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.

Today's guest founded a company that makes a product many of you probably use.

It's a website that makes dreams come true.

If your dream is figuring out your dream vacation plans, that is.

And he believes that one of his CEO's superpowers is his ability to observe the human dynamics,

what's going on between people in a room that's not spoken. And, he says, one of the biggest leadership skills is listening to people, hear that mansplainers, and observing how they feel in the moment.

Something that he learned growing up in a very small house with nine people. In 2004, Paul English co-founded Kayak, an online travel agency and met a search engine. He helped scale that company.

There was a $2 billion exit, and he was incredibly productive and driven. But there was something

else going on. Paul has bipolar disorder. And that has had all kinds of impacts, positive and negative, on his working life.

In his highs, nothing could stop him.

He said that if you could bottle how he feels when he's in a manic phase, it would sell for a

billion dollars.

But when Paul was heading into a depression, he learned to understand the signs that one was coming,

trouble focusing, irritation. And he knew that he had to learn to confide in key colleagues.

He'd need help making it through. Today, Paul keeps going at a breakneck pace, constantly coming up with new

business ideas, and he works across the for-profit and non-profit spheres. But he also works hard

to stay mentally and emotionally healthy. Here's my conversation with Paul English.

So I was doing some research on you, and one of the things that you said, which I just thought was fantastic, and I wanted to know the history of it, is you said that, you said if you weren't the multi-hyphenate business person, entrepreneur, coder that you are, you would probably like to be a therapist.

And I was curious, is that true?

And why?

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