Videos
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Speaker Demo Reel | Morra Aarons-Mele -
SXSW Featured Session: Love Your Tricky Brain and Unlock Your Greatest Leadership Gifts
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The Hidden Struggles of Employees with Bipolar Disorder with Connie Hadley
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The Anxious Achiever | Morra Aarons-Mele | Talks at Google
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Navigating Life's Disappointments with Jessica Turner
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Morra Aarons-Mele: Turning anxiety into your superpower
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Morra Aarons-Mele speaker's reel
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Ep. 84: The Anxious Achiever with Morra Aarons-Mele
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260: Are You an Anxious Achiever? Turn Your Fears into Your Superpower with Morra Aarons-Mele
Learn More About Morra Aarons-Mele
Morra Aarons-Mele is an expert in helping people turn hard things into leadership excellence. When leaders, teams, and organizations work with Aarons-Mele, they find the freedom to unlock hidden parts of themselves and become better leaders.
An anxious achiever herself, Aarons-Mele knows that taking your mental health seriously is a leadership strength. She’s passionate about strengthening workplace culture by integrating positive mental health into leadership, helping organizations build resilient, high-performing teams that thrive in today’s fast-changing world.
Aarons-Mele founded, scaled and sold Women Online/The Mission List, a marketing and advocacy consulting firm, delivering campaigns for organizations like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, CDC, P&G, President Obama and the United Nations. In her decades-long career as a political, public health and issue advocacy strategist, she has helped the world’s largest organizations change minds, hearts and behaviors.
Aarons-Mele is the host of The Anxious Achiever (LinkedIn Presents), a top 50 business podcast and Webby Award honoree, and her most recent book, “The Anxious Achiever” (Harvard Business Review Press), was named a Top 10 Management Book of 2024 by Thinkers50 and won the Axiom Award for Best Leadership Book. Her toolkit, book, podcast and training materials are used by leading organizations and business schools around the world. Recognized as a LinkedIn Top 10 Voice in Mental Health and shortlisted for the Thinkers50 Distinguished Achievement in Leadership Award, Aarons-Mele is passionate about helping leaders find their hidden superpowers. Her work has been recognized by Mental Health America with their Media Award (2023).
Aarons-Mele holds a BA from Brown University and an MPA from Harvard, and lives in Boston with her family and menagerie.
Morra Aarons-Mele is available to advise your organization via virtual and in-person consulting meetings, interactive workshops and customized keynotes through the exclusive representation of Stern Speakers & Advisors, a division of Stern Strategy Group®.
How Leaders Can Manage AI Anxiety
While most organizations are spending time focusing on technology strategy, human emotions are quickly proving to be the real determinant of successful AI transformation. Fear, resistance and uncertainty about the future are quietly shaping adoption far more than capability does. In interactive sessions, Morra Aarons-Mele reveals that AI anxiety isn’t a weakness to suppress and reframes it as a powerful leadership signal. Drawing on deep expertise in psychology, neuroscience and organizational behavior, she shows leaders how emotional flexibility, more than technical fluency, drives effective transformation. Audiences learn to recognize how AI anxiety shows up in teams, build psychological safety during rapid change, and have more productive, human conversations about the future of work. Leaders leave equipped to guide AI adoption with steadiness, clarity and trust while ensuring innovation strengthens their workforce.
“Anxiety Is My Superpower:” How to Build a Better Relationship With the Most Misunderstood Emotion at Work
Anxiety comes with the job of leadership. But what if stress and worry weren’t liabilities, but sources of foresight, preparation, and resilience? Drawing on nearly two decades of research and her book “The Anxious Achiever,” Morra Aarons-Mele shines a light on the reasons behind why many high performers credit anxiety with their greatest successes. She explains the science behind anxiety and decision-making, why we are evolutionarily wired for uncertainty and how leaders can channel anxiety into clarity, instead of control or micromanagement. Compelling and highly relatable, this session provides practical tools for noticing emotional triggers, interrogating their root causes, and reframing stress as useful data. Leaders leave with a healthier, more strategic relationship to anxiety that will fuel better judgment, stronger teams, and steadier leadership in uncertain times.
Healthy High Achieving: How Top Performers Sustain Excellence Without Burning Out
High performance has a hidden cost: the same drive that fuels excellence can quietly sap judgment, creativity and wellbeing long before anyone uses the word “burnout.” In this powerful session, Morra Aarons-Mele reframes mental and emotional wellbeing as a strategic performance advantage. Drawing on research in neuroscience and performance psychology, she explains why burnout is a lagging indicator and how stress can either sharpen leadership or silently drain it. Leaders learn to distinguish between productive stress and what Aarons-Mele calls “stupid stress:” the unnecessary pressure that exhausts individuals and systems. Audiences walk away with tactical behavioral shifts they can immediately put into practice for consistently sustaining attention, protecting energy and building the internal capacity to reliably perform under pressure.
What Introverts Can Teach All of Us About Becoming Phenomenal at Our Jobs
“Always say yes.” “Get out there.” “Crush it.” For many leaders, conventional advice about visibility and influence can feel exhausting, repetitive and ineffective. In engaging, research-backed sessions, Morra Aarons-Mele challenges the myth that extroversion is the key to success. Drawing on two decades of interviews and data, she reveals the hidden advantages of introverted leadership, from deep listening to thoughtful decision-making, and shows how both introverts and extroverts can communicate and influence more effectively by working with, not against, their natural wiring. Audiences gain practical strategies for confident communication, smarter networking, and authentic leadership presence without faking extroversion. Leaders leave equipped to define success on their own terms and build cultures where different brains thrive.
Mental Health at Work: Real Talk Beyond Benefits and Buzzwords
Workplace mental health conversations can feel like an unending cycle. Management may be aware that stress and disengagement are rising on their teams, but unsure what will move the needle on worker performance and retention. In this candid, solutions-oriented session, Morra Aarons-Mele cuts through performative wellness language to focus on what truly helps leaders and teams operate under stress. Drawing on research and real-world organizational and behavioral expertise, she explains why traditional approaches often fall short and how real life, from domestic concerns to caregiving to health challenges, inevitably collides with work. Leaders learn practical, credible approaches to supporting performance during uncertain times without lowering production standards. Audiences exit with new, no-nonsense well-being strategies that strengthen resilience, judgment, and results across all layers of an organization.
The Anxious Achiever: Turn Your Biggest Fears into Your Leadership Superpower
(Harvard Business Review Press, 2023)
Hiding in the Bathroom: An Introvert's Roadmap to Getting Out There (When You'd Rather Stay Home)
(Dey Street Books, 2017)
The Inner Game of Leadership: Reclaiming Your Attention in Uncertain Times
Available as a 75-minute intensive, half-day, or two-day retreat
Leadership today is defined by constant change, digital overload and emotional intensity. Many leaders feel reactive, distracted, and drained as they struggle to focus on what truly matters while navigating ambiguity and pressure.
“The Inner Game of Leadership” is an experiential program designed to help leaders move from surviving chaos to leading with agency. Drawing on neuroscience, psychology and Morra Aarons-Mele’s executive education work at Harvard, this workshop focuses on the internal operating system beneath performance: attention, stress response and emotional regulation.
Participants learn to:
- Reclaim attention as a strategic leadership resource
- Recognize stress responses and build the capacity to pause before reacting
- Distinguish between productive stress and what Aarons-Mele calls “stupid stress:” the unnecessary pressure that exhausts individuals and systems
- Cultivate spaciousness and joy as performance assets
- Integrate attention and intention into daily leadership practice
When presented as a multi-day retreat, Day 1 centers on reclaiming attention and understanding how anxiety quietly drains cognitive and emotional bandwidth. Day 2 expands into intentional leadership under stress to explore how safety, clarity and emotional steadiness drive better team performance.
Leaders leave with practical tools, shared language, and concrete shifts they can implement immediately to lead and live with greater clarity, steadiness and purpose.
