The Anxious Achiever

Multi-level marketing businesses, or MLMs, offer people - often women who don’t work outside the home - the chance to be entrepreneurs, face new challenges, and grow their social circles. The reality is a situation that can prey on mental health issues, the emotional strain and isolation of motherhood, and even trigger substance abuse concerns. Sobriety coach, author, and former MLM worker Emily Paulson shares the story of how she came to MLM, the career she hoped she’d have, how stuck she felt, and how she’s now working to help others. Learn more:https://www.amazon.com/Hey-Hun-Sisterhood-Supremacy-Multilevel/dp/1955905258https://themighty.com/topic/mental-health/mlms-exploit-mental-health-conditions-chronic-illness-disability/https://www.scarymommy.com/mlm-selling-affects-womens-mental-health

Natasha Bowman always thought of herself as a goal conqueror: someone who could seemingly take on any project, multitask any number of things, and come out on top. It wasn’t until the global pandemic temporarily slammed on the brakes of her career that some of the underlying reasons for this came to the surface. At age 42, the HR executive was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.She speaks with Morra Aarons-Mele about the events that led up to her diagnosis, and how she integrates her mental health with her achievement and success today. Bowman is the author of the book Crazy A.F.: How to go from being burned out, unmotivated & unhappy to reclaiming your mental health at work. A note that this episode includes brief mentions of suicide and self-harm.

Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with executive coach Nihar Chhaya about what Morra calls the "triangle of doom" - envy, shame and scarcity - as part of their regular LinkedIn Live series. These concepts are natural feelings that we all deal with at some point in our lives, but that can really hamper our productivity, and our careers. It's time to get honest about them. Nihar and Morra offer their strategies for managing envy, FOMO, and shame.

With all of the issues in corporate America, in startup culture, and in workplaces biases and inequalities, it can be easy to forget the ways in which work can be a positive part of our life. Susan Schmitt Winchester, co-author of Healing at Work: A Guide to Using Career Conflicts to Overcome Your Past and Build the Future You Deserve, argues that the workplace is actually a better place than we think. Host Morra Aarons-Mele revisits this conversation with Schmitt about our working lives, how our childhood trauma might show up, and how to use our workplaces - in person or remote - as settings to change our behavior and our mental health.

Have you ever daydreamed about quitting your stressful job and hitting the open road? It isn’t something everyone can afford to do with their time and money. But it is something people sometimes do when they face incredible burnout, loss of self, depression, and more. Daryll Henrich has spent the better part of the year on the road on his motorcycle after leaving his job as a VP at Google last September. He was an early advocate for better mental health at work, and developed strong internal leadership capacity when he became open about his depression. He reflects on how anxiety and depression shaped career decisions and what he wants now. 

For many people, the choice between a corporate job or entrepreneurship comes down to the freedom and flexibility they might get on their own… versus the stability and paycheck they get at work. But in a time when many feel workplaces are toxic, that calculus is harder than ever. In this LinkedIn Live session, Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with executive coach Nihar Chhaya about how they both made this personal decision, their advice for others trying to decide, and how it relates to mental health.

Many high achievers have a complicated relationship with their own health, and their own ambition. Things like anxiety can fuel us but also wreak havoc in our lives in ways we don’t always recognize or examine. Rainesford Stauffer is a writer and author of the new book All the Gold Stars: Reimagining Ambition and the Ways We Strive, and she speaks about her own experience with high achievement, anxiety, and OCD. She also wrote the New York Magazine piece “Could I Still Be Ambitious Without My OCD?” which you can read here: https://www.thecut.com/article/ambition-work-ocd.html

Michael Freeman is a psychiatrist and professor looking to better understand and better support the mental health of entrepreneurs. A fourth generation entrepreneur himself, he’s done research that looks at the higher rates of things like ADHD, depression, and substance abuse in this group of people. He looks at the idea of whether these kinds of thinkers are “touched by fire,” and the unique relationship between how our dopamine receptor genes may influence our desire to be entrepreneurs. Freeman is also a founder of the wellness center ECONA.

In this new series, host Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with executive coach Nihar Chhaya about some of your most pressing questions around mental health, career, and success in this new LinkedIn Live series.

Does your career path feel uncertain, or at the very least, unsteady? In a world where jobs aren’t guaranteed, we increasingly need to advocate for ourselves and create a brand around our work. In the process of promoting ourselves, we can also lose sight of our values and the longer term goals. Marketing expert and author Dorie Clark speaks with host Morra Aarons-Mele about the ups and downs of career and life.