I'm Mora Erin's Mealy, 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.

Why am I hosting this show?

Well, frankly, it's what I wish I'd had when facing difficult junctions in my career.

I'm an extremely anxious overachiever. I have what we in my family call transportation anxiety. I'm always waiting for bad news for the other shoe to drop. I fear

that people in my life will die or leave me almost all the time. I have a lot of social anxiety,

which makes everyday life very

humbling. You know, I'm also an extreme introvert who adores public speaking, and I do many

speaking events a year. What I found is there's one common thread among my audiences.

The most ambitious professionals are so anxious. From 20 years as a progressive political

consultant and a student of people at work, here's what I know. No one can change the world if they're

unhappy at work. And so many people are unhappy. For many reasons, of course, but in particular because of anxiety and depression

and other mental health struggles. And the problem is set to get even worse because the

millennial and Gen Z cohorts have been dubbed the most anxious generations. And in today's workplace,

leaders pretend that they don't have anxiety or mood

disorders. It's still taboo to talk about our mental health at work for most of us, despite the

huge increase in amenities for physical wellness like yoga rooms or treadmill desks or bouncy balls that you can

sit on. Although so much has been done rightly to promote

diversity and wellness at work, there's a giant hole in the understanding of how temperament and

emotions play not just into our daily grind at the office, but into our very trajectory of success.

We're in desperate need for better models of leadership, especially in a society that tells

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