People who end up in leadership positions at huge companies are usually overachievers: they’ve succeeded in school, internships, early career jobs, and as managers and leaders. But all that success can also hide a whole lot of feelings that we push aside. 

Newton Cheng, Director of Health and Performance at Google, spent a year facing those challenges head on. The world champion powerlifter took mental health leave from the company, a phrase he feels strongly about. And it let him interrogate all the ways his mind pushes him, tricks him, and tells him he’s not good enough. 

He shares his story about what he learned on leave, and how he’s working to quiet those critical voices in his head.

What Mental Health Leave Taught One Google Executive

Host Morra Aarons-Mele is on a mission to reframe how we think about anxiety and mental health in the workplace. Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the U.S. We desperately need better models for leadership and a more holistic view of mental health. Our culture tells those of us who suffer from anxiety and depression that we can’t succeed, but we tell a different story — without sugarcoating the tough stuff. We feature stories from people who’ve been there and experts who can help you thrive.
Listen in your favorite podcast app: https://pod.link/1480904163

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Burnout culture is everywhere - case in point, a lawsuit brought against Goldman Sachs earlier this year by a former employee claiming that the relentless workload required by the firm led to heart problems and depression. The firm’s response was of particular note to Sarah Green Carmichael, a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. 

In this LinkedIn Live, Sarah joins Morra as well as Cali Williams Yost, founder and CEO of Flex+Strategy Group, to discuss the interplay between company culture and individual experience and behavior, as it relates to our mental health. 

For further reading, check out Cali’s book: https://www.amazon.com/Work-Life-Cali-Williams-Yost-ebook/dp/B001R9DHXK?ref_=ast_author_dp

And Sarah Green Carmichael’s columns: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/authors/AUKfbdj7jH8/sarah-green-carmichael

Are You And Your Employer In An Abusive Relationship?

There was a time when everyone masked their mental and emotional struggles at work; or worse, didn’t even know that what they were experiencing might be anxiety, depression, or something similar. In this episode, host Morra Aarons-Mele first speaks with Kent Coules, co-publisher at Hawaii Business Magazine, about his long career in media, his path to sobriety, and what he learned about drinking and anxiety along the way. Then, she speaks with Donna Volpitta, co-founder of The Mental Health Literacy Collaborative, about how important it is for adults - and kids K-12 - to better understand mental health.

Mental Health Literacy Can Change Lives - and Careers

Just as members of a family have different roles to play and different patterns of behavior they keep, so too can our family dynamics play out in the workplace. We bring with us to work our feelings about how we should assert ourselves, ask for help, deal with failure and more - all behaviors we learn in our family system growing up.
Deborah Ancona, a Professor of Organization Studies, and the Founder of the MIT Leadership Center at the MIT Sloan School of Management, calls these behaviors “ghosts,”and they’re not all bad. Ancona shares her research and experience on how family systems affect us at work. 
Check out our previous episode on family systems theory: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5ZNknArKLeGB9JATPFZkJb
Read Deborah's Artile: https://hbr.org/2022/01/family-ghosts-in-the-executive-suite

Think Your Family Background Doesn’t Affect You At Work? Think Again

Anxiety rarely feels good, so it might feel counterintuitive to think about it as a positive thing. But in this episode, we revisit a conversation with Wendy Suzuki, an NYU neuroscientist who studies neuroplasticity. Anxiety can bring benefits to performance and work, and we can reframe our relationship with this challenging but necessary emotion. Suzuki is the author of the book “Good Anxiety: Harnessing the Power of the Most Misunderstood Emotion.”
Learn more about Wendy here: https://www.wendysuzuki.com/

Are You Harnessing Your Anxiety for Good?

In the quest to be a more empathetic and effective leader or manager, the lens of trauma-informed leadership might be helpful for you. It’s the idea that all people have various forms of trauma that they carry with them to the workplace, and that leaders should approach situations at work accordingly.
Matthew Cooke, partner at the coaching, consulting and investment firm Evolution, is a big proponent of this kind of thinking. He explains how a trauma-informed leader might view or act in situations differently, the skills and resources used for managing through tough moments, and how you can apply the concepts to your own work. 
Learn more about trauma-informed leadership: 

https://healthadministrationdegree.usc.edu/blog/trauma-informed-leadership
https://accelerate.uofuhealth.utah.edu/leadership/five-ways-to-practice-trauma-informed-leadership
https://www.fastcompany.com/90836621/we-need-trauma-informed-leadership-in-the-workplace
https://evolution.team/matthew-cooke

What Mental Health Leave Taught One Google Executive

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