Managing Anxiety When Passion Drives Your Work with Poppy Jaman, OBE

Morra Aarons-Mele (0:00)

Do you want to have a better relationship with your money? Monarch is like having a financial advisor in your pocket. Write your own money story with Monarch. Use code Achiever at monarch.com to get your first year of Monarch Core half off, just $50. Go to monarch.com and use code Achiever. Do you want a family safety app, but you also want to make sure that it's private and that it doesn't feel like surveillance, especially for your kids? Try HeyPolo and protect your loved ones without spying on them. Go to heypolo.com/achiever or use code Achiever and get 40% off your first year. Go to heypolo.com/achiever.

There's a business book that you really need right now, and it's called Life at the Speed of Play, Launch Products People Love by Mark Pincus. He's an entrepreneur's entrepreneur. Known in Silicon Valley is one of the most prolific idea generators. I guarantee you've played one of the games that he has invented. And he's going to give you his book, two for the price of one. If you go to getmarksbook.com/anxious, he will send you a second copy for free. If you're thinking about starting an online business, launch Before Black Friday, a time of year when more people are already shopping and ready to buy.

If you're ready to launch Before Black Friday, just go to shopify.com/anxiousachiever and start your free trial. I like figuring stuff out with other people, and that's why I like Notion. Notion is the AI workspace where your team's knowledge, projects, and agents all come together in one place. Teams using Notion move faster, and they cut friction and cost by consolidating tools, and they stay aligned. But Notion is really good for people, because you know what? You put your idea down, you put your rough draft down in Notion, your colleague can access it, hash it out, give feedback, and it's all there and organized. Is it possible for AI to make room for more human connection, not less? Notion says yes, and it will help you do your best work. Learn more about how Notion can support your business at notion.com/achiever.

That's all lowercase letters, notion.com/achiever, and try Notion today. When you use our link, you're supporting our show.

Hi, I'm Morra Aarons-Mele, host of The Anxious Achiever. Today, I'm going to bring you one of our most downloaded and one of my most favorite episodes from our archives. It's a classic. The Anxious Achiever has been at it for a long time. We have over 300 episodes, and honestly, they're all still more relevant than ever. You may hear details in this episode that remind you it's from another time, but I guarantee that the advice you get will be as crisp and meaningful and the stories as resonant as before. If you have a favorite episode of the show, let me know. I'd love to air it again or even re-record it for you fresh. Enjoy this classic Anxious Achiever episode.

How are you? No, I mean it. Really, how are you? Today's guest, Poppy Jaman, OBE, will tell us how she taught a bunch of high-priced lawyers to revolutionize their leadership style, simply by asking that question in a different way. Poppy is so thoughtful and so much fun. It's because she understands what makes her stressed and she takes her self-care seriously. It's also because she is deeply mission driven, but she's learned to manage her boundaries and have fun along the way.

I wanted to explore the ways mission-driven work can create specific emotional challenges with Poppy and ask what it's like to devote your career to mission-driven work while caring for your mental health. The pressure to succeed in our careers affects so many of us and can contribute to anxiety. We work long hours to eventually win awards, get promotions, make more money, or become a recognized expert or well-known force in our industry. But of course, we work so hard for something deeper to accomplish our mission. And nowhere is that more clear than in the nonprofit world, a place where success may not always come with all the accolades and bonuses, and success may not even come at all if the problems you're tackling are just too complicated for one person or one organization to fix.

Poppy Jaman, OBE, this means the queen honored her, was the founding CEO of Mental Health First Aid England. She's now program director for the City Mental Health Alliance, a network of thought leaders from the City of London-based organizations committed to improving and raising awareness of mental health in the workplace. And she's been fighting for much of her career to increase awareness in the space.

So Poppy, tell us a little bit about the organization that you run now.