{"product_id":"tryhard-a-cautionary-tale-of-clocking-in-and-spinning-out","title":"Tryhard: A Cautionary Tale of Clocking in and Spinning Out","description":"\n\u003ctable align=\"center\" border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"2\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\"\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd class=\"productDetailSmallElements\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eReview Quotes\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Funny, brutally honest and compulsively readable... I read Mayer's memoir almost without stopping, finishing it in a single weekend... Mayer's willingness to be vulnerable is her great superpower, an engine that propels both the podcast and her memoir with tremendous momentum. And, on top of that, she's funny.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBookPage (STARRED review)\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"[A] poignant debut memoir... Frank, funny... this catalog of compulsive perfectionism leaves a mark.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"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.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"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.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eCat Marnell, New York Times bestselling author of How to Murder Your Life\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"In \u003ci\u003eTryhard, \u003c\/i\u003eLaura Mayer has accomplished the rare feat of writing a memoir that is at once smart, insightful, hilarious, helpful, and fascinating. \u003ci\u003eTryhard \u003c\/i\u003eis 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.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eChristie Tate, New York Times bestselling author of Group and BFF\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"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.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eLeigh Stein, bestselling author of Self Care\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Laura Mayer's \u003ci\u003eTryhard\u003c\/i\u003e 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, \u003ci\u003eTryhard\u003c\/i\u003e 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.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eHeather Radke, author of Butts: A Backstory\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublisher Marketing\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"Funny, brutally honest and compulsively readable.\" -- BookPage, STARRED review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"An insightful, funny, and refreshingly personal journey into workaholism and the pathological Type A mind.\" -- Cat Marnell, \u003ci\u003eNew York Times \u003c\/i\u003ebestselling author of \u003ci\u003eHow to Murder Your Life\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA 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.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLaura 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSome thirty years later, from a dizzying perch on that very ladder--as Executive Producer of Podcasts at ABC News, with such blockbuster shows as \u003ci\u003eRevisionist History, Bad Blood, \u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eHappier with Gretchen Rubin\u003c\/i\u003e 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eTryhard \u003c\/i\u003eis 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eReview Citations:\u003c\/strong\u003e\n\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"italic\"\u003eBooklist\u003c\/span\u003e 06\/01\/2026 (EAN 9780063380509, Hardcover)\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"italic\"\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/span\u003e 06\/29\/2026 (EAN 9780063380509, Hardcover)\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eContributor Bio:\u003c\/strong\u003eMayer, Laura\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eLaura Mayer\u003c\/b\u003e 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 \n\u003ci\u003eThe Dream\u003c\/i\u003e. She also wrote and hosted her own podcast, \n\u003ci\u003eShameless Acquisition Target, \u003c\/i\u003e which inspired this book. \n\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003c\/table\u003e\n","brand":"HarperOne","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51496108654870,"sku":"9780063380509","price":33.59,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0857\/9910\/8886\/files\/9780063380509.jpg?v=1783053315","url":"https:\/\/lusper.myshopify.com\/products\/tryhard-a-cautionary-tale-of-clocking-in-and-spinning-out","provider":"Lusperbooks","version":"1.0","type":"link"}