In therapy yesterday, I was getting really upset. Crying. Something in my current life was triggering a painful memory from my childhood. My therapist said, “You’re hitting a time capsule,” and she was right. The conversation brought up an experience I’d had at age 9.

“I don’t want to be a burden.”

I hear it over and over. I’ve felt it myself. When we’re going through a mental health crisis, we worry about being a burden to the people we love. We worry about being a burden to our colleagues. And this fear of being a burden traps us in bad situations. It prevents us from asking for help. When you’re depressed you’re more likely to suffer self doubt and rumination, causing the “burden feeling” to heighten.

Clayton Lord is Director of Foundation Programs at SHRM, the Society for Human Resource Management. He's also a leader on the autism spectrum. On the podcast this week, he and I discuss the particular skill-building leadership demands, and how it’s different for neurodivergent leaders.

With so many of us working wherever our internet connection is strongest, the 9-5 day feels antiquated. That's both amazing and extremely challenging. This week, Boston Globe financial columnist Shirley Leung shared her honest challenges with burnout and working from home, and I’ve heard them from you, too.

The Anxious Achiever: Turn Your Biggest Fears Into Your Leadership Superpower, has been named one of the Best New Management books of the year by Thinkers50. Thinkers50 co-founder Stuart Crainer says “The Best New Management Books are the ones that have the potential to change the way people think about and practice management.”

According to Princeton records, Craig Robinson led the Ivy League in basketball field goal percentage as a junior and senior, and was crowned back-to-back Ivy League Player of the Year. He scored 1,441 points while he wore the Tigers jersey and was even selected in the fourth round of the NBA draft by the Philadelphia 76ers. Although he never actually played in the American pros, he signed with the Manchester Giants in the United Kingdom’s professional league for two seasons before retiring. He became an investment banker before going back to his true love, coaching college basketball teams. This was a risky decision. Robinson spent eight years as a Division I head men’s basketball coach – two seasons at Brown and six at Oregon State, then transitioned into management jobs at the NBA’s New York Knicks and Milwaukee Bucks.

“Vulnerability is merely a fact.” That's Harvard Business School’s Amy Edmondson, who is ranked the most influential management thinker in the world. And yet for many, vulnerability feels like a bad thing when it comes to leadership.

Say no to a culture of constant work.

We often equate our productivity with the number of hours we spend working. But do we really need to work endlessly, through weekends and during vacations, to be seen as stars? To find a healthy balance between our personal and professional lives, we need to make space for ourselves, define what we value most, and set goals that take those values into account.

Sleep is chic and podcasts are rife with successful people who brag about protecting theirs. But I find leaders' actual behavior often conflicts with protecting sleep for their teams! Many of us can summon a "successful" person who seems to run on just a few hours of sleep per night. Maybe it's a glamorous startup founder who boasts about their sleepless hustle and sends 3 AM emails. A politician who claims to only need 4 hours. The message is clear - sacrificing sleep is the price of success.

I'm writing this to you from 30,000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean on Mother's Day. Flying solo today feels aligned with my values of providing for my family and being reliable professionally, even though it also triggers some guilt and anxiety.

Our values give life meaning and guide our decisions, especially when facing challenges. In this newsletter, we'll explore how tuning into your values can help you overcome anxiety and rumination.

Consider this: You, as a manager, have more impact on your direct reports’ mental health than their spouses do. Take that in for a second.

It’s Mental Health Awareness Month and so many leaders and managers want to make their organizations better for their people’s mental health. It’s a complex issue that truly intersects every line of business. Business leaders ask me: I want my employees to report less anxiety and depression at work. What should I do? I love that people with power and influence are asking this question. There are so many places to start (see my P.S.) but here’s one piece of great advice I can give you if you’re a leader concerned about mental health at your place of work.

If you’re leading a team of four or more, chances are, at least one of your colleagues is coping with anxiety. Or maybe, that person is you. High-achieving individuals are particularly prone to anxiety, which also is twice as common among women as it is among men. Anxiety has long been a taboo topic in the workplace, especially in leadership circles. In a conversation with Chief Members, author and entrepreneur Morra Aarons-Mele makes the case that the stigma must end — now.

Throughout May, Thinkers50 teamed up with the Silicon Guild to support Mental Health Awareness Month in the US and Mental Health Awareness Week in the UK.

In the first of four live, online events, we focused on how we can make work better for everyone’s mental health. Featuring Rita McGrath, a top 10 Ranked Thinker since 2013, and Radar Thinkers Poornima Luthra and Andrew Barnes, this illuminating discussion explored practical ways that managers and leaders can improve the health and productivity of their workforce.

When you counsel a friend who’s having a tough time I bet one of the first questions you ask is: "What do you need right now?" But when's the last time you asked yourself, "What do I need right now?" My guest Emma Seppälä, Ph.D. is a scientist who studies how interventions like breath-based meditation affect our mental health and social connectedness.

Morra explores several key ways organizations haven’t gone far enough in implementing a culture of well-being. She also makes five key suggestions on what they can do to improve the mental health of their employees.

This week: My five strategies for improving mental health at work, based on my latest article for Harvard Business Review. If you're working on implementing workplace mental health programs, let me know what you think.

Today's newsletter focuses on alcohol use and anxiety. Many people use alcohol to avoid anxiety all the time. I certainly do. Nearly every social function I attend has booze. It's become such an accepted lubricant that we forget what a powerful drug it is.

Deloitte’s Jen Fisher interviews Morra in Thrive Global, discussing anxiety and leadership.

Do you feel the need to make everyone happy, all the time? Can’t stand a quiet moment and feel compelled to make a joke? How about making sure everyone has coffee or water before the meeting? These behaviors could be legacies from your childhood showing up at work. This week in the newsletter MIT Sloan School of Management Professor Deborah Ancona walks us through common “family ghosts” that show up in executives she coaches.

Morra explains how to prepare and respond to mental health discussions with your team members.