Confessions of a Recovering Work Addict

**Jessica Mendoza** (0:07)
Everyone wants to do a good job at work, to get promoted, to get a raise. But can you try too hard?

**Laura Mayer** (0:15)
A tryhard in popular culture, I think is someone who is just really out there doing stuff on behalf of themselves in order to get picked for something. Like a pick me.

**Jessica Mendoza** (0:26)
Like a pick me, yeah, mm-hmm.

**Laura Mayer** (0:27)
Exactly.

**Jessica Mendoza** (0:29)
Laura Mayer is the author of a new memoir called Tryhard, A Cautionary Tale of Clocking In and Spinning Out.

**Laura Mayer** (0:36)
I think that being a tryhard is unfortunately something that goes beyond just work. It's less about the advancement, and it's more about being addicted to the process of showing up.
It's really not being able to let anything rest. It's like perfectionism, but it's perfectionism in the extreme, maybe? And it's way exhausting.

**Jessica Mendoza** (1:05)
Exhausting and kind of cringe. Like, why can't these people just chill out?

**Laura Mayer** (1:10)
And the fact is, trying to do anything without it looking effortless is embarrassing because showing that effort is kind of going against all of the popular understandings of, at least in America, of how we are supposed to succeed, minus the rise and grind aspect, which is a whole separate side of things.

**Jessica Mendoza** (1:34)
But also, it's not necessarily a bad thing.

**Laura Mayer** (1:37)
I don't think so.
I'm proud to be a Tryhard. I'm trying to raise my kid to be a Tryhard. I made a sign that says the most important thing to do is try.

**Jessica Mendoza** (1:45)
Forget Yoda. Don't listen to Yoda.

**Laura Mayer** (1:47)
Wait, is that a Yoda quote?

**Jessica Mendoza** (1:48)
Well, no, he says, do or do not, there is no try.

**Laura Mayer** (1:51)
Oh, my good. He's wrong. He's wrong. Yeah.
I'm going to start. I need to get George Lucas in on this. The most important thing is to try. Let's rebrand.

**Jessica Mendoza** (2:02)
It's time for a rebrand. Yeah, exactly. Today, Laura and I talk about loving work so much that it became an addiction, one that catapulted her into executive roles at major companies, but also led to panic attacks, crying in meetings, and the sense that being a tryhard comes with a cost.
From The Journal, this is Work Mode, a special series airing on Sundays, where we take a look at how work is changing. I'm Jessica Mendoza. Let's get to work.

**SPEAKER_3** (2:48)
This episode of The Journal is brought to you by Harvey, an AI platform designed for legal and professional services. Built and tested by lawyers, Harvey is trusted by more than 60% of the AmLaw 100 The platform dramatically reduces time spent on research, drafting and document review without sacrificing quality, all while meeting the highest industry standards for security and compliance. Harvey, AI, tailored for law.
Visit harvey.ai to learn more and request a demo.

**Jessica Mendoza** (3:29)
For a podcasting nerd like me, Laura Mayer's resume is it. She's launched over 100 podcasts, including chart-topping ones that I listen to, like Revisionist History and The Dream. She's held executive jobs at big companies like ABC News and startups like Panoply Media.
But way before Laura became a podcast big shot in New York City, she was a kid growing up in a small town in Illinois. And it was in those days, as a child, that she held what she considered her first job, managing her mother as she struggled with alcoholism.

**Laura Mayer** (4:05)
My mom was and to a certain extent continues to be the central figure in my life. And so for me, as a kid, so much of my life was focused on tracking my mom, what she was drinking, taking the temperature of the room emotionally and otherwise depending on what that consumption was. And what I would do is I started making these charts that were slightly based on like the Saffir-Simpson scale, which has to do with hurricane intensity, of especially like during periods of time when I wasn't in school, like breaks, weekends, I would decide at the end of the day, okay, so my mom seemed to have be at like a one, meaning maybe she hadn't been drinking that much or hadn't drank at all, was a zero, all the way up to like a five, which would have been very destructive.
But that chart was like really away from me to make something that was totally not concrete or controllable feel like it was in my hands. But then also at the end of the day, documenting. Like I needed to leave a paper trail, I needed to make sure that my books were in order. So that was that particular job.