Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Israa Nasir on How to Break Free From Toxic Productivity | EP 533

Starting point is 00:00:00 Coming up next on Passion Strike. Some entrepreneurs will just chase the outcome. Oh, I just want to like exit at X million dollars or whatever, but there's no like alignment with value. That happens at the micro level in our daily lives as well. We start creating these goals that are like not necessarily connected to our value system. They're not really even connected to our lifestyle,

Starting point is 00:00:23 but we're just like, okay, I have to do this. I need to do this. Other people are doing it. I'm going to look bad if I don't do it. I'm going to left behind if I don't do it. Welcome to Passion Struck. Hi, I'm your host, John R. Miles. And on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long-form interviews the rest of the week with guests ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes.

Starting point is 00:01:10 Now, let's go out there and become Passion Struck. Hey, Passion Struck fam, welcome back to episode 533 of the Passion Struck podcast. As always, I'm incredibly grateful for the energy, passion, and dedication you bring to this community. You're here because you wanna live a more intentional intentional life and week after week you show up ready to take those steps forward. That's what makes the PassionStruck community so powerful, your commitment to personal growth and transformation. For anyone tuning in for the first time, welcome to the PassionStruck

Starting point is 00:01:38 family. You've just joined an amazing group of individuals all striving to ignite their purpose and live boldly with intention. Whether it's your first time or your 533rd, I'm so excited to have you with us on this journey of living more intentionally. Before we dive in to today's episode, I want to take a moment to reflect on the incredible conversation that I had earlier this week with Dr. Lisa Miller. We explored the profound connection between spirituality and mental health and how awakening your spiritual brain can lead to a more inspired and fulfilling life. If you missed that episode, I highly recommend you go back and give it a listen.

Starting point is 00:02:13 Now for those who are ready to go even deeper into the insights that we explore on this show, don't forget to sign up for my Live Intentionally newsletter. Every week I send out exclusive content, exercises, challenges, and practical tools to help you apply the lessons we discuss directly to your life. You can sign up at passionstruck.com. Let's continue to live with more purpose and make those small meaningful changes that lead to massive transformation. And for those of you wondering where to start with our 530 plus episodes, we've made it super easy for you. We've curated special episode starter packs based on themes like leadership, mental health,

Starting point is 00:02:46 women at the top of their game, personal growth, and so many more. You can find them on Spotify or head over to passionstruck.com slash starter packs to dive into topics that resonate most with you. And for those of you who want to watch these interviews instead of listening to them, you can go to our YouTube channel at John R. Miles or our clips channel at Passionstruck Clips. Go, subscribe and join over a quarter million other subscribers. Now let's jump in to today's episode. I am honored to welcome a truly inspiring guest, Isra Nasir to the show. Isra is a New York City based psychotherapist, writer and founder of Well Guide, a groundbreaking digital community that

Starting point is 00:03:22 focuses on mental health awareness and empowerment, especially for first and second generation immigrants in the AAPI community. Her work has made waves across major media platforms like NBC, Vox, HuffPost, and Teen Vogue, and she's been a powerful voice at global organizations like Google Meta and Yale University. In her new book, Toxic Productivity, Reclaim Your Time and Emotional Energy in a World that Always Demands More, Isra tackles one of the most pervasive issues of our time. Hustle culture and the societal expectation that our work is directly tied to how much we accomplish or how busy we are. She exposes the dangerous belief that more is always better and calls for

Starting point is 00:04:00 a radical reimagining of what success, balance, and fulfillment really means. In today's conversation, Isra and I will be diving into some game-changing ideas that will completely reshape the way you think about productivity and self-worth. You'll learn how to recognize the subtle, yet powerful ways toxic productivity shows up in your life. How to break free from the myth that your value comes from constant activity and external markers of success. How to reframe productivity in a way that puts your mental and emotional well-being first and understand the role of perfectionism, social comparison, and urgency play in keeping you trapped in a cycle of never enough. Ysra will also share practical exercises that you can start using today to challenge these

Starting point is 00:04:40 deeply ingrained patterns, as well as transformative stories from her clients that illustrate how shifting from toxic productivity to healthy productivity can lead to lasting fulfillment. If you've ever felt overwhelmed, burnt out, or trapped in the pressure to do more, be more, or achieve more, this conversation is for you. Thank you for choosing Passionstruck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to creating an intentional life now. Let that journey begin. I am so excited today to welcome Isra Nasir to Passion Struck. Welcome, Isra.

Starting point is 00:05:16 Hi, John. It's really nice to be here. Well, it's such a wonderful pleasure to have you as well. And today we're going to be discussing your brand new book, Toxic Productivity. Congratulations on that. Thank you. It's been a whirlwind of a journey and I've learned so much about myself

Starting point is 00:05:34 in the writing process. I absolutely can relate to that. I put a book out to February of this year and it certainly is a process. And I never realized how big an ordeal the marketing was until I got full stream into it. So completely relate with where you are and what you're feeling. Before we go into the book, I wanted to start out with a couple of general questions so the audience can learn more about you. Sure.

Starting point is 00:06:01 Sure. The first question I want to ask is, there are defining or pivotal moment in your life that set you on the path to becoming a psychotherapist and an advocate for mental health? So I was actually studying environmental studies in undergrad and I wanted to go into conservation marine sciences. And one of the courses we had to take in second year was human behavior and environmentalism. So essentially that stream is about how can we get people to behave a certain way that is more environmentally friendly. But that was like really my foray into psychology. And I think I became so interested in human behavior and why we do the things that we

Starting point is 00:06:45 do that by my third year, I decided that I was going to do a double major in psych and environmental studies, hoping to marry the two. But the more I studied abnormal psychology and cognitive psychology and neuroscience and brain health and all that stuff, I just became more and more interested in putting my effort and energy and service towards supporting people. And that's really how I got into psychology. It's interesting.

Starting point is 00:07:12 The solo episode I'm doing later this week is on Julia butterfly Hill. I'm not sure if you know her by name, but you might remember a number of years ago. She was the girl who decided to protect the Redwoods. And so climbed into a tree that she named Luna and ended up living in that tree for 738 days as an act of environmental activism. Just stop the logging company from cutting down not only that tree, but some of the ancient Redwoods that are there. from cutting down not only that tree, but some of the ancient redwoods that are there. And I'm not sure if you remember that story or have ever heard about it before,

Starting point is 00:07:49 but it really shows this whole idea of the power that one person can have. But how do you think to your environmentalism, things like that are so uncommon. I mean, so often we see things where we're destroying the environment and we just walk by, we don't take action, which is why I highlighted her in this podcast

Starting point is 00:08:11 because she had the conviction at a young age of 23 to do something about it without a script, without an organization behind her, really nothing. I think there's a couple of factors. One is when it comes to an issue as broad as environmentalism, I think a lot of us feel like this is somebody else's problem to solve, or we alone do not have the resources to solve for something like this. It just feels like too much of a big problem.

Starting point is 00:08:40 I think we can get caught in the idea that my impact is not going to be big enough or large enough. So it's not going to make a difference. And I think to some degree like that might be true around things like recycling and carbon emissions. I think corporations have a bigger impact than the individual person. So that's one thing. I think another thing is we are not immediately impacted by the environmental impact. So it feels far away. There's a little bit of a cognitive dissonance. And I think that it can feel very overwhelming to try to live and do the things to stay alive, while at the same time, doing something bigger than you. Really is an interesting concept. And later today, I'm interviewing Glenn Phillips, who listeners may know he's the former, I guess he is currently the lead singer of Toad the Wet Sprocket, but a singer himself.

Starting point is 00:09:37 And he talks about how he's doing these activities now where he's leading groups that are doing chanting and singing and he's not really making any money from it but he's helping a community through acts of service and I think sometimes what you're describing it's hard when you've got these environmental issues here that you want to double down in yet you can't connect your livelihood to saving the environment as you were speaking. How do you think someone could possibly close that gap so that they're actually doing something that they love and something that they're passionate about helping?

Starting point is 00:10:15 It doesn't have to be the environment. It could be any type of service that you want to provide. I think that one of the things that gets in the way of doing that is when we try to monetize our passions. Some things are meant to be non-monetary. And so what I would say to somebody who is feeling a little disconnected is try to see in your local neighborhood, like your local area, if there is a way that you can find some method of acts of service, because trying to change the world is a really big ask, but you can try to change your, you can make a small change in your immediate surrounding. So I think it's okay to have

Starting point is 00:10:58 livelihood that doesn't include your passion or a service, but try to build that into your life in some way so that you can still get that feeling. And research has shown that when we engage in acts of service, when we engage in volunteering or giving back in kind, not just monetarily, it has a very strong impact on our resilience, our hopefulness, optimism, and also physiologically, it helps release stress.

Starting point is 00:11:30 Well, thank you for sharing that, Isra. And I wanted to go into a little bit of your background, especially your family background, before we go into the book, because I think in many ways, our belief systems and how we grow up directly influences things like toxic productivity. So you have a background as a Pakistani Canadian immigrant. How did your family's belief system work? How did they view success? And how did the identities that they might have formed on you influence your early views

Starting point is 00:12:10 on productivity and your own self-worth? My family's culture around success is very like hard work driven. So there's a lot of foundational ideas about the importance of hard work, doing things yourself, right? Like being very self-sufficient, thinking about how can you achieve the most that you can within your limitations, constraints, circumstances, whatever it is.

Starting point is 00:12:41 There was never a pressure on a specific career specifically or an industry to follow, but there was a lot of talk about doing the best, being like more than average. I think that was like a really big part of the way my family's culture operates. And you start the book out, Toxic Productivity productivity about describing how your identity had once become tied to your productivity. You were constantly doing more, but still feeling unfulfilled, which is something I'm sure a lot of the listeners and viewers know quite well. What was the turning point for you?

Starting point is 00:13:19 When did you first realize that this way of living wasn't sustainable? The turning point for me was around five years ago or something like that, five years ago. I think given the culture that I grew up in, like my family's culture about like hard work and work ethic and doing the best and doing the most and trying to take every opportunity that comes your way, like that kind of stuff, I think it had created this idea that I have to be doing a lot of things at the same time, and that I have to be excelling at all of them, and I have to be exceptional in all of them, and all of that. And so it was like around a couple of years ago when I started realizing that I had a lot of the things that I was working towards in my twenties, right? So I'd achieve the things that I had put my mind towards

Starting point is 00:14:09 and I had ticked off a lot of the check boxes, but the feelings of something being missing, something not being right, like something feeling really off, like those feelings were still there. So I think it was like one of the first times where I was like, wait, I've done everything that I thought I was supposed to, or I wanted to, or the things that I thought that would get me to a certain place. So I felt like I had done all of that, but suddenly it still didn't feel,

Starting point is 00:14:41 like I didn't get a new feeling. The feeling was so old of, oh, like, maybe you could do this. Maybe you have to try that. And I started feeling really disconnected. I think that's a really big red flag that something is off. When you start feeling disconnected from your life, you become a little disengaged. I think a lot of people experience that as boredom.

Starting point is 00:15:01 Right? So like you're bored at work, you're bored at home, like you're doing all the things like you're bored at work, you're bored at home, like you're doing all the things, you're going to parties, but you just feel like under fulfilled, a little bored. And that was like a really big sign for me where I had to think about what needs to change in my life so that I can start feeling a little better. So one of the reasons I really wanted to have you on the podcast is I mentioned to you that I had written a book myself and I really start out my introduction talking about this concept of quiet desperation that Henry David Thoreau coined,

Starting point is 00:15:35 which to me relates to this toxic productivity that a lot of people feel. Have you ever equated those two together? Have you ever equated those two together? I mean, I think that you definitely can have a little bit of desperation or just like quietly. What I understand that to mean is you're just going through the motions, but you're not really like actively engaged in your life. There's like a desire for something different or more to feel something different, but you don't really know how to get there. So you're just doing the thing that you know how to do, which is to keep moving. And I think there is some validity in like moving, right? Like you don't want to stay stuck. But I think when we define ourselves through this movement is when we can have a little bit of a problem.

Starting point is 00:16:21 through this movement is when we can have a little bit of a problem. He's really talking about we define our success and fulfillment and we base it on the wrong things. We base it on things that externally the world socially throws at us like our titles, the awards we win, those things, instead of really our inner passions, our inner resolve. And at least for me, when I was earlier in my career,

Starting point is 00:16:51 I had a ton of success, but I was striving to be productive and to do as many things as I could to grasp those external rewards, which ended up bringing me nothing but despair in the end. But maybe it's good to take a step back and perhaps to have you explain what toxic productivity is and for a listener or viewer how it manifests in their everyday lives. Toxic productivity is when our relationship to the things that we do and the outcomes that we're pursuing becomes extremely unhealthy. So essentially, three things happen and they don't there's not a particular order to it.

Starting point is 00:17:37 And you can have one without the other. But there are these like three hallmarks, if you will, which is you are singularly focused on outcomes that are somewhat arbitrary, like you've inherited this checklist or you think that you have to do something by a certain timeline. So there's this like outcome that you're singularly focused on. And when you get singularly focused on it,

Starting point is 00:17:59 the other thing that happens is that everything else becomes secondary. So your wellness, your relationships, your financial health, your friendships, like all of these things become secondary. Your joy, doing things for fun, like all of that becomes secondary to this goal that you are pursuing. And you are like pursuing for the sake of pursuing. So you're like an autopilot, you're just doing, you're doing, you set these goals, but you're not really thinking about why.

Starting point is 00:18:29 And finally, the third thing is that you, how you feel about yourself and how you view yourself in relation to others becomes completely dependent on the outcomes. So whether you feel like a valued member of community, whether you feel like a valued member in your family, all of that becomes contingent on this outcome that you are pursuing. So more often than not, and maybe this is relevant to the despair thing that you were just mentioning, is that more often than not, we start feeling really bad about

Starting point is 00:19:04 ourselves, even though we are achieving. So that's what I was sharing in my story, is I was doing all the things, but I was feeling bad about myself. I was not feeling good. I did not feel like I was achieving. And one of the things that you talk about

Starting point is 00:19:20 in the first chapter of your book is hyper optimization, the need to maximize every waking hour. Why do you think society glorifies this hyper optimization or we could call it busyness? And what are the deeper emotional or psychological forces that you think are driving this need to always do more? Hyperoptimization, I think, is just one of the biggest... It's like one of the hardest things to conceptualize because right now we can really optimize every minute of our day. We can biohack, right?

Starting point is 00:20:00 And we can measure everything in our bodies and how much we're eating. We can really measure, track everything. biohack, right? And we can measure everything in our bodies and how much we're eating. We can really measure, track everything. But I think this idea of social comparison with status markers has always been around. And social comparison is like an evolutionary mechanism, right? So it's supposed to keep you safe by making sure that you belong with the rest of your community So you're not standing out and what's happened is our technology has changed so fast That our mind has not caught up to how fast and how much we are comparing ourselves

Starting point is 00:20:37 so hyper optimization is really just a way to make sure that you are meeting this standard of to make sure that you are meeting this standard of optimizing your time, resources, energy, body, food, wellness, relationships, all of that stuff. And you have this yardstick that you're measuring yourself against. And so that I think is a really unhealthy way of trying to improve and engage in personal growth. And both for being hyper optimized and being extremely busy, right, chronic busyness, both of those things signal to other people that you are very valued,

Starting point is 00:21:16 that you have it together, that you are needed, that you whatever skills you have are very valuable. And that's why you're so busy all the time. And you're able to manage a lot of things. And all of these things are status markers. They put us in competition with each other. And I think the force behind it is a feeling of belonging, a feeling of acceptance, and a feeling of belonging, a feeling of acceptance, and a feeling of being valued.

Starting point is 00:21:47 And these three things are foundational human needs. Like we need to feel accepted and have belonging and be valued. We've just found this very unhealthy way to get to that feeling now, which is through productivity. Well, I agree with you wholeheartedly. And a major focus that we're trying to put our attention to on this show

Starting point is 00:22:12 is this whole concept of unmattering, a feeling that we don't hold significance, and what is causing so many people to feel this way. Because I think we see this show up as a lot of symptoms. People talk about the epidemics of loneliness, hopelessness, helplessness, people are bored, et cetera. But I think at the core, when you look at it, this feeling of unmattering ties into all those feelings

Starting point is 00:22:42 that people are showing and that we hear about. What are your feelings about that? I really like that concept that you're talking about of un-mattering because that's one of the things that people are trapped in is how can I be like extraordinary? How can every experience I have be extraordinary? And I think on my end, something I talk about is how can we welcome being mediocre in some places in our life, right? Because everything cannot be extraordinary and everything cannot matter and everyone cannot matter. But I think the way our society has changed over the last 30 years has a big role to play in this idea.

Starting point is 00:23:25 You see a lot of people get a lot of success at a very early age with the advent of startups and social media. Like you see these like young people, create these enormously influential platforms, right? Like Facebook, for example. And so I think like in the last 30 years, we've seen these like handful of stories in people who have become exceptional. And the cultural consciousness has now become that, well, it could be possible for you to, you can also do this. And so we've have this idea that I have to matter as well, and I have to be exceptional.

Starting point is 00:24:05 And I think that's really driving people to do a lot of things that they don't feel very aligned with. They might not even be intellectually interested in. Now, I live in New York City, and so I meet a lot of people who have these like goals around, I was saying things like,

Starting point is 00:24:22 oh, I wanna start a company and exit. I want to launch a startup and then have it be acquired. But there's no connection to the product or the service. It's like the idea is to create a company and sell it. And because the goal is to be this exceptional entrepreneur. But I think we're not really connecting it to the things that are aligned with us. I'm so glad you brought that up. A friend of mine is Jim McKelvey who founded Square with Dorsey.

Starting point is 00:24:55 And he talks to entrepreneurs all the time. And as we have had conversations, he talks about why so many of them fail. And it gets into what you're describing here. He said, the real startups that succeed, and I just did an episode on one ring, Shami Siminoff, is because they find a problem worth solving. They find a market that customers need, and they doubled down on it.

Starting point is 00:25:25 And what happens to so many entrepreneurs is they're so concentrated on the exit and the process that they lose the focus on the very problem that they were called to solve in the beginning. And when that happens, everything kind of unravels, so to speak. They get so caught up in this business of the process that they forget the market fit that they were trying to build for

Starting point is 00:25:52 and the actual solution to the problem that got them started on the idea to begin with. So I love that you brought that up. I think it's the same thing across the board when it comes to toxic productivity. So yes, like entrepreneurs, some entrepreneurs will just chase the outcome. Oh, I just want to like exit at X million dollars or whatever, but there's no like alignment with value. That happens at the micro level in our daily lives as well. We start creating these goals that are like not necessarily

Starting point is 00:26:25 connected to our value system. They're not really even connected to our lifestyle, but we were just like, okay, I have to do this. I need to do this. Other people are doing it. I'm going to look bad if I don't do it. I'm going to be left behind if I don't do it. And so we start chasing these outcomes, but they're not value aligned.

Starting point is 00:26:43 And eventually we burn out. Yeah. And this is a great lead into your second chapter. How does toxic productivity show up in your life? And in this chapter, you go through some of what we've just been talking about, why we often prioritize doing over being and how our values shape our drive. And I actually think in this chapter, there's a really good case study that many of the listeners and viewers could relate to. You highlight Sarah, who's a bright and motivated 25-year-old woman

Starting point is 00:27:15 who started working with you as a client. And Sarah's story rings home to me personally because I spent my career before I did this podcast in technology. And so I've worked with many software developers like she was, or is. And oftentimes in tech, what you find yourself being exposed to is you're constantly being asked to do more, to find more time, to take on more projects. And that's exactly what was happening with Sarah. She kept on finding herself in this position

Starting point is 00:27:49 that she kept on saying yes, even when she overextended herself. How maybe you could talk more about Sarah's story and how if a listener is finding themselves in a similar place, what steps that they could take to potentially break through from this feeling that you have to say yes and you can't say no. So, I mean, there's two things that can happen in a workplace, right?

Starting point is 00:28:17 And we need to be mindful of both things. One is there is a certain level of pressure and expectation that can come from a workplace that does not allow you to say no, right? is there is a certain level of pressure and expectation that can come from a workplace that does not allow you to say no, right? So that is one track of what can occur. The other track is we think that we can't say no, we assume that we can't say no, or we actually don't know how to say no.

Starting point is 00:28:39 And that's what's going on with Sarah is that she did have the ability and she had the, I guess, like a freedom to not take on more work, but she was doing it to herself. And the reason that can happen is that we have a lot of fears around saying no. And that really is something that kickstarts this toxic productivity cycle is we feel like we can't say no and, or we don't know how to say no, it's too uncomfortable. It comes from a place of fear of being rejected, abandoned, seen as not competent enough, especially in the workplace.

Starting point is 00:29:14 And so because we can't tolerate that discomfort, we just say yes and we choose to tolerate the discomfort of being overworked. So instead of choosing the discomfort of disappointing somebody or just like the discomfort of being overworked. So instead of choosing the discomfort of disappointing somebody or just like the discomfort of saying no yourself, you'd rather choose the discomfort of overworking and tiring yourself out. And I think that in a lot of workplaces,

Starting point is 00:29:37 this is also really valued. You get a lot of reward for it. So it's hard to see it as a quote unquote bad thing. However, if you are somebody while listening to this, a lot of reward for it. So it's hard to see it as a quote unquote bad thing. However, if you are somebody who while listening to this, we're like, oh wait, I wonder if this is me. I would say two things. I would say first is try to think about all of the things

Starting point is 00:29:58 that you have said yes to, right? Every single thing, every extra thing that you said yes to at work, and then try to correlate it directly to some kind of deliverable or metric of success that you actually have at work. Chances are, if you're overworked, everything you said yes to does not directly connect to your personal metric of success or deliverable in your role. And I think it's important to remember

Starting point is 00:30:29 that it's good to have some out of role deliverables as well. But try to do this analysis to see how much of the work that you're doing actually is not going back towards your deliverable. So is it actually giving you the return that you're looking for if it's not improving your metric of success, professional success, right? That's one thing you can do.

Starting point is 00:30:51 Another thing you can do is to talk to somebody that you live with and ask them how they view your relationship with work. Because a lot of times we have these blinders on, we're so outcome driven, and we don't really see the things that we're sacrificing, the things that we're flaking on, how is it impacting other people

Starting point is 00:31:14 because we're so laser focused on our own success. So ask somebody you live with and ask them how they view your relationship to work. And when you get the answer, like I want you to just quietly listen to them. I don't want you to prepare a response. I don't want you to give them a yes, but this was happening or, but if I didn't,

Starting point is 00:31:36 like some kind of justification, just listen to them and see what comes up. I think that we can learn a lot from the people we love. Thank you for sharing that. In this chapter, you also go over four myths. One is to be more productive, you need to wake up early, which Robin Sharma would definitely agree in the 5am club. Myth, another one is working longer hours means getting more done. Another one that you write about is multitasking. And the one I wanted to go into the most is everything matters equally. Because I think a lot of us find ourselves in this place where we don't know what to prioritize. And so we end up investing ourselves in everything. And you talk about Vilfredo Pareto, the Italian economist, and we've often heard the 80-20 rule,

Starting point is 00:32:30 but I was hoping you could talk about it more as it relates to toxic productivity. So because we live in such an urgency culture, right? We have notifications pinging our phone 24 hours a day. We get like news notifications telling us that we need to read stuff all the time. Anywhere you go, people are like, oh, have you watched the show? Have you read this book? And did you listen to this podcast? So we're trapped in a lot of urgency culture. And urgency culture

Starting point is 00:32:56 does not allow you to prioritize because urgency culture is telling you everything is important. The new show that came out on Netflix is just as important as this podcast that came out. And it's just as important as this new self-help book. And it's just as important as the course that you have to take for work and just as important as doing everything for your relationships. So we can't prioritize because that makes us feel very uncomfortable and scared. And it's very threatening to think that something is not important and the Pareto principle is really that 80% of the outcomes of your life are driven by 20% of the

Starting point is 00:33:35 input that you're putting in so Everything is not important. I think that's the thing. I really want people to realize is every single thing is not important and prioritizing your tasks, prioritizing your obligations, prioritizing the things you say yes to, all of that is really important so that you can actually really pour in to the things that are value aligned that will give you a return that makes your life more meaningful. Because if you are putting energy into everything equally, everything is not putting itself back into you equally. An example I'll use is some people really define themselves

Starting point is 00:34:17 by the role they play in their relationships. And this can really tap into the productivity mindset where you're like, I have to be the best friend, parent, partner, coworker, like all of those things, right? And but the truth is, like every relationship is not going to give back to you in the same way. knowing who to invest the time and energy in and who to have better boundaries with is so important. And we can't do that if we don't prioritize things. And there are a lot of techniques we can use to prioritize. I personally use the Eisenhower matrix, which is like a little quadrant and it tells you what's important, urgent, what can be delegated to somebody else and what you can just take off your list. But there's a lot of other ways you can prioritize as well. It can be as simple as like an

Starting point is 00:35:09 actual rank order to-do list. Yeah, I use that same quadrant as well. And sometimes I forget if it was Eisenhower or Stephen Covey who first coined it, but I think you're right that it was Eisenhower. So what you were talking about also relates to how we view success or failure and you write about these two aspects as being very binary. When we think about how we want to pursue the things that matter for us in our life, we often do so in this binary manner. How do you think that binary thinking manifests into this toxic problem? Because I think it happens in our relationships, obviously in our careers, but in other areas. So binary thinking, it's like a cognitive thinking trap, right? It's like a way that

Starting point is 00:36:02 we get stuck. And, and I think in cognitive behavior therapy, it's called black and white thinking. Well, whatever phrase you want to use, binary thinking has no space for nuance. It's very clear. Things either are one way or they are the other way, right? And very few things in life are that clear. But in the toxic productivity mindset, if we think about achievement as binary, right? So you might think if I didn't get the promotion, that I'm a failure, that I'm not a good worker. I am not good at my job.

Starting point is 00:36:37 So the binary mindset is promotion or you suck at your job. But the truth is you might not get the promotion. However, you might have displayed a lot of growth and leadership and making your coworkers feel comfortable. All of those things are also markers of success. They are markers of being a good worker or being a good employee. But if we're trapped in the binary mindset,

Starting point is 00:37:02 we don't consider any of that. We don't think about any of that, we don't consider any of that. We don't think about any of that. We don't value any of that. So the process and the nuance that is in between the spectrum gets completely lost. And what that does is it keeps us trapped in this negative mindset that I'm not good enough. I'm not good enough because I didn't get this thing

Starting point is 00:37:22 that and only that thing shows that I am good enough and I didn't get it so I'm not good enough and you can see this in relationships you can see it as parents you can really see it in even in daily habits so if I'm resting I'm lazy so there's only two options you're either hyperproductive or you're lazy. But that's not true, right? Like rest can be productive, and, but we don't think about it like that. You see this in wellness habits. People will start working out or eating healthy at the beginning of the year,

Starting point is 00:37:56 and they'll tell themselves that they have to do it every single day, or they have to do a 60 minute workout. And if you don't hit that 60, then it's like, oh, I guess I'm not gonna it. Cause I can't do the 60 minutes. So I can only work out for 60 minutes. And if I can't do 60 minutes and I'm not working on, I'm not taking care of myself, but you could do a really good 20 minute workout

Starting point is 00:38:16 and still have the benefits of physical movement. Absolutely agree with that. And an exercise that people could do as exercises that they might not even realize is exercise is building a sandcastle at the beach, which is my segue into one of my favorite sections of the book was the sandcastle lesson that you give as you were struggling at one point in your life with self-worth Can you describe what went on and the lesson you learned from it? So my husband and I decided to take like an unplugged vacation. We both were just very stressed at work and stuff

Starting point is 00:38:57 So we were like, you know what we're going on vacation. Let's not take any work Let's not take our laptops and stuff. And so it was very intentional. We just wanted to be, just we didn't make any reservations. Like there was nothing that we could be working towards. It was just stretches and stretches of free time, right? But when we got there, I couldn't turn my brain off. I really felt like I had to use this time because I was in this like really beautiful place.

Starting point is 00:39:26 I had this all these ideas about what it means to be a writer and where people write their best work, right? All of these like imagined standards, these imagined expectations. And I couldn't really unplug and in my mind, I kept trying to force myself to write or think about something profound. And when I was struggling with that, I was starting to be very critical of myself and judgmental, like, why can't you do this? Why can't you write?

Starting point is 00:39:53 Everyone's going to figure out you're not a writer. And then when that judgment happened and I became aware of that judgment, then I became even more judgmental. And I was like, well, you came here to unplug and now you're not even using that time to relax or wasting this vacation. Just a lot of chaos, really just emotional chaos in the mind. And I really became absent. I became absent from the moment.

Starting point is 00:40:19 I was in this beautiful place and I couldn't really tap into the beauty around me or even like the fact that I was spending time with my partner. And eventually it took like doing something as silly and trivial as making a sandcastle together that made me realize that sometimes just being in the present moment is really the way to just be more compassionate with yourself. I think when we are truly present, when we're very engaged, our mind and bodies in the same place, it's not like our thoughts are somewhere else.

Starting point is 00:40:54 We can really be compassionate towards ourselves and that does lead the way to a healthier relationship with productivity. It leads the way to sustainable productivity, it leads the way to understanding what makes you work and what makes you tick and what your own body rhythms are. Like self-compassion is like such a gateway into all of these things. But when we're busy doing

Starting point is 00:41:20 and we're busy being critical of ourselves, we can't really access that. doing, and we're busy being critical of ourselves, we can't really access that. I completely agree with what you're saying. And for me, one of the things that I found earlier in my life was that it was my perfectionism that was causing me to feel that lack of self-worth at times because I never thought that what I was doing was enough. And I was constantly trying to do it to the best that I possibly could. And I happened to be interviewing Susan Kane about three years ago at this point. And she brought up this thing for the first time that I had never heard before called effortless perfectionism that she was seeing play out at her alma mater Princeton, but at many different campuses where these college students

Starting point is 00:42:11 Even from the time they were in high school to now being in college felt that they had to be perfect and everything To get to the point that they wanted to in life. How does this perfectionism? align with toxic productivity? So I'm not familiar with the effortless perfectionism. Can you tell me what that means? Well it's basically this feeling that, and let's take it to a high school student, that in order to get into one of these Ivy League schools or a higher level school, they feel like they have to be perfect in everything that they're doing. So it's not only do they have to get the perfect grades, they have to be perfect in the sports they're doing, the clubs they're doing, the volunteer

Starting point is 00:42:57 work they're doing, and do it in a way that seems like it's effortless and how they're showing themselves to the world. And then this carries forward to when they're in college and they're comparing themselves to all these other people. It's like my friend who won in the NFL, he was an all-American player, but when he got in the NFL, he found out that he was mediocre at best compared to the other people around him. And I'm sure that's how many students feel player, but when he got in the NFL, he found out that he was mediocre at best compared

Starting point is 00:43:25 to the other people around him. And I'm sure that's how many students feel when they get to Princeton, they find out there's so many superstars around them. And so it drives them into this feeling of emotional numbness at the end of it and depression and everything else, because they're trying so much to be like everyone else. And I think that's what this looks like. Yeah. Honestly, the things that you were just describing right now, it makes me so sad.

Starting point is 00:43:55 It makes me so sad that so many young people just move through life, never even getting to know themselves because they have just inherited an identity. You were good at one thing when you were younger and that kind of solidified this role in the family for you that, oh, well, you're like the smart one or you're like the athlete. And then that just takes you away from exploring who you are. And they're just like moving through what is meant to be like the most carefree time of your life. They're moving through it with so much pressure and you see this now in the high rates of adolescent mental illness like depression and anxiety and suicide rates but that's a little bit

Starting point is 00:44:37 of a side. It just makes me sad because we have our whole lives to struggle through work and obligations and roles and all of that. And I don't think we should ever stop exploring, but I think when you're in school, you really have the ability to explore a lot of who you are. And unfortunately, that gets taken away by these systems that are in place. But coming back to the effortless perfectionism, I think that fits in very well. There's three types of perfectionism, right? So one is the one where it is self-directed. So you demand perfectionism from yourself.

Starting point is 00:45:09 Two is externally directed. So you demand perfectionism from other people. So your relationships, your children, your coworkers, like you're demanding this emotional perfectionism from them. And the third is like perception. So the perfectionism is centered on other people seeing you as perfect.

Starting point is 00:45:28 Other people like viewing you as somebody who doesn't make mistakes, who gets everything done right at the first try. And so I think it definitely fits into the toxic productivity framework because nothing is ever good enough for a perfectionist because perfectionism is not possible, right? And so this idea of never ever good enough for a perfectionist because perfectionism is not possible, right? And so this idea of never being good enough will continue to feed your desire to do more,

Starting point is 00:45:53 to take on more, to prove yourself more that, you know what, I am good, I am perfect, I don't make mistakes. And so that can create this. And I see it as like a duck in water, like on the surface, they look so chill, but underneath the water, their legs are just moving just at a frantic pace. And I think that perfectionism is really just anxiety about controlling outcomes.

Starting point is 00:46:21 Perfectionists often try to control everything around them through perfectionism because it helps them give them a sense of control. And so when working with people who struggle with perfectionism, one of the things I like to do when the client is ready is to get them to be comfortable and tolerate uncertainty because perfectionism, the drive for to get them to be comfortable and tolerate uncertainty. Because perfectionism, the drive for perfectionism gives you a lot of certainty. If I know what I'm gonna get

Starting point is 00:46:51 because I'm controlling for it through all of these perfectionist tendencies, then I have a very concrete path. So helping people get comfortable in uncertainty is really helpful in that. So helping people get comfortable in uncertainty is really helpful in that. So one of the things that I heard through that explanation and I brought up as well is I think the comparison trap ends up many times coexisting with this idea that we need to feel perfect because that's what ends up happening as we compare ourselves to others, to people we're striving to become and people in many cases we're wanting to stay ahead of it whether it's

Starting point is 00:47:35 our career or academically but this comparison trap also impacts toxic productivity as you describe in the book. Can you share maybe how the two are interlinked? So in the book, I talk about these concepts in discrete chapters. There's like perfectionism, the inner critic, there's social comparison, shame. But the truth is like overlap because human beings are more complex than a series of chapters. And so you're right. These things are definitely

Starting point is 00:48:05 very connected. Social comparison is, like I mentioned earlier, is like an evolutionary mechanism that is meant to keep us safe. But right now it's an overdrive because we have access to a lot of information the way we didn't have before at all. So we just have more data points to compare ourselves against. And it's interesting, like the research shows we points to compare ourselves against and it's interesting like the research shows We don't compare ourselves to people who are very different from us We actually compare ourselves to the people around us we compare ourselves to our peers in our community because Whatever they've achieved is also likely possible for us because we're in the same community

Starting point is 00:48:40 And what that does is it actually takes you further and further away from what matters to you. And so you compare yourself to other people and you see the standard that is set. And if you're a perfectionist, you'll want to meet that standard exactly as is or exceed it. But a lot of times, like those standards are not our own. When we define goals based on comparing ourselves to other people, they are not our goals. Those are not our goals, right? We might think that they're our goals, but they're goals that we inherited, that we learned. And one of the case studies in the book is about a man who is really taking this productivity lens to his romantic life and he's utilizing this optimization mindset as a way to get into a romantic relationship.

Starting point is 00:49:29 And eventually in our work together like we realized that this idea that he needs to be in a relationship by X time was something that just came from his family and he wasn't even sure why he wanted a relationship. He wasn't sure what he would be like in a relationship. He wasn't sure what his values were in a relationship, what he brought to the relationship, what he wanted in a partner. Like these things were things that he just had never thought about and he just inherited this checklist because he was comparing himself to other people in his community and his family. So it can really disconnect you from your life. It definitely can. And thanks for sharing that connection. Cause I definitely feel the same way as the way you're describing it.

Starting point is 00:50:14 Another area I wanted to explore was in chapter nine, you title it the audacity of abundance, what do you mean by this audacity of abundance and how does it relate to toxic productivity? Gosh, so the reason I use the term audacity is because it takes a lot of emotional courage in a world that is constantly telling you that things are scarce. It does take a lot of emotional courage to tap into the abundance

Starting point is 00:50:45 mindset. And I think like people use different language for it. Some people call it the growth mindset. Some people call it like abundance or gratitude, like whatever it is. But it is a very radical perspective because all we are told everywhere today is that time is running out, things are running out, opportunities are running out. You're not going to get there. You have to get there faster. You have to get there faster than the other person, whatever the goal is. And the abundance mindset actually is more process oriented. It's not so outcome oriented. It tells you that the anxieties around limited finite resources are not always necessary or relevant to you.

Starting point is 00:51:33 The abundance mindset helps you tap into other parts of your brain outside of just the fear center, because the scarcity mindset is only existing in the fear center, right? You're activated by fear. And that's why fear is such a powerful motivator for people to do things. People get married out of the fear of being alone. People buy expensive properties

Starting point is 00:51:57 out of the fear of missing out. Like people make enormous life changes because of fear, but fear only accesses one part of your brain. And the abundance mindset gets into so much more. And it is honestly just like a more pleasant place to be in because it really helps you realize that even if you don't get the thing at the time that you wanted, it's not the end of the world.

Starting point is 00:52:24 There is more. There is more. There is more that you can do more. You can achieve more. You can pivot to more. You can accomplish like there's there's just more if you allow your life to unfold. I think that's the biggest thing for me is the abundance mindset allows you to have a story in your life. Whereas the scarcity mindset just wants the ending.

Starting point is 00:52:45 It wants the ending now. You want to get to it now. My final question for you is, we started this whole episode out talking about our underlining values and the foundation that provides in our lives. What I wanted to ask you is what role does reconnecting with our emotional foundation, that underlying structure playing this journey back to ourselves?

Starting point is 00:53:14 Oh gosh, to me like that's the most important thing. I genuinely believe that we can have a healthier relationship with productivity if we have a healthier relationship with our emotions. And what does that mean? That means being able to identify, acknowledge, understand and manage difficult emotions. Difficult emotions are a really powerful motivator for all of this unhealthy behavior, right? Perfectionism is fear, shame, guilt, the fear of missing out, the inner critic, judgment, criticism. All of these negative emotions are driving us

Starting point is 00:53:50 towards this unhealthy productivity. But if we can learn to really acknowledge and understand our emotions, if we can learn to hear the message that they're giving us, because all emotions are giving us some messaging, then we can really find our way back to a healthy productivity, because then we're not going to be so reactive. When we are emotionally driven, we are reactive. We are reacting to the circumstance. We are reacting to our emotions. So we're not very intentional, right? We don't make choices. we have reactions.

Starting point is 00:54:25 But if we can not be overwhelmed by our emotions, we can hear them, we can process them, we can talk ourselves through it, then we become proactive in our life. Then we make choices, then we can be intentional. The things we engage in become decisions. So we tap out of this autopilot. And I think that does require emotional awareness.

Starting point is 00:54:49 And so I hope that through this book and the work that I do, my other writings, my hope really is that this is a gateway for people to learn how to identify and manage difficult emotions. I think emotional awareness is the foundation cornerstone of our happiness and our well-being. I love that we ended on that because this podcast is really about the importance of our intentions and how to create an intentional life. So what a great way to end this segment. And if a listener wanted to learn more about you, where's the best place for them to go?

Starting point is 00:55:30 My website is the hub of everything. So it's my full name is saranasser.com. If you want to learn more about the book, just go to the book page on there. But there's a lot of resources. I do, you know, corporate speaking. I write on Substack. Like you can find everything on my website. Well, Ezra, thank you so much for joining us today. It was such a pleasure. And congratulations again on your book. Thanks so much. It, Isra, thank you so much for joining us today. It was such a pleasure, and congratulations again on your book. Thanks so much. It was so nice chatting with you.

Starting point is 00:55:49 Wow, what an eye-opening conversation with Isra Nasir. Her perspective on breaking free from toxic productivity and redefining how we value our time and energy is truly transformative. I hope today's discussion challenged you to rethink your relationship with productivity, inspired you to start making those small shifts that can lead to a more balanced and

Starting point is 00:56:07 intentional life. One of the biggest takeaways from this episode is that our worth is not tied to how busy or productive we are. So I want to leave you with this. What's one area in your life where you've been caught in the hustle cycle? How can you begin to reclaim your time and focus on what truly matters to you both emotionally and mentally. If Isra's message resonated with you, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Please take a moment to leave us a 5-star rating and review. Your feedback helps us continue bringing these powerful conversations to light.

Starting point is 00:56:34 And if you know someone who could benefit from today's insight, share this episode with them. You never know how much one conversation can impact someone's life. You can find links to everything we discussed today, including Isra's book, Toxic Productivity, in the show notes at passionstruck.com. Videos of this episode are also available on YouTube. And don't forget to check out our sponsors and exclusive deals at passionstruck.com slash deals. Supporting those who support the show allows us to keep bringing you these incredible episodes. And before we wrap up, I want to remind you that beyond hosting the podcast, I love bringing

Starting point is 00:57:03 these insights to life through speaking engagements with organizations and teams. If today's conversation sparks something in you and you think my message can inspire your company or community, head over to johnrmiles.com slash speaking to learn more. Let's work together to create intentional change and ignite growth. Now for next week's episode, I am incredibly excited to welcome Glenn Phillips, singer, songwriter, and frontman of the iconic band Toad the Wet's Bracket. We'll be diving deep into his creative process, the evolution of his music, and how he's used songwriting as a tool for personal healing and connection. It's going to be a conversation filled with heart, creativity, and inspiration. You won't want to miss it. It's such a difficult process to even with our own reactions be able to slow down enough to wonder,

Starting point is 00:57:49 to be curious about where we're being rational and where we are rationalizing and where we're being emotional and especially in places and my ex-wife actually, my first wife, told me years ago to examine very closely places where I feel righteous indignation, and that the places, the people who make me the most angry, the things that make me feel the most keenly aggravated, are places where I probably need to look at myself first. And that practice has helped me a lot in compassion to people in difficult situations and to see where I'm getting angry at something that I'm actually really mad at myself for not being better at.

Starting point is 00:58:36 And as always, the fee for the show is simple. You found value in today's episode, share it with someone who could benefit from it. And remember, apply what you've learned so that you can live what you listen. Until next time, live life passion strut.

Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Israa Nasir on How to Break Free From Toxic Productivity | EP 533

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