‘Insecure overachiever’ puts mental health first

Imagine achieving your goal: a consulting job that leads to an executive role at a major corporation with the compensation, credentials and accolades that come with success in a fast-paced career.

For Michael Stutts ’02 — a self-described “insecure overachiever” — pressure and paranoia accompanied his success as a management consultant and C-suite executive, leaving him burned out and mentally unhealthy. After he contemplated suicide, he checked into a psychiatric hospital.

Stutts shares his journey in “There’s No Room Service at the Psych Ward: From Boardroom to Breakdown and Back” (Ballast Books, LLC, 2023) with frank honesty and wry humor.

“There’s nothing fascinating about me, which is why it’s so relevant that we talk about mental health,” says Stutts, who recently returned to North Carolina as chief brand officer of Dollar Shave Club, with headquarters in Durham. “The same way you don’t exercise and eat fatty foods and have a heart attack, you can ignore signals about your mental health and have a ‘brain attack.’ And I had a brain attack.”

In his childhood, Stutts said he pushed his anxiety “down to the bottom drawer,” a practice he continued into adulthood. He was able to do well in school, and in 1998, he continued a family tradition of studying business at UNC-Chapel Hill like his father and grandfather.

After graduating, he went into banking in Atlanta. It was a tough market right after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, but he landed a role with SunTrust Banks. After four years at SunTrust, Stutts returned to school, earning his MBA at Northwestern University.

“I was going to be a banker like my dad and granddad, but I discovered I was my own person,” says Stutts. “I have a side of my brain that they didn’t have or pursue, and it’s more of a creative side than a quantitative one, so I pursued management consulting.”

Stutts joined the Boston Consulting Group in Dallas and worked there for 10 years, going from intern to managing director and partner. About this time his mental health began to noticeably decline, and he had that “brain attack.” He left BCG and served as head of technology at Bloomin’ Brands, owners of Outback Steakhouse, in Tampa, Florida.

But Stutts continued to notice red flags about his mental health and grew more paranoid. His life began to unravel.

“I focused only on driving hard to get promoted, get praised,” he says. “I was living a frankly miserable life, and the way I soothed the misery was through generally bad behavior — alcohol, partying, living outside my own set of values. I made a lot of mistakes.”

When Stutts contemplated suicide, his mother and sister stepped in. He spent 39 days in a mental institution.

“The best way to describe it is scary, safe and hopeful,” he says. “It’s scary because you lose control of your life. It’s safe because you are safe from yourself and from others and from the outside world. It’s hopeful because you’re doing a lot of great work on yourself.”

Today Stutts is a passionate advocate for addressing mental health in the workplace and life and hopes his book will help others learn from his mistakes.

The message he wants to get out to others is simple:

1. Talk to yourself like you would a friend, especially when you’re facing a difficult time.
2. Remember, for better or worse, no one is thinking about you as much as you’re thinking about yourself — shame and guilt are (mostly) self-imposed emotions
3. When stressed or anxious about a specific event, fast forward to your deathbed: Is this something you’re going to be thinking about in that moment?

Read more about Michael Stutts.