People ask me all the time, like, do you wish you were mayor right now? Or do you wish you would run or had won the U.S. Senate race or whatever? Do you wish you would run for president? And I'm always like, no. And people think that it's some sort of comment on whether I would have won or whether it would be fun to do those jobs. It's just simply like, this is the first time in over a decade that I've really

enjoyed my life and I wouldn't make any changes.

I'm Maura Aronsmeli and this is the anxious achiever. We look at stories from business

leaders who have dealt with anxiety, depression, or other mental health challenges,

how they fell down, how they pick themselves up, and how they hope workplaces can change in the future.

You know, work can be an addiction for many of us. a way to avoid issues we don't want to deal with, people we don't want to confront, or demons inside.

And here's the thing. It's a socially acceptable addiction. Undiagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder led today's guest, Jason Kander, to be the ultimate achiever

and the ultimate people-pleaser, which made a lot of people in his political orbit happy.

Jason's drive led to a life filled with accolades, many of us only dream of, a fast-track career

in public office. But eventually, he realized he had to slow down, to let go of his addiction

and to give up his self-medicating through work. And the truth is many of us will need one

day to step away from our work for a time to deal with something going on in our emotional lives,

whether because of depression, grief, or, in the case of today's guest, PTSD,

because sometimes it's just too much to work on your trauma

while still having to meet all those demands and bring home a paycheck.

Jason Kander has a stellar resume, a graduate of Georgetown Law School,

a former Army captain who served in Afghanistan,

and former Secretary of State in Missouri at a young age.

He went on to become the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate for Missouri in 2016,

narrowly losing the election to the Republican incumbent.

And then Jason founded an organization called Let America Vote,

a campaign dedicated to ending voter suppression. He ran for mayor of his hometown, Kansas City, but dropped out on October

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