Anxiety and Trust In The New Media Economy With CEO Dan Granger

**Morra Aarons-Mele** (0:00)
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I'm joined by Felix today to have a conversation with Dan Granger, who is the CEO of Oxford Road. I met Dan at South by Southwest at a really cool podcasting event. Dan is a true innovator in the space of podcasting, advertising, monetizing, growing influence.
And he's a really cool guy. And he is an anxious achiever. That's how we connected. I told him what I do and he goes, oh my God, that sounds like me.
So I said, you have to come on the show. And this is me being on his show as well as him being on my show. We talk a lot about media, which I love to talk about. We talk about AI and what it's going to do to creativity and influence. And we talk about managing anxiety as a leader, as an entrepreneur, especially in these super disruptive times. We get a little nitty gritty about podcasting and media. I think you're going to find it interesting even if you are not a podcaster or a media executive. I always love to go inside the minds of leaders who are working through all the big issues that we talk about on the show. So my conversation with Dan Granger, CEO of Oxford Road.

**Dan Granger** (2:54)
Welcome to the Media Roundtable, where we explore the business of trust in the new media economy. I am your host, Dan Granger. I'm the CEO and founder of Oxford Road. My guest today has spent two decades moving between politics, public health, and brand strategy. A lot of interesting areas. She has built a podcast and a business around the thing that most leaders really hesitate to talk about out loud. She has advised four US presidential campaigns, teaches executive education at Harvard, and still identifies as an anxious achiever. My guest is Morra Aarons-Mele, who is the founder of MHL Partners and host of The Anxious Achiever, which is a wonderful podcast that we have many advertisers who are happily supporting.
She is also the author of the Harvard Business Review press book of the same name, The Anxious Achiever. And so, Morra, welcome to the Media Roundtable. I'm so glad we're finally able to do this.

**Morra Aarons-Mele** (4:08)
Oh, it's so great. How are you?

**Dan Granger** (4:12)
I'm well, I think for, you know, I'm not really a morning guy, and we're doing this one kind of early, but I feel, I don't feel like that's a problem this morning. So, chalk one up for the Nitro cold brew.
And listening to some of your stuff on the way down, I've been trying to bone up and really excited about this conversation. You know, how are you feeling? I think that's my first question. What's today like for you? And is anxiety like a kind of an always-on thing? Or is it something that you've managed to the point that it's not even a signal?

**Morra Aarons-Mele** (4:56)
You know, I view my anxiety as my sort of co-partner in life.
We have a good relationship, actually. We've had a very, very bad relationship at many times, but I'm getting old enough. So now we kind of have a good relationship. And right now, my anxiety is calm. You know, she's sort of chilling for the summer, please. I'm sure she'll flare up. But I have developed such a toolkit, such a bag of tricks, to be honest, that I'm pretty good at taking her down and calming her down most days.