"An insightful, funny, and refreshingly personal journey into workaholism and the pathological Type A mind." -- Cat Marnell, New York Times bestselling author of How to Murder Your Life
A superstar podcast producer delivers a unique, laugh-out-loud, cry quietly invitation to examine our delusional obsessions with work in this eye-opening book--part memoir, part mentoring, part confessional guide--that dissects the emotional ties that bind us . . . to our desks.
For any type-A, high achiever out there, this is the book that sees you. And provides a cathartic, funny, emotionally charged insight into what drives the perfection-oriented.
Laura Mayer was born a girlboss. As a child in suburban Illinois, she played "V.P. of Sales" in her bedroom, dictating important memos to her twin brother and swapping Judy Blume for the buzzy business books of the day. While other kids dreamed of being pop stars or pro athletes, little Laura had a single-minded focus: the corporate ladder.
Some thirty years later, from a dizzying perch on that very ladder--as Executive Producer of Podcasts at ABC News, with such blockbuster shows as Revisionist History, Bad Blood, and Happier with Gretchen Rubin to her credit--and with an identity shaped by annual reviews, performance indicators, and "executive presence" (whatever that means) a disillusioned Laura is calling "bullshit" on the whole work-is-life thing. Sort of.
Tryhard is a gonzo memoir for 9-to-5 devotees who have read every business book and C-suite-or-bust instruction manual yet still find we're burnt out and unhappy. It is also a deeply personal and poignant examination of why we race at all. Laura detangles this delusional mess of priorities we've created, rejects the "boss-at-any-cost" culture, and invites us to laugh at ourselves (and her) along the way. She offers the modern office worker a new path forward through her own revelations, and implores us, for the love of God, to chill out a little bit.
This is Laura's messy, somewhat enlightened, possibly transformative, heart-wrenching and always entertaining story--a one-of-a-kind sightseeing trip on the Great American hamster wheel.
About the Author :
Laura Mayer is Head of Podcasts at Talkhouse. She worked as the Executive Producer of Podcast Programming at ABC News while she wrote this book. She has worked in "Big Podcasting" for as long as anyone can work in "Big Podcasting." Laura has developed more than one-hundred podcasts throughout her career. She executive produced ABC News's wildly-popular slate of true crime shows. She co-created and launched The Dream. She also wrote and hosted her own podcast, Shameless Acquisition Target, which inspired this book.
Review :
"An insightful, funny, and refreshingly personal journey into workaholism and the pathological Type A mind... As an ambitious and full-throttle control freak myself, I felt seen reading it." - Cat Marnell, New York Times bestselling author of How to Murder Your Life
"Podcast guru Mayer offers a unique perspective on the world of work and her personal tumble through it... This book will appeal to those who want an uncommon take on the nine-to-five grind." - Booklist
"In Tryhard, Laura Mayer has accomplished the rare feat of writing a memoir that is at once smart, insightful, hilarious, helpful, and fascinating. Tryhard is a gripping exploration of how workaholism allowed Mayer to survive the effects of her mother's alcoholism but eventually ravaged her sanity, peace of mind, and health. This book is for all of us who've leaned hard into the extremities of over-functioning and perfection only to find that the harder work is actually letting go, setting limits, and working (gasp!) less." - Christie Tate, New York Times bestselling author of Group and BFF
"For any woman who has ever broken out in facial hives due to a work-related incident (couldn't be me) or tried to remedy the chaos in her life by grinding harder, this is an absurdly funny and deeply relatable memoir about compulsive striving. I absolutely tore through this." - Leigh Stein, bestselling author of Self Care
"Laura Mayer's Tryhard is a hilarious and unsparing portrait of millennial striving in the boom-and-bust world of 2010s podcasting. With humor and candor, Mayer traces a childhood shaped by family alcoholism and an adulthood defined by a relentless work ethic, resisting the temptation to smooth either into tidy stories of redemption. In the chatty voice of a friend sharing wisdom over coffee, Tryhard offers hard-won perspective on the limits of ambition, the long echo of addiction, and what it might actually take to make a life feel full." - Heather Radke, author of Butts: A Backstory
