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

The Anxious Achiever

Morra Aarons-Mele

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

4.7 • 600 Ratings

🗓️ 15 March 2023

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

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.

Transcript

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0:00.0	LinkedIn Presents.
0:10.9	I'm Maura Aaron's Mealy, and this is The Anxious Achiever, the show that looks at the intersection of mental health and work and how we can all do both better.
0:30.9	There's nothing scarier than having a severe mental health condition at work.
0:41.3	That's something one of my guests today, Jimmy Horowitz, said about what it's like disclosing a mental health issue at a big job, at a big company in the limelight.
0:53.7	Horowitz is vice chairman of business affairs and operations for NBC Universal, which means he deals with the business side of a very creative media company with a $148 billion market cap. Trained as a lawyer, he oversees major deals for the
0:56.9	network and the streaming service peacock, and he's negotiated big movie deals as well. A quick Google
1:03.1	search turns up pictures of him with everyone from The Rock to Reese Witherspoon. In short, Jimmy has a
1:09.2	high-stakes job. And he shares that while many people sort of expect
1:13.8	creatives to be a little more up and down, maybe even struggle with their mental health,
1:18.7	the stigma is definitely there on the business side of things. It's a stigma he felt acutely
1:24.5	in 2019, pre-pandemic. That's when a struggle with depression, the first of his
1:29.7	life came pouring in, and he didn't know where to turn. He kept it a secret. We'll hear his
1:35.9	story today, and we're also joined by Emily Anhalt, a clinical psychologist with a background
1:40.8	in entrepreneurship and leadership. Emily is working on a different approach to mental health, thinking about it more like going to the gym, helping us get fit. And she's working with Jimmy and the team at NBCUniversal to figure out how to navigate mental health conversations and change at work. It's really great when she and Jimmy dive into how to do it right.
2:03.1	Before I go to the show, though, I have to tell you the anxious achiever, the book, is three
2:09.5	weeks out from being published. April 11th. I would so, so, so love it. If you want to buy the
2:16.4	book, pre-order it now, wherever you get your books,
2:19.6	whether it's on a big site like Amazon or at your local bookstore through a site like
2:24.1	bookshop.org. Pre-orders mean everything. And so, if you're a fan of the anxious achiever
2:30.8	and you want to support, pre-order today. Thank you so much. Now on with the show.
2:40.8	So, Jimmy, take us back to 2019. What was work like for you? And how did things feel for you internally?
2:52.7	Well, it's funny. I always say to people, I think for most people, 2020 was the worst year of their
	...

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