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THE TOOLS

Resource Detail

The mental health challenges that come with trying to have a big impact

Podcast

80,000 Hours. Authors: Narine Esmaeili, Karolina Janik, Tim Lau, Surabi Menon, Hannah Roeyer, Megan Turnlund

PART 1: The Purposeful Investor

Your Worth And Power of the Collective

Looks at the mental health challenges faced by high-impact individuals, which can inform strategies for supporting employees or investees in high-pressure roles.

This 80,000 Hours After Hours podcast episode (Hannah Boettcher — Luisa Rodriguez et al., July 2023) is included because it directly addresses the mental-health obstacles most relevant to people trying to have large social impact—moral demandingness, perfectionism and imposter syndrome, burnout, and existential dread—and offers concrete clinical strategies (increasing psychological flexibility, workability-based decision-making, self‑compassion, exposure/experiential acceptance) for sustaining individual wellbeing while remaining effective. Those themes map onto Part 1: Our Agency and Global Urgency, chapter “Your Worth and the Power of the Collective,” by explaining how individuals can manage internal barriers to sustained contribution, balance personal wellbeing with commitments to collective impact, and design supports (for employees or investees) that preserve people’s capacity to deploy their full capital for just, sustainable outcomes.

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