Anthony Hunter is someone just setting out in what most of us consider to be adulthood: just graduating from college and joining the workforce full-time. But he’s been doing a few things a lot of us didn’t do in our teens and early 20s: working for the family business and as an entrepreneur even while in undergrad, and more importantly, working on his own mental health and increasing mental health awareness for his peers.  He talks about his own journey to self-awareness, the work he’s done on campus and beyond in promoting better mental health, and the misconceptions many people in the workforce have about Gen Z.

The Anxious Achiever

A Recent Morehouse College Grad On How He - and Gen X - Handle Mental Health

Representative Becca Balint is a new member of Congress, joining this January after several years in the Vermont Senate. She didn’t start her career in politics, but is now working to use her power to fight for those who need better mental health care.  She shares her own story with depression and anxiety with host Morra Aarons-Mele, opens up about the ways she stays grounded in Washington, and why it’s important for more policymakers to be open about - and help create resources for - mental health struggles.

Rep. Becca Balint Has Struggled with Anxiety and Depression. Now She’s Fighting for Mental Health Support and Policies.

“I didn’t want to accept myself as someone who had mental health struggles. And having kids made me be like, oh no, this is a health issue that you absolutely need to keep under control because your kids come first,” says New York Times opinion writer Jessica Grose.  Like many things, the pandemic brought to light just how fragile the mental health of parents - and especially mothers - really was in this country. But just because remote schooling has largely faded away and people are back to business as usual, doesn’t mean the ongoing anxiety and depression issues of millions of American parents have gone away. In this episode, host Morra Aarons-Mele speaks to Grose, who also wrote the book Screaming on the Inside: The Unsustainability of American Motherhood.

Is American Motherhood (and Work) Sustainable?

Millions of Americans depend on prescription medication like Ritalin and Adderall each day to help them accomplish their tasks. Whether taking these prescriptions for ADHD or narcolepsy, people across the country are now facing a shortage, and difficulty getting the medication they need.  In this episode, host Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with Jeanne Pinder, founder and CEO of ClearHealthCosts.com, about what’s behind the shortage and how detrimental its impacts are. We’ll also hear from writer and non profit advisor Lindsay Scola, who takes Ritalin for narcolepsy, about what the shortage has meant for her, and how stimulant medication has changed her life.

The Ritalin and Adderall Shortage and How It Impacts Work

Chip Conley is an entrepreneur who has built a number of companies from the ground up, and also served as Head of Global Hospitality and Strategy at AirBnb. He’s also someone who has made it his life’s work to speak out about anxiety and depression issues, and advocate for better mental health. He does that in part by sharing the wisdom he has gained through years of trial and error, and calling out unnecessary generational tensions in the workplace.  He speaks with host Morra Aarons-Mele about building a high-powered career, facing uncertainty, and the assumptions many of us have about younger generations at work.

Hospitality Entrepreneur Chip Conley on Mental Health, Wisdom, and Generation Gaps

Codependency is the existence of unhealthy relationship where one person fixates on taking care of or even controlling the other, forgetting their own needs and letting boundaries fade away. These relationships might stem from childhood but have impacts in our adult lives, especially at work. In fact, many types of high stress jobs seem to be built for people who struggle with these issues. In this episode, host Morra Aarons-Mele speaks to a leading expert on codependency, Melody Beattie, about her recently re-released classic book Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself, and how to learn if you or your boss might have codependent tendencies.

Do You Have Codependency Issues at Work?

We’ve seen an increasing number of headlines around the study and use of psychedelics like psilocybin, ketamine, MDMA and LSD. As research continues, many are wondering how these studies can be improved - and how they apply to work and leadership.  In this episode, host Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with clinician Lebert Lester III of the Behavior Wellness Clinic about the application of psychedelics for depression or trauma, and how to increase the number of people of color in clinical trials for these types of medications. Then, she speaks with IMD professor Alyson Meister about her cutting edge research on psychedelics and leadership. For Further Reading: Could Psychedelics Open New Doors for Science and Business?

What Psychedelic Research Might Mean for Leadership and Work

Those of us who put pressure on ourselves to achieve do it in all aspects of life - from school to work to family. That means that when our sense of self gets shaken by any perceived failure in any of those realms, our anxiety or depression can easily flare up.  Martin Sinozich is an investor, entrepreneur and senior lecturer at Harvard Business School. Like many leaders, despite a very successful career, Sinozich long felt impostor feelings and fears. Now, he aims to now be open and honest with the next generation of business leaders that he teaches; one of his big missions is to increase workplace mental health.

What A Divorce Taught This Leader About Facing His Fears

Disruption is the name of the game in so many businesses today, and that’s the case for many high performing individuals as well. But how do we think about drastically changing our life and our career, without letting anxiety and fear take hold? Whitney Johnson is an author who formerly worked with Clayton Christensen, and who has chased her dreams through a winding and unexpected career path. She shares lessons on disrupting yourself while trying to manage the anxiety that might come with that.

Disrupting Yourself and Your Career

 On March 10th, the FDIC announced the closure of Silicon Valley Bank, marking the second largest bank failure in U.S. history. If you were watching the minute to minute news on social, this development might have felt even bigger - and anxiety inducing.  We live in a time when social media is able to amplify stories and speed up the spread, and it can have a big impact on our mental health. In this episode, Morra speaks with Isa Watson. She’s CEO and Founder of Squad, and one of the entrepreneurs affected by the failure of the place she did all of her business banking. She also wrote the book Life Beyond Likes: Logging Off Your Screen and Into Your Life.

“I Had All My Money with SVB”: An Entrepreneur on Bank Failure and the Anxious Echo Chamber of Social Media

The film and television industry is incredibly pressure-filled, high stakes, and visible. That’s true for the actors and actresses - but there’s often just as much pressure for those behind the scenes.  Jimmy Horowitz is a senior executive at NBCUniversal, and he shares his story of his battle with depression in 2019 - the first time he’s faced a mental health crisis. In this episode, he explains why it wasn’t easy to be transparent, and how he’s working with his organization, and psychologist Dr. Emily Anhalt, to make these conversations easier for others going forward. That includes approaching mental health like an ongoing workout regimen - the idea behind Anhalt’s company, Coa. 

How This NBCUniversal Exec Publicly Dealt with Mental Illness (And Teamed Up With A Psychologist to Better His Workplace)

The question of how and when to show certain emotions at work is evolving, and it’s subject to a lot of bias. There are still double standards around behavior for many groups of people, and today we’ll talk about the negative -- and positive-- impacts for women who show emotion in and around the workplace.  We’ll learn how far we’ve come - and haven’t - from Stanford sociologist Marianne Cooper, who was also lead researcher for Sheryl Sandberg’s New York Times bestseller Lean In and co-authors the annual Women in the Workplace study with Lean In and McKinsey.

Are Women Punished For Being Emotional At Work?

Have you ever had to go into conversation where you needed to advocate for yourself and really feel like you weren’t coming from a position of power? Learn how to calm anxiety, and regain your negotiating power. For most people, anxiety is a fear or concern about the future. And having that anxiety going into any negotiation can really feel like a loss of power. But emotions are a normal part of negotiation, and you can use them to your advantage. Moshe Cohen teaches the next generation of business leaders how to engage in effective negotiations as a senior lecturer at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business. And he wrote the book “Collywobbles: How to Negotiate When Negotiating Makes You Nervous.” He speaks to Morra Aarons-Mele about how to approach negotiating when you are prone to anxiety - and what to do when you recognize anxiety across the bargaining table.

Recognizing and Working with Anxiety at the Negotiating Table

You know that cliche phrase "leaving to spend more time with my family" that so many people us when they leave a job? For Lenny Mendoca, the phrase didn't have much life. After serving as senior partner at McKinsey, Mendoca went on to work as an advisor to California Governor Gavin Newsom. He announced his retirement from Newson's office with the standard phrase. But within a few weeks, after starting to process his clinical depression, he shared it with the public. It's not an easy thing for any successful people, but in some ways even harder for men, to talk about mental health in their careers because of stereotypes and stigma. In this episode, Morra speaks Mendoca, and also listener Darshan Patel, a regional lead at a global company who himself struggles with severe depression and bipolar disorder, and is looking to break the stigma around mental health in India in particular.

Breaking the Stigma of Mental Health for Men in Business

Meredith Arthur is a self-described recovering overthinker. She is chief of staff at TwoTwenty, a in-house incubator for new projects at Pinterest. She’s also a mental health advocate and author of the book Get Out of My Head: Inspiration for Overthinkers in an Anxious World. Meredith speaks to host Morra Aarons-Mele about being diagnosed with anxiety at age 40, life as a product manager in the start up world, and how she manages anxiety now.

Your Anxiety Needs a Product Manager

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.

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The Anxious Achiever

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