The Anxious Achiever: Turn Your Biggest Fears into Your Leadership Superpower
Morra Aarons-Mele
Harvard Business Review Press (April 2023)
A brilliant analysis of how to convert anxiety into a source of positive, creative power
As I began to read this book, I was again reminded of the fact that the Chinese character for “crisis” has two meanings: peril and opportunity. I share Morra Aarons-Mele’s fascination with forces of nature that can be both positive or negative, depending on the context. Steam, for example. It provided the power that drove not one but several industrial revolutions. However, excessive steam can result in all manner of destructive results unless there is a means by which to “blow off steam.” Years ago, Ernest Becker wrote a book in which he examines problems that are more serious now than they were when his book, Denial of Death, was published in 1974. This is his key insight: No one can deny physical death and only suicide determines how, when, and where. However, there is another form of death that can be denied: that which occurs when we become wholly preoccupied with fulfilling others’ expectations of us.
These are among the passages of greatest interest and value to me, also listed to suggest there scope of her coverage:
o New Mindsets for a New Era of Leadership (Pages 7-11)
o Negative Self-Talk (10-11 and 89-97)
o Social anxiety (10-11 and 201-224)
o Ambition and anxiety (17-32)
o Irrationality of anxiety (31-32 and 47-48)
o Risk-taking (36-37)
o Triggers (47-63, 138-142, and 213-223)
o The Legacy of Childhood Experiences (68-75 and 167-168)
o Differentiation of self and boundaries (77-83)
o Differentiation of self and leaders and leadership (78-83)
o Self-compassion (94-97)
o UncoverYour Triggers and Tells (99-119)
o Unhelpful Reactions and Bad Habits (121-143)
o Alice Boyes (153-154 and 186-187)
o Control (163-182)
o Setting workplace boundaries(175-182)
o “Play detective” to figure out your boundaries (178-182)
o Anxiety and Impostor syndrome (187-191)
o Social Anxiety (201-224)
o Feeling and living through anxiety: Find Joy (225-232)
Some of the most valuable material in the book — including suggestions to accelerate personal growth and professional development — is provided within a series of micro-commentaries that Aarons-Mele strategically inserts throughout her lively and eloquent narrative. Specifically:
Self-Assessment: Quick ad Easy Body Scan (Pages 50-51)
Self-Assessment: Check Your Reactions (59)
The Rapid Power Reclaim Method (72-73)
Questions to Help You Develop a More Differentiated Self (81-82)
Being an Inner Ally to Yourself at Work (96)
Break a Bad Habit and Make Progress at Work (136-137
The So What? Exercise (159-160)
Self-Assessment: Identify Your Boundaries and Limits (180-181)
Self-Assessment: Idcentfy and Anchor in Your Core Values (213)
Obviously, we cannot control everything that happens to us but we can determine how we respond. Henry Ford once observed, “Whether you think you can succeed or think you can’t, you’re probably right.” Morra Aarons-Mele offers compelling reasons why a crisis must (NOT ought to) be viewed as an opportunity rather as than a peril, that fear must be viewed and developed as a source of positive energy, and that when anxiety wants to control what you think and how you feel, you say “as many times as it takes, ‘No, that’s too high a price to pay.”
Embrace what you can achieve with a best effort and, meanwhile, help others to do so. Margaret Mead offers a helpful reminder: “Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.”
I now offer two concluding suggestions of my own: Highlight key passages, and, keep a lined notebook near at hand while reading The Anxious Achiever in which you record your comments, questions, and page references as well as responses to aforementioned exercises to accelerate personal growth and professional development. These two simple tactics will facilitate, indeed expedite frequent review of key material later.