I'm Mora Aronsmeli, and this is The Anxious Achiever.

Each episode, 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, we look at mental health through the lens of being an only or a first.

In the context of this episode, when I say only, I mean someone who is a minority at their workplace,

because of their race, background, gender, sexual orientation, or other identity. We'll examine how being an only or the first can impact your anxiety in your mental health and how being a member

of a minority group could affect your comfort

levels with disclosing an anxiety disorder. We'll look at being an only through the lens of an

expert on anxiety among African American professionals, Dr. Angela Neil Barnett, who is our first guest

today. Our second guest is Nillifer Merchant, who wrote one of my favorite books, The Power of Onliness.

Because your only can also be your power.

The good news is that power is changing and dominance shifting slowly but surely away from forcing those of us who seek success to conform to a certain norm.

And let's face it, in many workplaces, that norm is the privileged white man.

We'll dive into that with

Nillifur in an interesting example. So we'll flip the script on being an only with author

and technologist Nillifer Merchant and talk about how to find strength and power in your

oniness. Angela Neal Barnett knows that feeling of the only well.

In fact, she was the first black woman to be tenured and promoted to the rank of professor

in the Kent State University Department of Psychological Sciences,

where she directs the program for research on anxiety disorders among African Americans.

Dr. Barnett's work focuses on helping black women and girls overcome anxiety and fear.

Dr. Neil Barnett is also the architect and developer of the Build Your Own theme song app

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