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I'm Maura Erin'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.

Happy New Year. Today, I'm resharing one of my favorite episodes of the show from 2020.

Listeners tell me that they love to hear examples of really accomplished people who make

their anxiety work for them. And so, here's a leader who calls his anxiety a Listeners tell me that they love to hear examples of really accomplished people who make their

anxiety work for them. And so, here's a leader who calls his anxiety a superpower. I don't want to

sugarcoat anything. Living with anxiety is hard. But if you learn to understand your anxiety, you can

decipher what it's trying to tell you, manage how you respond to it, and channel anxiety's creative energy and drive into great work.

And then you may be one of the leaders who credits their anxiety for helping them get where they are.

So today you're going to hear from Harley Finkelstein, who is president of Shopify, the e-commerce

platform that has processed billions of orders. For years, Harley's anxiety troubled him, but it also

led him to have a lot of drive and energy for his entrepreneurship and growth. And that's when

it first clicked for him that anxiety could be an advantage.

Harley spent a lot of time trying to get rid of his anxiety, but finally realized it's part of

who he is. He manages it through therapy, daily meditation, exercise, breath work, and scheduling

that protects his personal time. I think that his deep self-awareness is instructive for all leaders.

We'll be back next week with a new season of The Anxious Achiever.

Until then, here's my interview with Harley.

So we were kind of joking on Twitter before, but you call yourself, or I guess Tim Ferriss called you a power extrovert.

And I'm a pretty outspoken introvert. So are we mortal enemies? Can we get along?

I actually think we would be best of friends. I mean that. I think that the whole

extrovert versus introvert thing, first of all, I think, has completely been, it's gone too far. I think

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