Guest Morra Aarons-Mele, author of “The Anxious Achiever: Turn Your Biggest Fears into Your Leadership Superpower,” discusses the importance of addressing anxiety in the workplace and how it can be harnessed as a strength. She shares personal insights on finding purpose, embracing mental health, and making difficult decisions. The podcast provides tools for managing anxiety and creating mentally healthy teams and culture.
Anxiety can be harnessed as a superpower and turned into strength with the right tools.
Creating psychologically safe work environments and fostering inclusive cultures is essential for addressing workplace mental health.
Deep dives
Understanding the impact of mental health in the workplace
In this podcast episode, Mora Arrens-Mealy, author and mental health advocate, discusses the importance of addressing mental health in the workplace and how it relates to success. She highlights that anxiety is a common challenge in today's workplace, and if not managed, it can hinder performance. However, she believes that anxiety can be harnessed as a superpower and turned into strength with the right tools. Mora encourages leaders and teams to become more aware of their anxiety, seek support, and create psychologically safe environments for open conversations about mental health.
Embracing vulnerability and self-acceptance
Mora Arrens-Mealy shares her personal journey of managing anxiety and the importance of embracing vulnerability and self-acceptance. She discusses the power of accepting oneself and understanding that anxiety is a part of who we are. Mora encourages individuals to shift from viewing anxiety as a weakness to recognizing it as a unique superpower that can be harnessed for personal and professional growth.
Breaking the stigma and creating mentally healthy workplaces
The podcast explores the need to break the stigma surrounding mental health in the workplace. Mora highlights the importance of naming anxiety, panic, depression, and other mental health conditions to normalize the conversation. She advocates for creating psychologically safe work environments where individuals can openly discuss their mental health challenges. Mora emphasizes that addressing workplace mental health requires addressing systemic issues and fostering inclusive and supportive cultures.
Practical strategies for managing anxiety at work
Mora Arrens-Mealy and Newton Chang provide practical strategies for managing anxiety at work. They suggest techniques such as slowing down time, deep breathing, and breaking tasks into smaller, manageable steps. They also emphasize the significance of self-awareness and seeking professional help when needed. Mora encourages leaders to practice boundary vulnerability, acknowledging their own anxieties and creating spaces for open discussions about mental health with their teams.
Morra Aarons-Mele visits Google to discuss her book “The Anxious Achiever: Turn Your Biggest Fears into Your Leadership Superpower.” Anxiety is normal. The way we hide it is not. Although so much has been done to promote diversity and wellness at work, there’s a giant hole in the understanding of how mental health plays into not just our daily grind, but the very trajectory of success. We’re all in desperate need for better models of leadership - especially in a society that tells us that mental health challenges like anxiety and depression are weaknesses. Anxiety is a constant in today’s workplace, and people need tools to manage it. If you do nothing to address it, anxiety can seriously hamper your potential for high performance. However, “The Anxious Achiever” shows that anxiety can be fundamentally helpful to leaders, and with the right tools, you can harness its power to turn stress into strength. Mentally healthy workforces drive return on investment: employers see a $4 return for every dollar invested in employee mental health support. This book will help leaders and teams understand how anxiety shows up for them at work, lead and thrive through uncertainty, and create mentally healthy teams and culture.