Battling Depression from the C-Suite

The Anxious Achiever

Morra Aarons-Mele

Business, Careers, Management, Health & Fitness, Mental Health

4.7 • 599 Ratings

🗓️ 18 November 2019

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

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.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Mora Aronsmeli, and this is the anxious achiever.
0:08.8	Each episode, we look at stories from business leaders who have dealt with anxiety, depression,
0:13.5	or other mental health challenges, how they fell down, how they pick themselves up,
0:17.9	and how they hope workplaces can change in the future.
0:32.4	If I told you you're about to hear from someone who first tried to take his own life at age 13,
0:39.2	has spent a lifetime burdened by clinical depression and suicidal impulses, and who finally found solace after electroshock therapy, you might expect to hear from someone who sounds a little
0:45.3	bit like his mouth is filled with cement, whose sadness and malaise and trauma just oozes
0:52.8	through the airwaves.
1:01.7	But on the contrary, you're about to hear Paul Greenberg, who sounds exactly like what he used to be,
1:04.4	a charismatic radio sports announcer.
1:13.2	Despite living through deep and chronic depression for decades, Paul built an incredibly successful career as a media executive and CEO, as CEO of College Humor, Digital President of Time, Inks lifestyle brands,
1:21.3	EVP and GM of TV Guide Digital and VP of business operations at MTV.com.
1:28.2	And today, he runs his own fast-growing company, Butterworks.
1:32.6	I think you'll really enjoy the conversation with Paul and I and learn a lot, be surprised by
1:39.9	his positive attitude in the midst of severe mental illness.
1:44.0	But we do talk about suicide and suicidal
1:47.2	thinking. And if this is an issue that will trigger you or upset you, I wanted to let you know
1:54.7	that we do talk about that.
2:14.5	So, Paul, you wrote, I worked nearly three decades of 10-hour days during which none of my colleagues knew that I was struggling.
2:16.3	How is that possible? I honestly wish I could tell you. It was brutal, but there was some ability I had to parcel out the work that needed to happen and kind of, you know, containerize, if you will, the issues of how I felt and what I
2:37.7	needed to get done. Sometimes the work was a solace where I could focus on something else
2:42.8	besides the depression. Often, however, it was a slog, really working hard to get through it.
	...

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