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.

Wall Street, Capitol Hill, the boardroom. There are all kinds of workplaces that can be terrible for stress or more extreme mental health disorders.

But there's one in particular that seems to be carving out not just more and more of our economy,

but more and more of our headspace, our zeitgeist, certainly our media coverage, startups.

You know, when I coined the term entrepreneurship porn

in HBR in 2014, I honestly didn't think too much about how our obsession with business

legends highs, lows, and near misses, sugarcoats and even glamorizes anxiety and poor mental health, and

certainly glamorizes habits that can lead to poor mental health, like never sleeping.

What these stories mask is the anxiety and depression many entrepreneurs feel.

Some research even shows that the singular focus and

obsession many entrepreneurs have also inclines us to more anxiety and depression, which can then

impair our function. And the thing is, think to yourself how many legendary stories you know of entrepreneurs who almost lost everything,

who were saddled by debt near ruin, but triumph in the end. Those are great stories and they're

inspirational. But I always think of the tremendous toll their mental health must have taken throughout all of that, up and down and not knowing.

Today's guest, Emma McElroy, is going to tell us her, unvarnished, and very real, funny version of her entrepreneurship journey, which includes some

really tough stuff with mental health. Originally from Ireland, Emma spent time at Barclays and Nike

after getting her degree from the University of Cambridge. And then in 2013, she ventured out on

her own to start the clothing brand, Wild Fang.

Emma has been outspoken about mental health issues in the workplace, especially when it comes to the startup and entrepreneurship space.

I started by asking Emma whether talking about these issues in public made her ever worry whether in a boys club kind of startup world it could hurt her professionally to do so.

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