What Works Tara McMullin

I’ve called myself a recovering overachiever. I’m recovering not from the drive to excel but from the anxiety inherent to wondering if anything I achieve will ever be enough. And folks, it’s a struggle. 

The philosophy Byung-Chul Han describes this anxiety as central to contemporary society. He dubs our modern age the “Achievement Society” and argues that our plethora of potential projects and opportunities work to maximize our productivity. After all, what better way to inspire people to greater efficiency than by inspiring them to tackle #AllTheThings?

This week, I talk with the host of The Anxious Achiever and author of the forthcoming book of the same name, Morra Aarons-Mele. We both the anxiety that the drive to achieve can create and how mental health conditions of all kinds impact the way we work.

Footnotes:

Pre-order The Anxious Achiever by Morra Aarons-Mele
Listen to The Anxious Achiever podcast on your favorite app
Find out more about Morra Aarons-Mele


The Burnout Society by Byung-Chul Han

Discipline and Punish by Michel Foucault
“High-Functioning Anxiety - Life Fright of the Shy Loud” presented by Jordan Raskopoulos at TEDxSydney


★ Support this podcast ★

We all have deep human needs—for belonging, for autonomy, for creative expression, for safety and security. But modern life can make it a real challenge to get those needs met in meaningful ways. Instead, we’re offered products with flashy marketing messages. Kitchen gadgets, social media platforms, clothing, personal care products, and many others offer to help us live our best lives. Financial and educational products promise a greater sense of security and autonomy. But do these commodities really satisfy our needs? Or do they merely stave off the hunger a little longer?

In this final episode of The Economics Of, I explore how various economic concepts can help us understand why we buy the things we do, how our consumption relates to larger economics forces, and how our relationships are influenced by it all. I also talk with Mara Glatzel, the author of Needy, about how to better understand our own needs and create the conditions through which we can get those needs met.

Footnotes:

Get your copy of Needy by Mara Glatzel

Learn more about Mara Glatzel

“Varieties of the Rat Race: Conspicuous Consumption in the US & Germany” by Till Van Treeck, via the Institute for New Economic Thinking
“Trickle-Down Consumption” by Marianne Bertrand and Adair Morse in The Review of Economics and Statistics

“Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844” by Karl Marx

Adam Smith’s America by Glory M. Liu

Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman
“Alienation” on Overthink with David Pena-Guzman and Ellie Anderson
More on Thorstein Veblen via Investopedia

Everything, All the Time, Everywhere by Stuart Jeffries

Liquid Love by Zygmunt Bauman

New episodes are published in essay form every Thursday at explorewhatworks.com. Get them delivered straight to your inbox, free of charge, by subscribing to What Works Weekly: explorewhatworks.com/weekly
If you’d like to learn more about how we can approach life and work differently, check out my book, What Works. I explore the history and cultural context that’s led us to this success-obsessed, productivity-oriented moment. Then I guide you through deconstructing those messages and rebuilding a structure for work-life that works.


★ Support this podcast ★

What makes an idea valuable? What turns it into a product that can be bought, sold, or rented? Ideas turn into capital assets thanks to our system of intellectual property rights. But understanding IP isn’t simply a matter of learning what a trademark or patent is, and then learning how to leverage it to create wealth. To truly understand intellectual property, we need to under property—what it is and why it exists—first.

In this episode, I explore the origins of our conception of private property, why we’ve coded intellectual property rights into law, and how one business owner—Jenny Blake—licenses her IP to companies to generate (relatively) passive income. 

Footnotes:

Jenny Blake’s Free Time
Jenny Blake’s Pivot Method

Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber

The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow
“Coding Land and Ideas | The Laws of Capitalism” featuring Katharina Pistor via the Institute for New Economic Thinking
“Enclosure” on Wikipedia
“Legal Evil” featuring Katharina Pistor via the Institute for New Economic Thinking
“How to Unf★ck Intellectual Property” featuring Dean Baker via the Institute for New Economic Thinking

Rentier Capitalism: Who Owns the Economy and Who Pays for It? by Brett Christophers

Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher

New episodes are published in essay form every Thursday at explorewhatworks.com. Get them delivered straight to your inbox, free of charge, by subscribing to What Works Weekly: explorewhatworks.com/weekly
If you’d like to learn more about how we can approach life and work differently, check out my book, What Works. I explore the history and cultural context that’s led us to this success-obsessed, productivity-oriented moment. Then I guide you through deconstructing those messages and rebuilding a structure for work-life that works.


★ Support this podcast ★

This is Part 2 of The Economics of Getting (and Paying) Attention. If you haven’t listened to Part 1, I highly recommend starting there!

In today’s episode, I explore the “right to publicity” and the value of celebrity as an economic condition. From there, we get into how audience-building businesses gain efficiency by vertically integrating media, ads, and offers and how micro-media creators often leverage monopoly power to charge exorbitant prices.
Footnotes:

“New wellness price point just dropped” Conspiratuality Instagram post

The World After Capital by Albert Wenger (available free)
“The Audience Commodity and its Work” by Dallas Smythe
“From Celebrity to Influencer” by Alison Hearn and Stephanie Schoenhoff
Good Mythical Morning on YouTube
Sporked
“How Audience-Building is Different from Finding Clients” by Tara McMullin
Vertical integration

New episodes are published in essay form every Thursday at explorewhatworks.com. Get them delivered straight to your inbox, free of charge, by subscribing to What Works Weekly: explorewhatworks.com/weekly
If you’d like to learn more about how we can approach life and work differently, check out my book, What Works. I explore the history and cultural context that’s led us to this success-obsessed, productivity-oriented moment. Then I guide you through deconstructing those messages and then rebuilding a structure for work-life that works.


★ Support this podcast ★

How comfortable are you with your own voice? How likely are you to say what's on your mind?
Samara Bay, the author of the brand-new book Permission to Speak, is on a mission to change what power sounds like. I found Samara because one of my favorite podcasters was on Samara's show. I then binged her back catalog and started recommending her show to everyone I worked with. One of those folks then turned around and told Samara I had shouted her out! We've been fangirling together ever since.
I first had Samara on the podcast during the Self-Help, LLC series (Episode 397: Bad Usage). But her book has just hit the shelves so I took that as an excuse to schedule another chat and bring it to you as a bonus "mini" episode. Enjoy!
Footnotes:


Buy Permission to Speak at Bookshop.org (or wherever you buy books!)
Find out more about Samara
Follow Samara on Instagram
YellowHouse.Media


★ Support this podcast ★

How does the principle of supply and demand influence what we pay attention to? (And who pays attention to us?)