The Anxious Achiever

Why do we feel anxious even when threats are only imagined, and why have we evolved to feel anxiety? The connection between mental and physical health is well documented and talked about, but very easy to forget in times of stress. In this episode, we revisit a conversation with Dr. Christine Runyan, a professor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and co-founder of Tend Health about the roots of this complex emotion, and learn self care techniques that actually work, and why. 

Dr. Christine Runyan on On Being: https://onbeing.org/programs/christine-runyan-on-healing-our-distressed-nervous-systems/

More about Tend Health: https://tend.health/meet-tend/meet-founders/

Sanyin Siang is an advisor, coach, and adjunct professor at Duke University where she leads the Fuqua/Coach K Leadership and Ethics Center or COLE. She’s also someone who believes in being your own best friend, and that starts with the self-talk we have going on in our heads all day long. In this episode, she walks host Morra Aarons-Mele through her superpowers framework, her own quest to find her strengths, and how high-achievers can zero in on our gifts instead of what we need to improve. 

The Superpowers with Sanyin Substack: https://leadershipplaybook.substack.com/

Tim Shriver is a filmmaker, chairman of the Special Olympics, and host of the podcast Need a Lift. He’s also a member of the Kennedy clan, and has spent much of his life’s work helping to increase emotional awareness and improve the discourse around things like mental health, faith, disabilities, and more. He speaks with host Morra Aarons-Mele about the most important conversations we need to be having now, how children and adults alike can improve their mental health and emotional flexibility, and what drives him in his work. 

Listen to the podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/need-a-lift-with-tim-shriver/id1765227660

The Dignity Index: https://www.dignity.us/

Yowei Shaw was the host of the NPR podcast Invisibilia before layoffs hit the organization. In the aftermath, she struggled with how her identity and sense of self shifted in unexpected ways. Now, she hosts the podcast Proxy with Yowei Shaw. We’ll talk about the process she went through following her layoff, how she’s recovered, and advice she’d share with others in the same situation. 

Listen to her podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/0VkDE8LAXf5COW4tqhhy1B

Learn more about Yowei’s layoff story: https://the.ink/p/yowei-shaw-proxy-layoffs-emotions

Check out a new show we love: LinkedIn's Let's Talk Offline. Co-hosted by Gianna Prudente, LinkedIn's early career development editor, and Jamé Jackson, a LinkedIn community manager, this show seeks to answer unfiltered questions about work life, covering topics like: Setting workplace boundaries, building your personal brand, scoring your dream job, and navigating office friendships. The show aims to help Gen Z and young millennial professionals advocate for themselves, stand out, and make positive changes in their work lives - all without sacrificing their values, sanity, or sleep. In this episode, they dive deep into social anxiety.

Envy can drive us - but it can also drive us into a wall. It can motivate us at work, but it can make us - and the teams around us - miserable. And sometimes, envy is trying to tell us we might want a change in our own life. In this episode, we revisit a conversation with executive coach and president of PartnerExec, Nihar Chhaya, about how to recognize and reframe envy before it gets the best of us at work.

The Upside of Career Envy: https://hbr.org/2020/06/the-upside-of-career-envy

 Laurie Ruettimann is a former human resources leader and current author and speaker on work place culture. She looks at how the overall system of capitalism is hurting us, what is broken about work, and what can be done. She shares her own journey through corporate America, despite her anti-establishment roots; how living a corporate lifestyle led to unhealthy habits and an impulsive and risky weight loss surgery. Plus, what she’s learned in the years since and her advice for workers and leaders of companies going forward. 

Learn more about Laurie: https://laurieruettimann.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/laurieruettimann_fixwork-selfleadership-wellbeing-activity-7051595498406768640-ieCi/

A lot of us have a basic understanding of how attachment styles - secure, anxious and avoidant - affect human beings in their relationships. But we don’t often think about what they mean for work. In this episode Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with Jack Hinman, who expands the definition and understanding of attachment styles and explains how they can be a superpower. Hinman is Founder and Executive Director of Engage Transitions. 

Learn more about attachment and Hinman’s work: https://engagelifenow.com/attachment/

When it comes to managing our mental health as AI takes over the workplace, there’s a lot on our plate. But in a world that is also driven by systems, it’s important to think about what organizations can be, should be, and are doing to remember worker mental health in the coming years. 

To wrap up our month long series on AI, mental health, and work, host Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with Susan Quain, an expert in digital employee experience, about the best ways that leaders and companies can help workers adapt and thrive as AI becomes a more frequent collaborator. 

Learn more: Seven ways digital workplace teams support the rollout of generative AI

When it comes to anxiety, the best thing we can do is figure out what is in our control and shift our energy away from the what ifs and the negative thinking. This applies when it comes to anxiety around GenAI taking our jobs as well. 

In this episode, Morra Aarons-Mele speaks to two people sharing real tools to navigate today’s work landscape. We hear from author and disruptive leadership expert Charlene Li, who shares the real ways she’s currently using AI, how it can actually make us better workers and leaders, and how to think proactively about this new technology. Then, Morra speaks with Scott Barry Kaufman, psychology professor at Columbia University, about how we can use AI as an opportunity to self-actualize.