The Anxious Achiever

11 Social Anxiety

Arvind Rajan was unpacking in his Phoenix hotel room. The technology CEO had just flown cross-country to mix and mingle with peers at a weekend-long industry conference. But as he got ready for the opening cocktail mixer, anxiety gripped him. He made it to the event, but quickly became overwhelmed and left after ten minutes. Rajan simply couldn’t face the prospect of making small talk with all those people for two days. So he repacked his suitcase, sprinted to the airport, and flew home to Washington, DC. He was too ashamed to bill the trip to his company, so he paid the expenses out of pocket.

Years later, Rajan was able to laugh about this incident, but his fear of meeting and mingling with people he didn’t know was no ...