This week, how one leader's tragedy helped her put people at the center of her work.

I'm Maura Erin's Mealy, and this is the anxious achiever, the show that looks at the intersection of mental health, leadership, and work, and asks how can we do better?

Grief, equity, and leadership. These are three important and weighty concepts, and they may not

initially seem like they have much to do with each other.

Today's guest is Dr. Magdala Cherry, Maggie Cherry. She's a physician and a health advocate who works

in product development at Google, and she's the chief operating officer at not just a black

body. And I really wanted to talk to Maggie and ask her to share her story.

It's one that involves great personal loss, loss that came on very quickly.

But in dealing with that grief, Dr. Cherry also recalibrated her professional career and she really dug in deep to find her

why. That trauma and loss informs her work today. And so she'll share why she now works so

diligently to improve public health, at a tough time for public health, and health equity around the

globe.

It's a life she may not have previously envisioned for herself, and we'll hear why.

Dr. Cherry's personal tragedy was that she lost both parents during the COVID-19 pandemic,

just weeks apart.

And we spoke right around the five-year anniversary of that pandemic, a big time of reflection for her.

I think I'll share with a story that recently happened when I was traveling. I often

reference myself as a vulnerable storyteller. And so just had a work

trip my first international work presentation outside the country, which is a big milestone,

and went with a work colleague and was in Scotland and did that on Monday, Tuesday, and I was on a

flight going to another country. I'm also working, but just it finally hit me

that I gave a presentation, what was happening. And I'm all the plane and I just start bawling,

...