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Work Addiction Looks Like Success—Until It Costs You Who You Are

Work addiction doesn’t arrive as a crisis.
It builds through competence, trust, and responsibility.

It receives praise. You are rewarded for it.

You deliver more.
You take on more.
More people rely on you.

Over time, the work expands to fill more of your life. The trade happens in small increments. Stepping away starts to feel unavailable, not because something is wrong, but because too much depends on you. Gradually, who you are becomes defined by who you are at work. And your personal life is in the way of you working more.

In this episode of The Business Growth Architect Show: Founders of the Future, Beate Chelette speaks with Traci DeForge about work addiction as a leadership pattern that develops in plain sight and how to break that cycle.

By 30, Traci was running a rapidly expanding radio operation in a male-dominated industry. She was effective, visible, and carrying increasing responsibility. She was also questioned about how she got there—who she slept with, or whether her father owned the station—pressure that shaped how much she carried and how difficult it became to step back.

Nothing looked broken.
Until it was.

This conversation stays centered on founder awareness.
How responsibility accumulates.
How separation erodes.
How optionality disappears without announcement.
How identity becomes inseparable from performance.

This episode is about what happens when you are the victim of your own success because it removes your ability to step away from it.

Today, Traci DeForge helps leaders find and trust their voice through podcasting. Drawing on decades in high-pressure media and leadership roles, she supports founders and executives in translating lived experience into meaningful conversations that reflect both their work and who they are.

Follow Traci and learn more about her work:

• Website: https://produceyourpodcast.com
• LinkedIn: Traci DeForge

#Founders #Leadership #WorkAddiction #Responsibility
#FounderAwareness #BuildToLast #HumanCenteredLeadership

Other Resources Mentioned:

Instagram | Facebook | YouTube

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Does it always have to come to a full rock-bottom burnout before our purpose can emerge? This episode matters now because a new generation of founders is pushing back against hustle culture while still wanting meaningful work, financial success, and a life they actually enjoy. If you feel the pull between your ambition and the reality of wanting a balanced life, this conversation offers insight into how purpose is found and how you might side step the mess all together.

In this episode, I speak with Dylan Clayton Bost. He had it all:

The business is established.
The lifestyle reflects achievement.
The pace keeps accelerating.

Dylan built a successful agency and lived the version of success he believed he was working toward. He did what he was told. Prove your value with work. Over time, the pressure and responsibility required to sustain it led to burnout and disorientation, forcing him to burn it all down and redesign what kind of future he wanted to live. For himself and his family. Balance, quality of life, the whole nine yards.

This conversation follows Dylan through that turning point and into the work of finding purpose. He shares how questioning his assumptions about success, work, and identity opened space to design a life and business that felt aligned rather than performative. Purpose emerged through experience, through boundaries, and through deciding what was no longer worth sacrificing.

We talk about whether burnout has to be the doorway. Whether purpose can be found earlier. And what founders can notice before exhaustion becomes the signal. Dylan reflects on what he wishes he had seen sooner and how stepping away from hustle-driven definitions of success changed how he built, chose, and lived.

If this conversation resonates, share it with someone who’s questioning the pace they’re running at—or let me know what it stirred for you.

🎧 Listen to the full episode and reflect on what you’re building—and whether it still fits.

Resources Mentioned:

Website | Website | Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn | Podcast

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Rock bottom is dramatic. It’s embarrassing, disorienting, and painful. For many founders, it becomes the origin story they try to hide while pushing themselves to move forward.

In this episode of The Business Growth Architect Show: Founders of the Future, Beate Chelette speaks with Jason Clark about intentional suffering, the law of polarity, and why business growth moves in cycles.

At 26, Jason was homeless, divorced, coming off heavy psychedelic use, living in a tent in Alaska, and experiencing panic attacks. That period reshaped how he relates to responsibility, discipline, and choice under pressure.

Jason explains how this internal shift informed the way he built his company—how he approached money, clients, decision-making, and leadership. Over time, these choices supported the growth of a multimillion-dollar business and a successful merger that expanded capacity, stability, and opportunity.

This conversation stays centered on founder awareness. How leaders experience uncertainty. How they prepare during expansion. How they relate to contraction without personalizing it. And how understanding polarity changes what gets built and sustained.

Listen and notice where you are in the cycle.

Resources Mentioned:

Website | LinkedIn

_____________________
We appreciate you, thank you for listening. Let us know in the comments what resonated in this episode, we want to hear from you.

Leave a comment, like, share with one person who needs to hear the message our guest shared.

Take our QUIZ and find out what your talent is worth in this market: What's Your Talent Worth (http://WhatsYourTalentWorth.com)

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