Ep.32 – Sarah Green Carmichael – How to Tame Your Inner Workaholism

Podcast

Jun 9

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Do you have a tendency toward workaholism - a compulsion to work excessively hard and long hours?

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What if you had a heart attack, but instead of calling your spouse or partner to get medical attention, your first thought was, "I need to meet with my manager tomorrow; this isn't convenient?"

This is precisely what Jonathan Frostick, an IT lead at HSBC, experienced and explained in a LinkedIn post that went viral. A post that caught the eye of Sarah Green Carmichael, an editor with Bloomberg, and she needed to know more about why someone would think about a meeting before calling for medical help.

Sarah talks us through the process that led her to research and writing multiple articles about workaholism. A critical takeaway from Sarah's work is that workaholics often pin the blame anywhere but on themselves. Instead, it's your overbearing boss, an always-on company culture, or rising economic inequality. However, we have the power to control what we do, the ability to "reframe" our experience to choose what is best for us.

Sarah found in her research that simply working 50 plus hours a week does not classify someone as a workaholic. However, as with so many aspects of life, there is a mental health connection to how we feel about working that can characterize us as a workaholic.

During our conversation, Sarah shares tactics on reducing workaholism from learning how to embrace trade-offs to developing other identities outside of our work/careers.

Please enjoy my conversation with Sarah Green Carmichael.