains to being open around mental health concerns.
Multi-level marketing businesses, or MLMs, offer people - often women who don’t work outside the home - the chance to be entrepreneurs, face new challenges, and grow their social circles. The reality is a situation that can prey on mental health issues, the emotional strain and isolation of motherhood, and even trigger substance abuse concerns. Sobriety coach, author, and former MLM worker Emily Paulson shares the story of how she came to MLM, the career she hoped she’d have, how stuck she felt, and how she’s now working to help others.
Learn more: https://www.amazon.com/Hey-Hun-Sisterhood-Supremacy-Multilevel/dp/1955905258 https://themighty.com/topic/mental-health/mlms-exploit-mental-health-conditions-chronic-illness-disability/ https://www.scarymommy.com/mlm-selling-affects-womens-mental-health
Natasha Bowman always thought of herself as a goal conqueror: someone who could seemingly take on any project, multitask any number of things, and come out on top. It wasn’t until the global pandemic temporarily slammed on the brakes of her career that some of the underlying reasons for this came to the surface. At age 42, the HR executive was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. She speaks with Morra Aarons-Mele about the events that led up to her diagnosis, and how she integrates her mental health with her achievement and success today. Bowman is the author of the book Crazy A.F.: How to go from being burned out, unmotivated & unhappy to reclaiming your mental health at work. A note that this episode includes brief mentions of suicide and self-harm.
Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with executive coach Nihar Chhaya about what Morra calls the "triangle of doom" - envy, shame and scarcity - as part of their regular LinkedIn Live series. These concepts are natural feelings that we all deal with at some point in our lives, but that can really hamper our productivity, and our careers. It's time to get honest about them. Nihar and Morra offer their strategies for managing envy, FOMO, and shame.
With all of the issues in corporate America, in startup culture, and in workplaces biases and inequalities, it can be easy to forget the ways in which work can be a positive part of our life. Susan Schmitt Winchester, co-author of Healing at Work: A Guide to Using Career Conflicts to Overcome Your Past and Build the Future You Deserve, argues that the workplace is actually a better place than we think. Host Morra Aarons-Mele revisits this conversation with Schmitt about our working lives, how our childhood trauma might show up, and how to use our workplaces - in person or remote - as settings to change our behavior and our mental health.
Have you ever daydreamed about quitting your stressful job and hitting the open road? It isn’t something everyone can afford to do with their time and money. But it is something people sometimes do when they face incredible burnout, loss of self, depression, and more.
Daryll Heinrich has spent the better part of the year on the road on his motorcycle after leaving his job as a VP at Google last September. He was an early advocate for better mental health at work, and developed strong internal leadership capacity when he became open about his depression. He reflects on how anxiety and depression shaped career decisions and what he wants now.
For many people, the choice between a corporate job or entrepreneurship comes down to the freedom and flexibility they might get on their own… versus the stability and paycheck they get at work. But in a time when many feel workplaces are toxic, that calculus is harder than ever. In this LinkedIn Live session, Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with executive coach Nihar Chhaya about how they both made this personal decision, their advice for others trying to decide, and how it relates to mental health.
Many high achievers have a complicated relationship with their own health, and their own ambition. Things like anxiety can fuel us but also wreak havoc in our lives in ways we don’t always recognize or examine.
Rainesford Stauffer is a writer and author of the new book All the Gold Stars: Reimagining Ambition and the Ways We Strive, and she speaks about her own experience with high achievement, anxiety, and OCD. She also wrote the New York Magazine piece “Could I Still Be Ambitious Without My OCD?” which you can read here: https://www.thecut.com/article/ambition-work-ocd.html
Michael Freeman is a psychiatrist and professor looking to better understand and better support the mental health of entrepreneurs. A fourth generation entrepreneur himself, he’s done research that looks at the higher rates of things like ADHD, depression, and substance abuse in this group of people. He looks at the idea of whether these kinds of thinkers are “touched by fire,” and the unique relationship between how our dopamine receptor genes may influence our desire to be entrepreneurs. Freeman is also a founder of the wellness center ECONA.
In this new series, host Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with executive coach Nihar Chhaya about some of your most pressing questions around mental health, career, and success in this new LinkedIn Live series.
Dan Mangena spent much of his early life and early adulthood struggling with severe social anxiety and insomnia. It wasn’t until he was diagnosed with a form of autism as an adult that he was able to start tackling his challenges head on and adjust his work and life - not to mention his mindset. Host Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with the entrepreneur about social anxiety, motivation, and how to create work life that highlights your gifts.
It’s the time of year when so many young adults and their parents are thinking about a major achievement in young life - getting into college. It’s easy for overachieving parents to put that stress on their kids to go to the perfect school. But the process comes with such a roller coaster of emotions, not just about self-worth but also the value of education and the cost of that education today. Host Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with New York Times Money Columnist Ron Lieber about the mental health issues around parenting, college, and our definition of success.
For all the negative stuff that social media and our online world can put out there - a lot of which we talk about in this show - there are also some pretty wonderful things. Being online can help us build community, which is something Amanda Morin spends a lot of time and energy on. She’s a mission-driven author, speaker, and advocate for issues around neurodiversity. She speaks with Morra Aarons-Mele about her own anxiety, struggles, and decision to try entrepreneurism.
Many high performers go through their working lives struggling with perfectionism and not even realizing it - or not understanding why they have such a need to achieve. In this episode, we continue the conversation around the roots of perfectionism, how to know if it is a problem, and what we can do about it. Host Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with licensed psychologist Thomas Greenspon about the research around perfectionism and how it starts when we are young. Then we hear from Eleanor Beaton, an author, leadership expert, and founder of SafiMedia, who shares her own story of perfectionism, deeply rooted in her childhood, and her relationship with her parents and her own identity.
Emi Nietfeld is one of those people who looks great on paper. Raised in tumultuous circumstances and facing mental health challenges in her early teens, she went on to get into Harvard and work at Google. Now as an adult, she’s an author and has faced the unhealthy reasons behind her perfectionism. She shares her story about overachievement, overexercise, and overwork as a method of control and emotional survival, and what she hopes our society can learn about relying too much on personal excellence. A note that this episode includes discussion of sensitive topics like eating disorders and self-harm. Read her op-ed here: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/08/opinion/exercise-depression-anxiety-trauma.html
Grief is something we’ll all experience in our adult lives, and we all experience it differently. But it’s not something the modern workplace is really built to deal with well. How do we move beyond our current system -- which often involves clear cut bereavement days but not much else? Rebecca Soffer is the author of The Modern Loss Handbook: An Interactive Guide to Moving Through Grief and Building Your Resilience. She talks about how to use storytelling and helpful conversations as a way for workers, colleagues, and managers to manage through loss and the feeling of grief and build healthier organizations.
Grief is something we’ll all experience in our adult lives, and we all experience it differently. But it’s not something the modern workplace is really built to deal with well. How do we move beyond our current system -- which often involves clear cut bereavement days but not much else? Rebecca Soffer is the author of The Modern Loss Handbook: An Interactive Guide to Moving Through Grief and Building Your Resilience. She talks about how to use storytelling and helpful conversations as a way for workers, colleagues, and managers to manage through loss and the feeling of grief and build healthier organizations.
Aaron Dignan is founder of The Ready - an organizational transformation and coaching practice. He focuses on how to prioritize adaptivity and autonomy over efficiency and control - which you can pretty quickly extrapolate into upsides for mental health of workers and leaders. He’s also the author of the book Brave New Work - and cohost of the podcast of the same name.
Host Morra Aarons Mele speaks with him about he helps organizations and individuals realize they need to change, and how he guides them through that transformation.
Learn more about Aaron Dignan here: http://www.aarondignan.com/
Aaron Dignan is founder of The Ready - an organizational transformation and coaching practice. He focuses on how to prioritize adaptivity and autonomy over efficiency and control - which you can pretty quickly extrapolate into upsides for mental health of workers and leaders. He’s also the author of the book Brave New Work - and cohost of the podcast of the same name.
Host Morra Aarons Mele speaks with him about he helps organizations and individuals realize they need to change, and how he guides them through that transformation.
Learn more about Aaron Dignan here: http://www.aarondignan.com/
US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has never shied away from talking about emotions, and their impact on our health. On his own podcast he brings forth topics like loneliness, the pressure of achievement, meditation and stress reduction, facing crisis when everyone wants you to stay positive, and the big questions like, what is happiness. And as mental health has come into the foreground… regulators and health leaders are also thinking about the best practices to recommend.
That includes the Surgeon General’s office - which today released a new framework around mental health and work, to help leaders and workplaces become healthier. We speak about what they see as five essential building blocks to better mentally healthy workplaces: social connection, meaning at work, opportunity for growth, work life integration, and protection from harm.
Learn more about the framework here: https://www.hhs.gov/surgeongeneral/priorities/workplace-well-being/index.html
US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has never shied away from talking about emotions, and their impact on our health. On his own podcast he brings forth topics like loneliness, the pressure of achievement, meditation and stress reduction, facing crisis when everyone wants you to stay positive, and the big questions like, what is happiness. And as mental health has come into the foreground… regulators and health leaders are also thinking about the best practices to recommend.
That includes the Surgeon General’s office - which today released a new framework around mental health and work, to help leaders and workplaces become healthier. We speak about what they see as five essential building blocks to better mentally healthy workplaces: social connection, meaning at work, opportunity for growth, work life integration, and protection from harm.
Learn more about the framework here: https://www.hhs.gov/surgeongeneral/priorities/workplace-well-being/index.html
We’re told again and again in the business world that the way to be successful is to follow your passion and to be authentic. Jill Smokler, the founder of the infamous mom blog Scary Mommy, achieved entrepreneurial success doing just that. But she has also faced some darker times, especially after selling her company. She speaks with host Morra Aarons-Mele about how your mental health can suffer when you achieve your dreams, and where she is today.
We’re told again and again in the business world that the way to be successful is to follow your passion and to be authentic. Jill Smokler, the founder of the infamous mom blog Scary Mommy, achieved entrepreneurial success doing just that. But she has also faced some darker times, especially after selling her company. She speaks with host Morra Aarons-Mele about how your mental health can suffer when you achieve your dreams, and where she is today.
Many people who are neurodivergent have to figure out a way to succeed outside the rules and regulations of traditional institutions.
Christopher Lochhead, startup advisor, podcast host, and author, is one such person. Growing up with dyslexia, he found his way in the world and now encourages others to find their different, as the way to find their superpower.
Many people who are neurodivergent have to figure out a way to succeed outside the rules and regulations of traditional institutions.
Christopher Lochhead, startup advisor, podcast host, and author, is one such person. Growing up with dyslexia, he found his way in the world and now encourages others to find their different, as the way to find their superpower.
Every wonder what your manager or HR leader is really thinking? In this episode, host Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with Vice Media’s Chief People Officer Daisy Auger-Dominquez about mental health, the great resignation, burnout and more. We’ll hear what worries her most right now for workers, managers, and HR leaders, and what she hopes for the future.
Before many others, podcast host and author Gretchen Rubin found a way to create her own brand, run a remote company, and think carefully about mental health and work. She shares a helpful framework for understanding how expectations shape your actions and reactions, whether you suffer from a diagnosable mental health condition or not. Host Morra Aarons-Mele speaks to Rubin about her writing, her career, and more.
Adam Baruh is CEO and founder of the consulting agency SuiteCentric. But he’s also on a mission to talk with servant leaders and normalize conversations around mental health. That mission is partly inspired by his decision to face abuse and trauma in his past. Host Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with him about his journey.
We set out in every episode to share a story, reframe a perception, or even change your mind about mental health. But listeners are always writing in with questions. You asked, so we answered. In this episode kicking off the season, Morra Aarons-Mele brings listener questions about remote work, the changing workforce, and mental health to two top experts: Amelia Ransom, VP of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at Smartsheet, and Cali Yost, CEO and Founder of the Flex + Strategy Group.
One of the core tenets of this show is about examining our motivations to achieve (and even overachieve), especially because those needs can contribute to mental health issues. As the school year starts and work pressure ramps up, we revisit our conversation with Julie Lythcott-Haims, author of the New York Times bestselling book How to Raise an Adult: Break Free of the Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for Success. She also served as Dean of Freshmen and Undergraduate Advising at Stanford University for more than a decade. In this conversation we talk about the roots of why we feel the need to overachieve, how pressures from childhood continue into the workplace, and what that awareness can do with us.
Andy Johns has had a nearly two decade career as an investor - working on companies like Facebook and Twitter when they were in their early stages. Today, he’s working as a mental health advocate. Andy is reflecting on how childhood trauma and pressure to succeed impacted both his extreme success, and his mental health struggles. He speaks with host Morra Aarons-Mele about some of his darkest moments, and how he’s trying to change the space for the better.
Lori Gottlieb found her life’s work later in life, but she then built her career around therapy and writing - helping herself and countless others along the way. She wrote about her own journey through therapy in her bestselling book “Maybe You Should Talk to Someone.” She’s also a passionate advocate for those suffering with autoimmune conditions like Graves disease and thyroid eye disease. Gottlieb speaks with host Morra Aarons-Mele about how to believe yourself, how to change (even when its hard), and when you might want to seek out a therapist.
Sometimes you just need a little extra inspiration to remind you how to draw the right boundaries and make sure you relationship with work remains healthy. In this bonus episode, host Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with speaker, entrepreneur, and digital communications expert Erica Dhawan about the mistakes she’s made along the way, and how she works everyday towards a mentally healthy career.
Mental health seems to be all the rage in the corporate world today. But the reality is that great leaders, great creatives, and great innovators throughout time have also been likely to suffer from bouts of mental strain and illness - even if it was called something else. Historian Nancy Koehn has long studied leaders from Abraham Lincoln to Oprah Winfrey, and she shares lessons from them on how to get through depressive or anxious times - lessons she’s even applied in her own life.
Even if you don’t suffer from more generalized anxiety, money is something that causes almost everyone some stress and strain. Buffie Purselle, an entrepreneur and personal finance expert, says understanding our emotions around our finances is the first step to achieving better financial health. She speaks with host Morra Aarons-Mele about some of the most common issues around money she sees, and offers up some tips on how to combat our financially-related trauma. Purselle is the author of the new book Crawl Before You Ball: Breaking the Cycle of Generational Poverty.
A lot of us still think of mental struggles as something to push through. Or we think we need to “cure” ourselves from anxiety and that will be that.
But licensed clinical psychologist and author Dr. Carissa Gustafson says there are real steps you can take to “unhook” us from anxiety. The first step for many people is accepting that distressing feelings and thoughts are part of life, which is part of the basis for acceptance and commitment therapy - or ACT. In this episode, we speak to Gustafson about some tactical approaches to accepting the discomfort, and then taking action.
Building a positive, mentally healthy workplace isn’t a one-time feat. It requires work day in and day out - which makes managing an even harder job than it used to be. In this episode, journalist Priska Neely returns to talk about how her leadership role has been going, how she’s creating positive structures for her team, the real roadblocks she still faces, and how she takes care of herself while working to take care of others.
Andy Dunn is the cofounder of Bonobos, a innovative retail company he helped start out of business school in 2007. And while the company reached incredible success, eventually being bought by Walmart, Dunn faced intense mental health struggles behind the scenes. Struggles that came to a head when he woke up in a psychiatric emergency room in New York City. He’s the author of a new book, and shares his story with host Morra Aarons-Mele.
For many of us, anxiety is about the day to day - whether that’s from social interaction, managing all of our work, or a more serious disorder we might be struggling with. But what about what the problem is big - like, really big? In today’s episode, we speak to Kyle Empringham, co-founder of The Starfish Canada, about his own journey to his non-profit work, which celebrates and supports youth activists. And also about climate anxiety - the feeling that more and more individuals are struggling with when faced with existential threats.
So many of us experience imposter syndrome - the idea that you feel like a fraud in your job; that you’re faking it until you make it and that any minute now, people will be able to see through it. The problem can be especially hard for high achievers. In this episode, psychologist Lisa Orbe-Austin explains what her research has shown about what we can do to eradicate these kinds of feelings.
So many people struggle with mental health issues in part because, unlike many physical ailments, you can’t always know that someone is suffering, or just how badly. In this episode we dive in with reigning Miss America Emma Broyles, the first Korean-American and first Alaskan to win the crown. While many people assume winning the crown comes with a certain amount of perfection, Broyles is breaking down those barriers by speaking openly about her ADHD and a rare obsessive compulsive disorder she battles.
Today’s guest is someone who experienced the racism in the corporate world. After years of constantly being triggered at work, she had enough, and walked away. She discusses how to heal after work breaks your heart. Minda Harts is an author, an equity advocate, and the CEO of The Memo LLC, a career development platform for women of color. And she speaks to host Morra Aarons-Mele about the kind of experiences she had at work, and how she now spends her days helping others.
Dr. Wendy Suzuki is a neuroscientist at NYU who studies neuroplasticity. She’s the author of “Good Anxiety: Harnessing the Power of the Most Misunderstood Emotion,” and she talks with host Morra Aarons-Mele about why anxiety can actually be a good thing. Plus, we hear from listener Andrea Parra, who has experienced “good” anxiety in her own life and career.
Preparing for and managing a negotiation can be hard for anyone, but for people who suffer from anxiety and tend toward rumination, it can feel near impossible. In this episode, Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with negotiation expert Christoper Voss about how to handle negotiations when you suffer from anxiety, or just if negotiations cause your anxiety to peak. Voss is a former FBI hostage negotiator and co-author of Never Split the Difference.
A career in the public eye is not for the faint of heart. Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms didn’t start out knowing she would enter a career in politics, but she followed a drive deep inside of her to serve the public. She took over as mayor of Atlanta in 2018, and faced the dual challenges of a global pandemic and increasing tensions over race and policing systems. After one term, Mayor Bottoms decided to step away and not run for re-election. We talk about how mental health impacted her decision and what she hopes for the future.
What if we all were a little nicer to ourselves? In this episode, we hear from lawyer Mark Goldstein about his own journey with depression, OCD, and breaking down stigmas. He's an example of someone who learned to practice self-compassion, a concept that psychologist and author Dr. Kristin Neff says more people could benefit from in their careers, and in their lives.
Learn more about Mark Goldstein’s story: https://abovethelaw.com/2019/02/biglaw-depression-story/ Dr. Kristin Neff’s Self-Compassion Exercises: https://self-compassion.org/category/exercises/#exercises
Hear mindfulness leader Sharon Salzberg walk you through a short meditation you can use at work or any time you feel anxious.
Meditation and mindfulness have become household concepts, especially in the wake of the global pandemic. But it wasn’t always that way. In this episode, we speak to meditation and mindfulness leader Sharon Salzberg about how she began her journey, how much it has surprised her that corporate America has embraced mindfulness, and an exercise that we can all do when we are feeling stressed or overwhelmed.
When we get jobs that seem impressive to the outside world - and get sucked into a corporate, competitive culture - we don’t always end up displaying the best leadership traits. Danny Bernstein spent nearly a decade at Google, but it wasn’t until he faced his own relationship with mental health that he was really able to improve as a manager and leader. Host Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with Bernstein about his father’s struggle with bipolar disorder, imposter syndrome, bad managers, and his goals for the future. Reach out at anxiousachievermail@gmail.com or on Linked In.
Many leaders succeed and thrive not just in spite of anxiety, depression, or other mental health struggles - but because of them. They make leaders more aware of themselves, and more empathetic to those around them. Gillian Stein is one such leader. She’s the CEO of Henry’s, a family-run business that’s the largest specialty photo retailer in Canada. She recently announced publicly that she has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and she speaks with Morra Aarons-Mele about her family history, how her mental health affects her business, and what the pandemic was like for her and her company.
What does psychological safety at work mean for people with anxiety and other mental health challenges? Host Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with Amy Edmondson, a Harvard Business School professor, who has long studied psychological safety, and Christopher Yates, Ford Motor Company’s chief talent officer, about how to build a culture of psychological safety at work.
Host Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with Susan Schmitt, co-author of Healing at Work: A Guide to Using Career Conflicts to Overcome Your Past and Build the Future You Deserve, about how we can face childhood trauma, understand how it impacts our work, and use the office as a lab for changing our behavior.
Host Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with Dr. Judson Brewer, author of “Unwinding Anxiety: New Science Shows How to Break the Cycles of Worry and Fear to Heal Your Mind,” about how we can experiment with different behavior patterns. Then, she speaks with journalist Charles Duhigg, author of “The Power of Habit,” about anxiety, habits, and ADHD.
As a political staffer for Hillary Clinton, Huma Abedin was under immense pressure to achieve, while staying out of the public eye. That all changed when her husband Anthony Weiner resigned from Congress, following a sex scandal. Host Morra Aarons-Mele speaks to Abedin about private pain, public struggle, and what we can learn from her about managing the anxiety of a high-profile career.
Host Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with Danny Lakes, a Procter & Gamble employee who is on the autism spectrum, as well as Todd Ballish, a neurotypical manager at P&G, about why having a program for neurodiverse workers is a strength for the company. Then, we’ll hear from Emily Kircher-Morris, host of The Neurodiversity Podcast.
Anxious achievers are often hyper-attuned to other people and how to please them. New York Times bestselling author Julie Lythcott-Haims argues that many of us need to learn how to tune out that noise and focus on ourselves, our dreams, and our goals.
Host Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with Kathleen Smith, an associate faculty member at the Bowen Center for the Study of the Family, about how family systems theory can help us better understand leadership and relationships with coworkers.
Host Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with New York Times bestselling author Lindsey Pollak about how she maintains a public speaking career while dealing with anxiety, and why she’s finally opening up about it.
Host Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with Anu Gupta, founder and CEO of educational tech company BE MORE with Anu, about immigrating to the U.S. with his family, why he stayed in the closet so long, how he realized he needed therapy to address his anxiety and depression, and how unraveling the threads of his life helped him begin to heal.
Host Morra Aarons-Mele speaks to HBR contributing editor and podcast host Amy Gallo about why conflict is so hard and how to make conflict a force for good in your work relationships. Amy is also the author of "The HBR Guide to Dealing with Conflict," and she shares her four-step process for doing conflict better.
For many of us, the world can feel like too much right now – a never ending cascade of anxiety-inducing news. It’s something that Christina Blacken, founder and chief narrative strategist at The New Quo, calls the “mental fire.” As we struggle to handle the pressure that we feel in society right now, our own anxieties can fuel narratives and actions that are harmful to others – especially others different than ourselves. Blacken speaks with host Morra Aarons-Mele about how we can move away from rigid perfectionism, toxic competition, and conformity and toward a culture of curiosity and acceptance.
Welcome to Season 5! Host Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with the actor, writer, and director about media and film portrayals of people with mental health issues, and the role mindfulness plays in how he approaches his art and leads his team.
There’s another podcast we love: "Hello Monday with Jessi Hempel." The show explores how to make work happier, healthier, and more human. In this special bonus episode, Hempel interviews host Morra Aarons-Mele about her own journey with work and mental health, and how her experiences with depression and anxiety influence her leadership. Check out the new season of "Hello Monday with Jessi Hempel" wherever you get your podcasts.
Jessi Hempel is constantly thinking about the state of work. She’s senior editor at large at LinkedIn and host of the podcast Hello Monday. In the final episode of Season 4, she speaks with host Morra Aarons-Mele about the way work is shifting – not just in terms of where and how we work, but how it interacts with our identities, motivations, and mental health.
There’s a stereotype that most people who struggle with ADHD are white, male, and often young. In this episode host Morra Aarons-Mele speaks to Stephanie Ozuo, a career advisor in the UK, about her experience being diagnosed with ADHD as a 25-year-old Black woman.
Podcast host and author Anna Sale has built her career on difficult conversations. On her podcast, she focuses on the hardest topics we deal with as humans: death, sex, and money. And her new book, “Let’s Talk About Hard Things,” continues pushing that conversation forward. Sale speaks with host Morra Aarons-Mele about why, even in a world where people are encouraged to be more open, mental health remains one of the last things people disclose at work. They also discuss other taboo work issues that cause anxiety.
Chris McCarthy, president of MTV Entertainment Group, speaks with host Morra Aarons Mele about the role TV shows can play in changing how people view mental health and what he and others are doing to make the industry more mentally healthy for entertainment professionals. Plus, later in the episode, makeup artist Andrew Sotomayor discusses how his work on TV shows like Saturday Night Live and Pose intersects with his depression and anxiety.
When you’re struggling with mental health, the day-to-day routines of a work environment can be a lot – even for a famous author and academic, like Roxane Gay. Gay speaks with host Morra Aarons-Mele about how recognizing and enforcing boundaries helps her navigate work and stress. Later in the episode, former financial executive Bob Pozen discusses his experiences with productivity and mental health.
Paul English is an entrepreneur, founder, and philanthropist. But throughout his many career successes, he’s battled internally with his mental health. And along the way, he learned to be more open and honest about his struggles, even when it felt risky. His bipolar disorder creates strengths and weaknesses for him professionally, but today he works hard to find balance in his own life, embrace vulnerability, and create healthier environments for his coworkers.
Investor and philanthropist Vikas Shah has been an entrepreneur since he was a young teenager. And throughout much of his career, he struggled with anxiety and depression. But for a long time, he didn’t have the words to identify how he was feeling, let alone address it. Shah shares his mental health journey, and how it has changed the way he approaches leadership and entrepreneurship today.
How do we listen to ourselves and know when to address our social anxiety, especially when it comes into play with colleagues? Host Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with Stefan Hofmann, a clinical psychologist at Boston University about social anxiety’s deep roots in natural human behavior – and how we can address it in the aftermath of the pandemic.
As offices in the U.S. begin reopening after more than a year, many people – especially those of us with social anxiety – are feeling uneasy about the return to so-called normal. Certified therapist Dr. Jenny Taitz explains how to reframe these anxieties and continue succeeding at work.
For Harley Finkelstein, president of Shopify, anxiety has always been his super power – even when he didn’t know how to put a label on it. Host Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with Finkelstein about the generational trauma of his grandparents, who survived the Holocaust, the anxiety of starting a business at age 17 to support his family, and how to channel anxiety into action.
The nature of work is changing, and more and more of us have been working behind screens even before the pandemic. That brings both downsides – and some upsides – for mental health. Host Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with SheSnaps, a Twitch streamer with a huge online following, about how she manages her screen time and why she opened up about her own depression. Plus, Jackson Jeyanayagam, a vice president at The Clorox Company, explains why he advocates for turning video off in online calls.
This last year has been rough on everyone, in so many different ways. But as we look toward recovery and adjust to life after the pandemic, it’s important to recognize the direct connections among physical behaviors, mental health, and performance at work. Dr. Christine Runyan, a professor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and co-founder of Tend Health, discusses the ways we can calm our fight or flight response to anxiety, and why self-care really does matter.
After a year of collective trauma and private losses, stress, and heartbreaks, how do we even start to think about returning to a more normal working environment? Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with famed therapist Esther Perel about how workers and leaders can rebound after the Covid-19 pandemic and take away lessons that we never forget.
Host Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with the TED Business podcast about how she protects her energy and boundaries while working remotely.
A military pilot, an entrepreneur, and a business professor discuss how they cope with their ADHD, how it’s helped them be successful in their careers, and what they’ve learned about managing neurodiverse people.
Tanya Menon, a professor at Fisher College of Business, Ohio State University, says envy comes up a lot in the workplace – though it’s often misunderstood. But she says we can learn to draw good boundaries to better handle competition, fear, and jealousy in our careers. It’s the second episode in our two-part mini-series on envy at work.
Executive coach Nihar Chhaya explains how envy, FOMO, and the illusion of scarcity can contribute to anxiety and depression, and how leaders can cope. It’s part one of our two-part mini-series on envy at work.
Journalist and author Aarti Shahani tells host Morra Aarons-Mele how she managed overwhelming uncertainty during her father’s 14-year legal battle and channeled her anxiety into productive work. Later, her anxiety also fueled her voracious drive for career success.
Sociologist Jessica Calarco has been studying women struggling to balance work and parenting during the Covid-19 pandemic – and how workplaces can help. She says societal pressures, ideas about motherhood, and systemic failures are causing working mothers to suffer greater anxiety and depression than before the pandemic.
Host Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with veteran tech journalist Catherine Shu, of TechCrunch, about improving mental health culture in Silicon Valley. And Shu shares her own journey with depression, including the time she spent in a psychiatric ward as a teenager, and how she found her way from there into tech journalism.
For a long time, the NBA star hid his battle with mental health. But after a very public panic attack in 2017, he started speaking out. Love talks with host Morra Aarons-Mele about role modeling openness about mental health, how he manages his social anxiety as a celebrity, and why basketball both aggravates and relieves his depression.
Aaron Harvey is a successful advertising industry executive – but for many years of his life, he struggled with a form of OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) that involves repetitive mental compulsions.
John Moe took a bold step when he decided to start a podcast featuring frank, but funny, conversations about depression. Moe was recently laid off, and his show was cancelled. He tells us how he approaches ups and downs in his career, when he seeks help, and what he does to keep everything in perspective.
Amanda Clayman, a psychotherapist specializing in financial wellness, helps her clients uncover the motivations and roots underlying their money anxieties, so they can make better financial decisions. It’s a problem she understands intimately, as an entrepreneur who struggles with financial anxiety.
Many managers and leaders misunderstand what emotional intelligence really means, despite the trendiness of the phrase. Marc Brackett, director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, urges leaders to learn to understand themselves and their teams using a Mood Meter, a tool he developed to help people explain their emotions.
Priska Neely, the new Managing Editor of NPR’s Gulf States newsroom, has always wanted to manage people, and she’s long thought about the best way to communicate and lead. As a Black woman, she’s also been writing about organizations and race throughout the past year. Neely joins host Morra Aarons-Mele to talk about how anxiety makes her a better manager and how she injects empathy into hard conversations at work.
Early on in the pandemic, Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic Jerry Saltz wrote a piece about his unusual eating habits that grabbed the attention of many with anxiety, depression, or just Covid-related sadness. In the essay, Saltz recounts a lifetime of using food to cope with trauma and anxiety – until art helped him find a new path forward. In this conversation, he tells host Morra Aarons-Mele how his pursuit of work and paring life down to basics helped him manage trauma and anxiety and find a life he loves.
Jason Kander was on track to be a major force in American politics. But for him, working – and succeeding – was a way to escape the pain of PTSD and depression, after his military service in Afghanistan. Kander had to step away from his career to focus on therapy and healing.
Many high-powered jobs require people to work long hours and give up sleep. But for people who suffer from anxiety and depression, lack of sleep can also create downward spirals that make those issues worse. Sleep researcher Christopher Barnes, an associate professor of management at the Foster School of Business at the University of Washington, explains how sleep deprivation can affect your mental health – and your career.
Many people who end up in prestigious careers choose their professions, consciously or subconsciously, in order to seek the approval of others. But that can create depression and anxiety. Host Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with author Julie Lythcott-Haims about her journey from a childhood filled with pressure to succeed, to becoming a corporate lawyer, to becoming a dean at Stanford, where she tried to guide young people into paths that truly fit them.
For managers struggling with anxiety and stress right now -- or worrying about their employees feeling that strain -- it can be hard to find the right mix of transparency and positivity. Host Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with Acceleration Partners CEO Robert Glazer, host of The Elevate Podcast, about how he tries to model both a positive outlook and honesty to those on his team.
In this episode, we hear from two young professionals. Both of them have worked hard and carefully planned their careers, but now they’re confronting the anxiety and uncertainty of economic forces beyond their control. Then host Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with The Atlantic’s Annie Lowrey about the collective psychological and financial impacts economic crises can have on entire generations.
Amelia Ransom, Senior Director of Engagement and Diversity at Avalara, offers advice for how people of color can get what they need from their employers to help protect their mental health. Later in the episode, host Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with Benish Shah, Chief Growth Officer at Loop & Tie, about how white people can support their colleagues of color in a meaningful way.
Host Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, who used meditation to address the trauma and anxiety he experienced while working as a New York City cop. Later in the show, tech CEO Joel Gascoigne explains why he was transparent with his employees at Buffer, when he had to take time off to recover from his own burnout.
Poppy Jaman OBE struggled with postpartum depression after the births of her children. Now she’s on a mission to promote mental health awareness to the financial and professional services industries, as the CEO of City Mental Health Alliance. She discusses the difference between empathetic and compassionate leadership, the therapeutic joy of being silly, and what it’s like to devote your career to mission-driven work, while caring for your mental health.
We speak with MIT’s Seth Mnookin, a writer and ex-addict who has been clean for 20 years, about the connection between substance abuse and underlying mental health issues, and how addiction can affect creativity and career. And we explore the hard lessons addicts can learn in recovery about their own limitations and definitions of success with CHA Center for Mindfulness and Compassion's Dr. Zev Schuman-Olivier, an addiction psychiatrist who focuses on mindfulness as a path to healing.
What’s it like to lead a team when optimizing self-care and emotional wellness is the point of their work? Goop, a company founded by actress Gwyneth Paltrow, explores all aspects of mental and physical health and advocates for a rarefied and often controversial brand of self-care. Elise Loehnen, Chief Content Officer at Goop, discusses her own experiences with anxiety at work, how she manages employees and their mental health, and what self-care really means.
Jason Rosario discusses his own journey with depression and anxiety, and the lessons he’s learned about vulnerability, masculinity, and leadership. Rosario left a career in finance to found The Lives of Men, a social impact and creative agency focused on decoding masculine psychology and challenging false concepts of masculinity.
Throughout our lives, we will all experience grief in one form or another. It can also translate into depression, anxiety, and other emotional strain. But as we grieve, we often have to keep working or growing our businesses. And that is true even in a time of mass grief, like a pandemic. In this episode, host Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with chef Jody Adams about the period in 2016 when her long-time restaurant, Rialto, closed. At the same time, her sister was dying of cancer. Now Adams is helping the staff at her current Boston-area restaurants grieve for their struggling industry, amid the coronavirus lockdown.
In this episode, host Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with organizational psychologist Stew Friedman and tech entrepreneur Sehreen Noor Ali about the ways parenting children with specific needs changed them and their career paths.
Working for yourself – and working outside an office – can have a lot of benefits for people struggling with mental health issues, including flexibility when you need to take a breather. But freelancing and the gig economy can also trigger stresses that impact mental health, including isolation, lack of career trajectory, and perhaps most importantly, financial instability. In this episode, host Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with author and entrepreneur Chris Brogan, who is diagnosed with clinical depression, and journalist Ada Calhoun, the author of “Why We Can't Sleep: Women's New Midlife Crisis,” about how to adapt work and personal life to self-employment and freelancing.
With great success can come even greater stress and anxiety. But Gabrielle Union is using her success to stand up for her truth. A sexual assault survivor, Union suffers from PTSD and social anxiety. Now the actress uses her energy and influence to speak up against sexism and racism in Hollywood. She tells Morra Aarons-Mele about how she balances self-care and being a voice for others who struggle to be heard.
The rapid onset of the coronavirus is changing our work – and our lives. For those who own businesses or work in the gig economy, the stress and financial uncertainty is even greater. When we don’t know what the future will hold, or are working in isolation, what can we do? Host Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with Jerry Colonna, CEO of Reboot.io, about how he is leading his team through such a stressful time. And later in the episode, business psychologist Camille Preston explains how we all can cope with uncertainty by taking on a growth mindset.
Anxiety can affect so many aspects of our work – from how we make decisions to how we receive feedback and behave in meetings. In the final episode of Season 1, host Morra Aarons-Mele and former clinical psychologist Alice Boyes discuss the daily strategies and habits that can help to manage your anxiety at work.
In earlier episodes of this show, we’ve talked about how to open a dialogue about mental health and work, and how both employees and leaders can navigate a mental health issue at work. In this episode, host Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with Kelly Greenwood, founder and CEO of Mind Share Partners, and Alison Nasisi, former director of compensation, benefits and work life at The Broad Institute, about what companies can do to truly create mentally healthy workplaces.
How should you approach difficult conversations about mental health with your colleagues and boss? In this episode, host Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with Amy Gallo, author of “HBR Guide to Dealing with Conflict,” about when and how to disclose a mental health issue to your company. Plus, Dr. Rebecca Harley, a psychologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, discusses the connection between mental health and recognizing boundaries at work.
Anxiety shows up in all kinds of business situations — especially when you’re starting your own company. In this episode, host Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with Cheryl Contee, CEO of Do Big Things, and Jeannette Kaplun, founder of Hispana Global, about how to work through anxiety and build resilience.
Leading a group of people can produce chronic anxiety, but many leaders who suffer from anxiety don’t even realize it. In today's episode we explore anxiety related to leadership and how performance anxiety can hold us back at work. Host Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with Steve Cuss, a leadership consultant and the lead pastor of Discovery Christian Church in Broomfield, Colorado, about leadership anxiety and burnout. Then Present Voices founder Leah Bonvissuto offers Morra practical tips for conquering performance anxiety.
We hear the stories of successful Silicon Valley startups all the time. But entrepreneurship can also have a dark side, especially when it involves going broke, losing sleep, and working 100-hour weeks. This week, host Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with Emma Mcilroy, CEO of Wildfang International, who has been outspoken about the emotional strain of startup life.
For most of his life, Paul Greenberg suffered from severe depression -- depression so bad that he had near constant thoughts of suicide from the age of 13. But you'd never know it if you met him. And he has built a successful media career, including stints at MTV and Time, and eventually becoming the CEO of CollegeHumor. To battle the depression, he tried some 75 different medications before his medical team suggested electroshock therapy, which he says has saved his life. And it wasn't until the deaths of public figures like Robin Williams, Kate Spade, and Anthony Bourdain that Greenberg went public with an op-ed in The Hollywood Reporter. This week, host Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with Paul Greenberg, now CEO of Butter Works, a media company, about his long, painful journey, and how he views depression at the workplace today. The number for the Suicide Prevention Hotline in the U.S. is 1-800-273-8255.
Many people in the business world find their success by always being “on.” They wake up at 4 a.m., answer emails 24 hours a day, and don't take vacations. Sometimes they’re so high functioning that they don't even realize they have symptoms of anxiety until they take time away from the office. This week, host Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with Alyssa Mastromonaco, former White House deputy chief of staff and former chief operating officer of Vice Media. They talk about running on all cylinders, realizing you need time away from the office, and dealing with the depression that can come from needing to redefine who you are outside the office.
Whether you’re getting fired, taking a promotion, or leaving a job you love, career transitions are a time of anxiety. In the next two episodes, we’ll be focusing on how to manage anxiety associated with big changes at work. This week, we focus on the tough work you should do before a big transition to understand your feelings. Our guest is career coach Jerry Colonna, author of "Reboot: Leadership and the Art of Growing Up." He argues that a lot of the adult problems we face can spring from fundamental childhood experiences. We act out childhood hurts in our leadership and interactions at work, from the people we hire to the way we think about money. Therefore, understanding how your childhood has shaped you and facing your demons is vital for anyone who truly wants to thrive in their career.
Work is a part of our daily lives — as is food. Disordered eating and diagnosed eating disorders can be tricky to deal with at the office, but they can be common in high achievers and are closely tied to anxiety and mental health. Host Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with Melissa Gerson, director and founder of the Columbus Park treatment center for eating disorders, about the relationship between anxiety and eating, and how it can play out at work.
Anxiety and stress can have detrimental effects on your physical health — which can affect your job and your career path. In this episode, host Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with Jason Miller, the director of the Leadership Academy at OhioHealth. Miller, whose work specializes in awakening joy, purpose, and meaning in work, had always driven himself very hard. He was the first in his family to go to college, followed by becoming a senior executive at a global company. But then Miller found himself in the ER, convinced he was having a heart attack and realized he needed to make some major changes (and no, he didn't Eat, Pray, Love). Morra also shares her own story of a recent panic attack that left her hospitalized. Plus, Dr. David Barlow, a pioneer in the field of treating stress, discusses strategies for coping with anxiety, stress, and phobias, and how to "right size" your problems — while admitting anxiety isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Being the "only" in the workplace -- the only woman, the only person of color, the only one openly suffering from a mental or physical illness -- can contribute to existing mental health issues. At the same time, bringing your whole self to work -- even when you are an "only" and might be the only person struggling with clinical depression or anxiety -- can be a huge strength in the business world. In this episode, we'll look at anxiety and depression through the lens of being an “only” or a “first” at work. Host Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with two experts on the topic: Angela Neal-Barnett, an award-winning psychologist and expert on anxiety among African-Americans, and author of “Soothe Your Nerves,” and Nilofer Merchant, the author of “The Power of Onlyness.”
We're often told that to succeed in the workplace, you need to bring your A game, play office politics, and network nonstop. But how do you do that when you suffer from social anxiety? Host Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with Ellen Hendriksen, a clinical psychologist, and Arvind Rajan, the CEO of Cricket Health and a former executive at LinkedIn, to discuss his journey with anxiety.
At a time when we bring so much of ourselves to work, mental health is still something we don’t like talking about at the office. But so many high-achieving people have suffered — or are currently suffering — from anxiety, depression, or other mental and emotional issues. Our guest, Scott Stossel, national editor of the Atlantic and author of “My Age of Anxiety,” explains where anxiety comes from and how it affects us in our work — for better or worse. We look at why it is so important to align mental health and leadership, and to better understand how anxiety impacts our working lives.
Now from LinkedIn Presents: a show about mental health in the workplace. We explore the ways anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues affect people at work, for better and for worse. We’ll hear from leaders who have succeeded in spite of their mental health struggles, and from experts who offer advice on how to reach your professional goals.