Abel James: Hey, folks. This is Abel James, and thanks so much for joining us on the show. Do you feel a constant pressure to optimize every aspect of your life? What if hyper optimization
protocols
actually do more harm than good? The glorification of hustle culture has given many of us the nagging feeling that no matter how much we do or accomplish, it's never quite enough. Living in a cloud of frantic, urgent, reactive energy can even cause us to lose sight of who we are and why we're working so hard in the first place. If you want to reclaim your time, energy, and purpose in life, you need to rebel against cultural norms and conditioning that does not serve you, and you'll be in good company. Studies have shown that no matter their field or area of expertise,
peak performers
share a unique characteristic.
They take time for complete rest and recovery. So when was the last time you created space for rest or experienced the unexpected joys of under committing and doing nothing for a minute? If your identity is in any way defined by overachievement,
hyper optimization,
perfectionism,
or an obsession with productivity,
this episode is for you. Today, we're here with Isra Nasser,
a New York City based psychotherapist,
author, and the founder of Well Guide.
Isra's new book is called toxic productivity,
and it's strong medicine for anyone who's ever felt the pressure to be constantly busy, constantly achieving,
and constantly proving their worth. Here's some quick news before we get to the interview. Mark your calendars, grab your tickets, and hold on to your hats. If you're into podcasting or independent music, I'm thrilled and honored to be playing the opening set live at Austin's legendary Home of the Blues, Antone's nightclub on December 16th, and I hope you can join us. Hosted by Adam Curry, the Podfather himself, this show will also be live streamed on Adam's boostagram ball podcast
and Toonster, so you can listen and watch wherever you are. I'll be premiering a brand new original tune on acoustic and then shredding some electric guitar with SOB and the Dangs. We'll be sharing the stage with 5 bands, including our friends Ainsley Costello, Just Loud FM Rodeo, as well as surprise special guests. And leading up to the show, I'm interviewing fellow artists, including artists that we can't yet announce publicly, but trust me when I say they're incredible.
Tickets for the concert on 12/16
are $10
and are available for purchase directly from the Antones website, which is antonesnightclub.com.
I'll also be speaking at the Independent Music Summit for SATs by Southwest at the Bitcoin Commons on December 15th.
Both of these events will be live streamed so you can join us wherever you may be. So to stay up to date for the latest on these live shows and the live shows to come, make sure to sign up for my newsletter at abeljames.com,
abeljames.substack.com.
Alright. Onto the show with ISRA. In this episode, you'll
hear why hyper optimization protocols often do more harm than good, why chasing and achieving the next big win can eventually lead to feeling more empty and disconnected than ever before,
how to break free from the constant pressure to achieve and optimize every aspect of your life, how to build meaningful relationships in a hyper connected but lonely world, and much more. One last quick note before we get to the interview. Isra was on her book tour when she was recording this and the WiFi connection left something to be desired, so it dropped a few times. We did our best to cobble it back together. Apologies in advance if there are any issues with audio or video. But as a recovering perfectionist myself, perhaps releasing an imperfect show is indeed part of the recovery process. Without further ado, let's hang out with Isra.
Welcome back, folks. Today, we're here with Israa Nasir, a New York City based psychotherapist,
writer, and the founder of WellGuide, a digital community for mental health awareness.
Her new book is called Toxic Productivity,
and it's a doozy for recovering overachievers
like us. How's it going, Isra?
Good. I'm good. It's nice to be here. I'm really happy to have you. Your book was deeply unsettling,
for someone like me and a few of my friends who I've showed it to. So what exactly is the problem
with booking your calendar completely full such that you could just dedicate your life to hoop jumping and going after the next achievement?
Israa Nasir: Gosh. The problem
is
that
when we are overdoing it, when we're booking our calendars back to back, a lot of times we're doing things that are misaligned. A lot of times we're doing things because we think we should be doing them. We do things because somebody else told us to do it. Right?
And it's it's very rooted in comparison
and feeling behind.
And so when we dedicate our time and energy and our emotions to doing things that are not aligned,
eventually, over time, life starts feeling very empty.
So that's the problem. The problem is this feeling of being disassociated
from your life, from your spirit, from your passions.
And so
I'm not I'm not saying that we should be against productivity.
I'm saying that we should have an intentional
relationship with the things that we do so that we are all living fulfilling lives. Because, you know, if you look around right now, a lot of people are dissatisfied. Mhmm. And there's all these think pieces about why.
And one of the things that I definitely feel is a contribution
Abel James: is just doing stuff for the sake of doing it. Yeah. But we're all the kinda conditioned and programmed to act that way and certainly rewarded for it throughout our lives. And so making that shift can be painful. Right?
Israa Nasir: Painful,
scary,
shameful.
And, I mean,
I definitely
you know, I won't even say I'm a recovering overachiever.
I'm, like, still trying to get there, you know, raised to be a very high achieving student,
child of immigrants. So, like, you're just hustling.
Nothing is ever good enough. So, like, I understand
the scary
feeling and the pain that we can feel
if we're trying to detach from our achievements.
Abel James: It's definitely, like, a hard thing to do. Yeah. Well and then you see, especially on social media these days, a lot of people have kinda made a name for themselves or a brand
for themselves, whether it's in in business or or in health or some other domain
where it's all about that hyper optimization. If you are not dialed in a 110%
all the time, then you're failing and you're not reaching your level of potential that you should be in, yada yada yada. So what,
can you counter that for us?
Israa Nasir: Absolutely.
First of all, if you're kind of looking at somebody on social media,
you're only seeing the best parts that they're choosing to show you. So it's a very, very crafted image.
Like, I'm a digital content creator as well. Right? And if you go on my page, you'd be like, oh my gosh. Like, Raposo do do so well. She does all these things. What you're not seeing is the incredible amount of hard work that goes behind it. Right? And so what happens is people start to compare their chapter 1 to somebody else's chapter 5. Yeah. And so there's inherently a mismatch there.
And that like, you'll never catch up because
what are you even catching up to?
So to counter that, I I have to say is we really have to get in the habit of becoming
more connected with ourselves
because the comparison
mindset
is external.
It is looking outwards. And when you're looking outwards, you are
more and more disconnected from what you really want, what really feels good to you. And so to counter that, I'm really asking folks to become intentionally
inwards looking
so that you can spend your time doing things that actually
and will give you an outcome.
Abel James: So in your book, there are a number of examples of some of these folks who have have kinda chased that hyper optimization.
And
doing that for long enough, you start to lose the connection with what it means to tap the brakes and and really rest and recover.
The the grooves in your brain, your your habits are just kind of aligned in this wrong direction for long enough that you've forgotten how to rest. You've forgotten how to have fun. So how do you help bring people over to the other side and convince them of the value
of doing nothing or doing things that might initially seem frivolous compared to the rest of their hyper optimized schedule?
Israa Nasir: The hyperoptimization
mindset is so
pervasive in our culture. It's really hard to see it as a
harmful thing. Yeah. You know? And I think it's important to measure things. You know? I work in digital health. I understand the value of metrics and measuring progress and stuff. But I
of metrics and measuring progress and stuff. But I think when we take anything to an extreme, it becomes, like, a very harmful place to be in. And so, you know,
there's this quote that I use in the book that I actually read in high school.
So this is, like, a long time ago,
and it just stayed with me forever.
And the quote is by a writer called Maria Stahl, and she says, we go on advice because we are unfamiliar with the joys of virtue. And so I think it's the same thing when and, of course, that's, like, a very moralistic religious thing, but
I took it to be we become unfamiliar with the benefits and the joy of rest. So we are just like, I don't need this. What am I gonna get out of it? Because it's been so long since we've truly done it. So in order to get somebody back into that habit,
I always like to start at the smallest place in their life that has the least amount of friction so they don't have to change too much so that they can start becoming familiar with, like, the ease
and, like, the the relaxation,
the just kind of, like, letting yourself be.
Because
if I were to tell somebody who's super high achieving to meditate for half an hour, they will never do it. They will say, right on the offset, I don't have the time. I can't sit still for 30 minutes. Like, my mind's gonna just go everywhere.
So I start with a 90 second meditation.
Like, if I can get somebody to just do a mindfulness
exercise for 90 seconds a day and if we can keep that streak going for 2 weeks,
slowly, people will start seeing the benefit of that. So I would say that to any habit about rest is just start super small.
And research does show that, you know, doing a meditation for 90 seconds or or 3 minutes has the same physiological
impact.
Same way as doing, like, a very
great exercise
for 20 minutes will have the same kind of physiological impact on your endorphins
as a 60 minutes. So just start small.
Abel James: It's tricky, though. Right? Because, like, a lot of us will have these routines that might put meditation in there or journaling in your case. Journaling and meditation. You found that you were kind of, like, going through the motions and getting no benefit out of this because you're just kind of, like, not present. Right? Or maybe I'm I don't wanna put words in your mouth, but I know that that's happened to me
on a lot of occasions. Like, I'm doing the thing, but I'm not feeling the thing. Right? Like, I'm not even there is what it feels like sometimes.
Israa Nasir: No. That definitely happened with me for sure. And the reason that happened is because I was doing it because I thought I had to do it. Yeah. But that's the thing to do. And so expanding my repertoire of rest or just connecting with myself has actually been very helpful for me. Instead of just doing the things that I'm, like, reading about or having other people tell me that I have to do,
I went on a journey this year actually to find things that genuinely give me rest and joy, and that's like a personal
exercise. Right? So even when I'm working with people, I always start at the baseline of these are the things that we know help. Let's try that first. If these are the things that don't work for you, that's okay. Now we're gonna do, like, a little bit of an exploration of what might work for you.
And,
you know, it might be something as simple as just even sitting quietly. Maybe you don't actually have to do anything. Maybe you just sit there
completely
unstimulated.
Right? So no music, nothing is no TV in the background.
You're not talking to anybody. Maybe you're just sitting quietly, and that can be very restful as well. Which often just goes against our natural inclination to chase the next distraction.
Abel James: Right? Which has become
far too easy. The whole world is is built for that, essentially, it seems. Mhmm. And we've also kinda gotten really far away from boredom.
Israa Nasir: Yeah. And boredom has, like, such a moral judgment to it. It also has, like, such a negative connotation in our, like, you know, very hustle culture.
But boredom
is
a really great time to just let your mind decompress. But we are never bored. Like, we're not even bored in an elevator anymore because we're scrolling on the phone.
And so boredom can give you access to a lot about yourself. If you let yourself be bored just sitting there, you can actually learn a lot about yourself.
Abel James: And there's a lot of creative thinking that happens when we decompress and just let ourselves be bored. Was there anything that kinda, like, put you over the edge where it's like, I have to write this book, whether it's interactions with clients, something in your personal life, because this really is a departure from most of the productivity,
business, health,
performance, all of that oriented stuff. It seems 98, 99 percent of it is pointing in the other direction.
Right? Whereas you're coming out here with toxic productivity. I love it. I mean, I'm being facetious when I say the book was deeply unsettling. I mean, it was, but in such a good way.
Israa Nasir: Yeah. So 2 things kind of happened for me to feel like this is a message that needs to be out into the world.
One is my own experience with, again, doing all of the things, like living this checklist life,
spending a lot of my twenties
really believing that, you know, I always have to be moving, I always have to be doing something, like, I cannot be mediocre, or this cannot happen to me. And I just, like, it's a very, very harmful mindset.
But,
like, 5 years ago, I just became very disillusioned. I just became very disengaged with my life. And the gap between what my life looked like on the outside and how I felt on the inside was very wide.
And so I'm a therapist. My mind first went to, okay, like, is this, like, a mental health issue? Like, are you getting depressed perhaps? Right?
But I did, like, a self assessment and I didn't meet the criteria, and that really indicated to me that something else is happening. Something else needs
to change. There might be something that I can influence. So I did a lot of research just trying to understand.
But the more research I did on,
human motivation, social learning theory, like, all of these, like, social scientists like, I read I think I read over 300 research papers, by the way, for this. I felt like I was back in school. It was amazing.
I realized that there is a disconnect between what I'm feeling and also what I'm seeing in my practice, which is
emotions are such a big part of why we do what we do. And there is a considerable body of research that talks about the impact of emotions on motivation,
but I didn't see it in the productivity literature at all. Right? So we became really divorced from our emotions, and we became we've become very behavioral.
Do this hack. Use this rule. Use this system, and you're going to be more productive.
But I see this all the time in my practice is if you don't address
unresolved negative emotions,
you could do all of the behavior changes
possible. You could read every single book that's out there.
The moment your resilience is low, the moment you get stressed out, your emotions will take over. And you're gonna go into autopilot because we're all, you know, basically driven by our emotions.
So I really wanted to shed light on that. Those two things came together,
and I felt like this is an important thing to talk about
because I think that if we can harness the power of our emotions and we understand what they're saying to us,
then it genuinely changes our whole life.
Abel James: What are some examples of of that
that might be happening without someone realizing it? You know, they're in a worse spot than they could have imagined feeling stuck, but they don't know how to get out of it. What does the process look like when you're working with someone to, you know, hold their hand and walk toward the sunshine?
Israa Nasir: Yeah.
You know, when I say it, it's very simplistic, but it is a very intentional
journey that you kind of take over time. So before I even answer the question, I will say that
it might sound like, oh, this is a very simple three step thing, but this is a journey that we're on and, you know, this one singular book is not gonna change your whole life. But what it might
what it might change is your perspective
just slightly. It might shift you in the right direction so you can then go on and be on this journey. Right?
So the first thing is you can't change what you don't know. So if I'm proverbially holding someone's hand and walking them to the sunshine,
that requires me to lift,
you know, the covers,
and that is self awareness.
So building a very intentional habit of getting to know yourself, understanding your patterns,
you know, sitting and reflecting on, okay,
what happened in my last three relationships?
What did I bring? What is the same thing that keeps happening?
You know, what's the same thing that's happening in my life right now that feels like what was happening when I was a child with my parents? Right? So just a lot of this why. Like, why am I doing this? How do I feel?
Why do I feel a certain way around certain people and not around other people? So just a lot of that. So self awareness
will give you insight into your patterns.
After we get to a point of self awareness, a lot of times my clients are like, okay. Cool. Like, now what? Why am I not changing? I know all of these things.
And so self awareness on its own doesn't change things.
After that, you have to choose habits that will shift you in the right direction,
and sometimes it feels bad. That's the biggest thing. We make changes that feel bad, and so we think that we need to stop. I I shouldn't do this because this feels bad.
But sometimes, like, change does feel bad. So self awareness and then integrating habits that will take you literally in the opposite direction.
And I think I mentioned this in the book. I can't remember. But there is this thing called opposite action.
It's a technique that we use in therapy where you do the opposite of what you're feeling.
So if you're feeling like you wanna sit and scroll to decompress because that's resting for you, do the opposite of that.
If you feel like isolating because you feel very overwhelmed, do the opposite and reach out to somebody to them.
So
awareness,
habit over time will create changes.
Abel James: What is the opposite of scrolling mindlessly on your phone?
Israa Nasir: Engaging with your body. So, you know, scrolling takes us out of our body completely,
and it activates a lot of
our parts of the brain that are very stress oriented, so fight or flight, because your mind is just processing a lot of information.
You're comparing yourself to other people.
Things might make you feel bad. There's a bit of urgency culture online. Right? Like, do this now. Buy this now. Sign up now.
And so
it activates that that's, like, that center of your brain. So getting back in your body is the opposite.
Abel James: That makes sense.
I'm not sure if there's a name for this phenomenon, but it happens often where I kind of force myself to do something that at the moment I don't want to do. So, like, last night, for example, I was,
on the hook to go to,
rehearsal for 1 of the bands that I'm in. I have to drive across town through traffic and all this stuff, and I'm not feeling up for it. It's been one of those Mondays, you know. And so for the first, I'm just like, oh, should I just, like, not go? Should I text them and let them know I just can't manage it tonight? Of course, you know, I let those thoughts come and go. And, ultimately, I'm, like, driving there in a terrible mood.
I I show up to rehearsal and, you know, we give each other hugs starting to get better, you know, seeing other people, you know, they're there too. They didn't wanna go. You know, none of us wanted to go. Yeah. Within 10 or 15 minutes, though, there was a fundamental change. This happens every time in my physiology and mental state where it's like, I am so glad that I'm here. This is so much better. Like, all the worries that that were consuming me for the rest of that Monday
evaporated after, you know, like jamming out and kind of, like, being in the body, as you say, for just a few minutes. And then, you know
and and once again, this happens every time. I've talked about it with with many of the bandmates. Like, we get there in one state, and we leave in a far,
far better state. So how do you convince people to get over that initial
resistance
to those behaviors that we know ultimately, maybe intellectually or logically,
they'll help us? But emotionally,
how do you overcome that?
Israa Nasir: I think that's a really important question, and
a lot of people feel this about working out as well, by the way. Or they might feel this way about,
eating healthier or quitting drinking or smoking or things like that. Right? Because the things that we want to stay doing
are just so autopilot for us.
So a way to kinda step out of that is to recognize
first how often you're feeling this. Right? Mhmm. So then you can talk yourself out of saying, oh, wait. I feel this every single time,
but
I feel good every single time after. So there is this thing called self talk. Right? And if we think about our negative thoughts, our negative thoughts have such an influence on us. Right? When you when you are being mean to yourself or you're being critical of yourself, it can really shift your behavior and mood.
In the same way, positive self talk has the same impact.
Right? So it's, like, about harnessing the power of talking yourself through some of these difficult moments,
and
it's called being in the observer's mind.
So what you wanna do is you kinda, like,
bump yourself up a little higher to observe your behavior. And so now you're kind of narrating to yourself.
Okay, Isra. You felt this way last Monday as well. And then when you left last Monday from the band practice,
you felt better. Right? So you're kind of talking to yourself as if you're a different person, like a third person.
And it feels really weird in the beginning,
but we are talking to ourselves in 3rd person all the time. You mess up on a presentation. Oh my gosh. Like, how could you be so stupid? Right? That's an automatic thought. It's as if someone else is saying it, so it's in 3rd person already. So you're just trying to shift the quality of the thoughts that you have. The second thing is if you're somebody who really struggles with this kind of stuff, having accountability is really important. Yeah. I bet if you didn't have bandmates, there was nobody waiting for you on the other side, it will be way easier for you to flake on yourself. Definitely. Yeah. Right? And so that accountability piece is genuinely really important, which is why we need community.
And toxic productivity,
by its very inherent
nature,
pulls us away from community.
It wants us to just continue working and doing. And, you know, if you're not relevant to my end goal, I'm not gonna invest time. Like, people use that language a lot. You know? I'm gonna invest in this relationship. I'm gonna invest in this.
But that makes relationships very transactional.
We need our community because they hold us accountable to the changes that we need to make.
Abel James: So it's oftentimes whether you're an introvert, an extrovert, or somewhere in between,
it's those social connections that can we we think of it as stealing energy or, I don't have enough energy to do this. But oftentimes, certainly in my experience and a lot of people I know, you go out and then you do kick back with some friends or you
engage in some activity or you just kind of relax with some friends. And all of a sudden, once again, you're in that different psychological state. You're in that different physiological state as well.
And once you're there, maybe on the way home, you're like, man, I'm so glad that I went to this thing. But you have to get over that resistance. And especially now, you know, the pandemic really got us out of practice socializing in the ways that maybe we were raised or the ways that that we know how to socialize. We we've had to kind of, like, relearn
how to get back into this. And, unfortunately, some people are having a harder time doing that even now than others. So what is your recommendation? Or or how do you help those people
see the value in that human connection when most of us are kind of disconnected online? When we crave that connection, it's just too easy to scroll on our phones and become more disconnected.
Israa Nasir: Yeah. And I don't know if
the thing is, I think everybody knows that they need people. Mhmm. Right? So it's less about, like, convincing them of
the fact that you need it, but more about convincing people that
it's worth putting the energy in. Okay. You know?
And so I think the first thing I'd say is
really
find people who genuinely make you feel good about yourself. I think that's been one of the biggest things I've noticed after the pandemic is people have done a lot of social pruning.
Whereas before, people would spend
lots of time with anybody and everybody. You know, I think our social circles were much bigger.
The pandemic and, like, the regulations, like, it really made us trim that. Mhmm. And some people overcorrected with that. Right? And so I think that
a lot of times, we feel that we need to have big circles to be social.
I would say if you're somebody who tends to isolate or is having a hard time,
find 1 or 2 people, and that's more than enough. I think the research says that we need 3 to 5
very deep quality relationships in order to have a higher quality of life. So even if you have like 2 friends
who are very good friends and one neighbor, like you're okay.
So just really try to find 1 or 2 people.
And
because you're looking for people who you get along with, people who you feel comfortable with, be really honest about where you're at. So letting people know that, hey, like, you know, I just sometimes get really low energy and if I don't text you back, it's not because I don't care.
It's because I'm just getting I get very disconnected.
And if I get like that, just check-in on me. Right? I think that's another thing that we've moved really far away from
is this honest community building. You know, community is you it's a word that's being thrown at everywhere. Right? Community community. But, like, if you really think back, like,
our communities were really all we knew for a very, very long time, right, before globalization
and technology and people moving far away from work and school.
And so I think it's really important to be honest with the people you're around so that they can help you.
Abel James: But, yeah, loneliness is a big problem right now. Yeah. Yeah. It is. And I'm curious as well because, like, especially in those productivity books,
the achievement oriented ones, there's
the idea that you are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with. And so that that leads some folks to being like, well, I wanna
be wealthy. So I'm just gonna try to find all these people who are rich and, like, put them in the in the 5 or or some other, you know, kind of achievement oriented aspect of life. I would imagine that your response to that sort of thinking might be a little bit more nuanced. I know that that mine is certainly.
Israa Nasir: Yeah. You know, I think we're just valuing the wrong things. You know? I think wealth is important, obviously.
Like, we all need to live and pay bills and buy food and all that stuff.
You know, I think, like,
achievement is very important, but,
like, we have to have balance between these things. Right? And what we've forgotten is other stuff is also important. Happiness is important. Joy is important. Sitting with somebody and being able to openly cry in front of them is important. Right? Having a community where if you have children,
they have peers, that's important. Like, these things are really important.
But that's what these productivity books are not talking about,
is that
what happens is when you singularly chase one thing,
when you get that one thing, you are going to feel disappointed.
You are going to feel empty. Like, you could make all the money in the world and you might still be really unhappy. And we see this all the time. We see it with celebrities. Right? And we see them, unfortunately,
like, using substances
to fill that void.
And so that's my thing is, like, we have to be really intentional about what we're chasing.
We have to be very intentional about what we're pursuing
and make sure that there's balance.
So even if you're surrounding yourself with 5 people,
make 2 of them your achievement oriented people and make 2 of them, like, your actual, like, emotional community.
Abel James: And then that average will balance out so you can have a fulfilled life. Yeah. Absolutely. It's Yeah. I I know that that's something that I've tried to build into my own life, like a a large amount of diversity in the types of people who we hang out. And it's wonderful, you know, like, kind of being in the the health space and the technology space and a little bit of, like, early stage investing, but also just like jamming with musicians. And these can be radically different lifestyles.
But there's something that you can learn from everybody, whether it's, you know, the people who are crushing it and just, like,
making a ton of money in their businesses, whatever,
or the people who are completely the opposite of that. Somehow they're living,
you know, paycheck to paycheck and are dramatically happier than the people who have, you know, succeeded, you might say, in that in that other aspects of life. So it can be remarkably
instructive to us when you start to surround yourself by,
with with different types of people who kind of, like,
freely share these surprises about life, like, how satisfied they are,
in a situation that you wouldn't think they'd be satisfied in or the opposite.
Israa Nasir: Yeah. And I also think that, you know, coming back to that average of 5 people,
that also makes our relationships very transactional.
Right? And when we have transactional
relationships,
you are bound to feel lonely. Like, you might have, like, a table full of, like, I don't know, high net worth people,
but you're gonna feel lonely. And so what are you gonna do? You're gonna try to cope with, like, all of these unhealthy mechanisms
to feel less lonely.
Right? And so that can look like being chronically online. That can look like
using substances,
shopping, food, like, whatever it is, like, something to make you feel better because we're not getting that connection. And I think we need to understand that inherently
coded in our, like, absolute foundational DNA
is a need for connection.
And I think that's why we do a lot of things. That's why we want to, like, be these high achievers because it gives us a false sense of connection.
Oh, look. I'm just like you. We're the same. Like, I'm right there with you, and we're succeeding together.
But that's, like, not a real connection.
Abel James: And what do you do about loneliness?
I I think, you know, for me,
we were in the remote mountains of Colorado during the pandemic, and I'd never really
I don't remember experiencing
loneliness before that until the lockdowns, until being, especially up there, very, remote,
and hanging out with a few people who are a generation or 2 older than us. Lots of conversations around loneliness. So how do you I mean, it's a huge problem for humans, and we're all, as you say, experiencing a heck of a lot of it right now. What do you do about that in your own life, or how do you work with someone to kinda get yourself out of the habits that are generating that feeling?
Israa Nasir: So I think that, first, I think a lot of people misunderstand
what being alone and loneliness actually are, like how they're different.
And so we can be alone
physically and be very fulfilled, or we can be with a group of people
and feel extremely lonely.
So that what does that indicate? That indicates that loneliness is a byproduct of a lack of connection, of not being seen, of not being, like,
heard by somebody or getting that emotional support.
And so if I were to kind of work with somebody who was struggling with this, I would help them first identify,
you know, what are their emotional needs that that they feel are not met right now.
And then you do, like, 2 things. So 1, you first empower them in understanding which of the emotional needs are needs that you can meet yourself
because that gets really confusing in our mind. So we do that, and then we figure out the emotional needs that have to be met by other people in a healthy way. And then we try to find ways that they can connect with people. But I think you said something really interesting is multigenerational
friendships
are no longer the norm in North American,
Western societies.
Right? Somewhere along the way, I wanna say, like, around the sixties seventies, that stopped
being very common because our communities changed, the way our families live, these generational homes changed.
The nuclear family became way more than norm. And so we lost this idea of multi generational
relationships.
But multi generation relationships are so
important,
nourishing, and fulfilling
for people. And we're doing a little bit of a u-turn on this, at least in the Western world, but it's still not as common. But I come from a culture where that is, like, just ingrained within the culture. Right?
South Asian.
And so
and I see how beneficial multigenerational
relationships are when I kinda look at my
cultural community. And I see the lack of it outside of that, and it is very it it increases loneliness a lot.
Abel James: And it's,
it's really incredible to learn from the perspective of folks who have been on this earth for a few more decades
than than we have.
I totally agree.
There's a tendency, especially now, to look for novelty, especially on the Internet. Right? Like, you're looking for the new thing, the new answer, the new magic blood, whatever it is.
Whereas, some of the folks who have been here for a long time, they've seen a lot of things come and go, whether it's,
you know, how culture has changed and adapted or technology and and all of these various things. And
they're usually not the loudest ones in the room. Right? Like, they're not the ones who are screaming for attention or out there. You're, like, crushing it on TikTok or whatever it is. You do need to engage
with that and ask thoughtful questions and also give some of your presence. Otherwise, they're not gonna waste their time talking to you. But, gosh, some of the some of the best life advice and just general perspective has come from those
kind of aimless
discussions that weren't really planning on going anywhere. Oftentimes with people who aren't even, like, that close to you, they can be family members. They can be close friends. But sometimes just like sitting down and having a coffee with someone who's been here for a while and asking them what they think of all this is just a magical, magical experience. And most of us are are missing out on that because you do need to be intentional about it, especially in, you know, the the modern western culture.
Israa Nasir: Yeah. And think about that. A lot of people might say to you that that's a very unproductive use of your time. Right. Right? Like, what are you gonna get out of this? This person hasn't you know, maybe they don't work in your industry. Maybe they're retired. Maybe they're, like, completely different from you, and they're gonna say, well, this is a waste of time.
But the intangible benefit that you're receiving from that
is just you can't measure that. Right? And so I think that's the same thing with rest. People think that resting is a waste of time. People think that engaging in non monetized
hobbies is a waste of time, but it has this, like, incredible intangible benefit
that overall just uplifts
your
sense of being.
So not just your well-being
physically.
I mean and and it does it in in a spiritual way, but I don't mean in a religious way. Mhmm. Like, I think you just become
a more
balanced, holistic human
When you invest in those invest there's that word again. When you invest in those type of things, right, you do get a return from it.
Abel James: What about this whole exhaustion as a status symbol thing?
Israa Nasir: Oh my gosh. That was me. I grew up in the girl boss era. Right? So, like, it was the coolest thing. Like, if you were running from place to place and you were late because your calendar was packed, like, that was just a cool thing. But I think that has just kinda stayed in cultural consciousness, and I think it goes beyond just the girlbosses. I think it's for everyone. Right?
I think that
it is something that some people are now pushing back against, but, overall, it's still very much ingrained in our consciousness.
I've seen it kind of transform its shape,
and I've seen people taking that same mindset and putting it on, like, the wellness track. Mhmm. So
exhausting yourself by doing a lot of biohacking
and, like,
90 minute morning routine and a 25
minute evening routine and just, like, stacking your day.
And that is now a status symbol. Right? Like, saying things like, oh, yeah. I go to Pilates 7 times a week, but I also daily meditate, and I drink this, and I biohack that, and I put this dropper liquid in my water. Right? Because this, like, again, has to become the status symbol. But anytime we chase a status symbol, whether it's your salary, wellness,
busyness,
it kind of indicates that we are missing something internally
that gives us inherent value. Mhmm. So when we are exhausted and someone is like, oh, I'm just so busy. Like, life is so busy. What you're really saying to people is I'm valued because I'm important. Mhmm. I'm needed.
But you can't give that to yourself inherently if you're doing it from external places.
So I would say to people is
we really have to shift again, like, thinking about how can I internally
inherently feel valued?
And how do we do that is by finding qualities and traits about ourselves
that have nothing to do with the external
or the role you play in the external.
Abel James: And then some of these other words, perfectionism
and excellencism.
That one the latter, I hadn't as much experience with, but certainly perfectionism has been, chasing us around for a long time. So maybe you can riff on those a little bit.
Israa Nasir: Yeah. Absolutely. So perfectionism
is, like, hugely glorified, but what it really is is anxiety.
But it's a very specific type of anxiety towards things looking and being a certain standard
because if it's not that, it makes us feel uncomfortable. It makes us feel like we are going to be rejected.
We're not gonna be good enough. So there's it's driven by a fear. Right? Anxiety is just fear. So it's driven by this fear of rejection or abandonment or not being good enough. So those three things really drive perfectionism.
And what happens is we realize,
usually very early on in life,
that if I don't make mistakes,
if everything is to standard,
right,
then people will love me.
Then I can control how they feel about me. So it's really exercising control so that people don't reject you or you don't feel abandoned. Right? And then it becomes so infused with the way you see yourself.
So you become really intolerant of mistakes within yourself. And so that's one kind of perfectionism,
right, where it's inwards.
The second type of perfectionism is demanding it from other people.
So not only do I have to be perfect, but you have to be perfect. And you see this a lot in parenting.
Right? Parents have a standard,
and then they kinda project that on their kids. Or you might even see it in romantic partnerships. Like, if I'm like this, you have to be like this.
And the third form of perfectionism
is
how others view you.
So making sure that other people that the self perception
whether or not you are that on the inside, the self perception is that you are perfect, that you don't make mistakes, that you
are just this glorious being who has it all together,
and that you see a lot in,
contemporary motherhood culture.
Right? Mothers really want other people to see them as perfect,
you know, in all of the things that they do. So it shows up in all these different ways.
Excellencism,
on the other hand, is about meeting your personal best.
So perfectionism,
all three forms, is very much about external standards,
rules, you know, societal
objectives that you're trying to meet.
But excellencism is about really knowing what your skills are,
knowing what your weaknesses are,
and playing to your strengths to meet your personal best.
And and that doesn't mean that you shouldn't pursue things you're not good at. But if you can meet your personal best,
not being good at other stuff
doesn't feel as scary. Mhmm. It doesn't feel as threatening.
You can say, hey. Yes. I am really good at this one thing, but I'm not good at this other thing, and that's okay.
Abel James: You mentioned in your book, beginner's mind. Sometimes
liberating yourself from having to be the expert or the achiever in one domain
such that you can just goof off in another domain is exactly the medicine we need. Right?
Israa Nasir: Yes.
And the beginner's mind
is essentially what we did most of our life when we're students, when school. Right? Like, this is how we essentially trained our brains to become,
you know, functioning members of society, be in relationships. Like, we've been doing a lot of firsts when we're younger, but then we stop doing that. And so what happens is we stop using that part of our mind, and we become scared because we don't wanna make mistakes. We're perfectionists. Right? We wanna be as good as other people. But the beginner's mind actually makes your
brain sharper because you push yourself to do something new and you use different parts of your brain. And so you become, like, you become more flexible, more adaptable, all of these things. What is the beginner's mind? The beginner's mind is doing things
that are not necessarily
easy for you, things that you have to learn a little bit, you have to be a beginner in, whether it's learning a new language, taking a improv class, something that really stretches
your brain in a new direction.
Abel James: And makes it such that other people can see that you're not an expert in a lot of cases. That's what that's the pill you need to swallow. Right? Yes. Yeah. You have to suck at it. Exactly.
So we just have a little bit of time left, but I wanna make sure you cover off on this because I thought this was one of the interesting parts that really struck me. I haven't seen many people talking about this yet. It's the the whole idea
of consumerism
based wellness and this toxic
self care, kind of like the hyperachievement and hyperoptimization,
but a little bit different flavor. So maybe you can touch on that real quick.
Israa Nasir: Absolutely.
So
anything becomes toxic when we take a measuring stick to it, and then we start kind of, like, comparing ourselves to other people and to some ideal. Sometimes you're comparing it to some imaginary ideal.
So consumerism based wellness
is something
that is fairly, like I feel like it's been around for a long time,
but it's become
very apparent now, especially in the last 10 years, with the self care industry
being more than, like, 1,000,000,000 of dollars annually. Right?
And so what we've done is we've commodified wellness.
Wellness is supposed to be very intrinsic,
very subjective, very personal.
Right? Wellness is also supposed to be something that evolves with you, the person, as you evolve in your life.
But what we've done is we've created these cookie cutter guidelines for what wellness or well life should look like, and we've essentially given people a yardstick to measure their wellness against.
And there is a lot of money behind it. There's a lot of ad dollars behind it. Right? So it becomes
something very removed from making you feel better.
Because if your wellness habits are actually making you feel worse about yourself, you're being mean to yourself, you're shaming yourself, you feel guilty,
you feel anxiety,
you are no longer practicing wellness if that's how you feel. Right?
So I think it's really important to drown out the noise
and do things that feel good to you even if they don't look good or they're not aesthetic. You know, you can't post about it.
In fact, I would challenge people to
access or do wellness activities
and not tell anybody.
Right? Don't post about it. Don't talk about it. Don't take a photo.
Abel James: Just see if you can do that, and that will get you out of this mindset a little bit. And you don't need to buy anything. Right? Like, most of the stuff you see online is it's got a product behind it because that's just kind of the nature of the beast. That's how media
works. These days before
years in the past, it was always kind of like this, but it's important that people recognize and you highlight this in your book, you don't need to buy something to practice self care.
Israa Nasir: Yes. You don't need to buy, like, 80,000,000 different types of supplements, and you you don't need to have that branded yoga mat and the matching separate set. You don't need to have, like, all of the things.
Genuinely, what you need is to be able to connect to yourself.
That makes us truly well. And what you need for that is just to sit with yourself. And, yes, as you grow in your journey and you need to purchase a product,
absolutely do it, but do it only if it's something that you need. In fact, like, I say this about my book too because self help is a huge vertical in the wellness industry. Right? And I say it on Instagram. I've said it on other shows, and I'll say it here too. Don't get the book if you don't need it right now.
Get the book if you're genuinely in a place where you feel like your life is slipping out of control, you feel like you're on autopilot,
and you wanna change something.
Don't just get self help books because somebody else is reading them. And I maybe that's unorthodox to say here because I I know that you are a best selling author as well. But there was a time where I was only reading self help books, and it made me kind of miserable. You know? I didn't but I didn't realize it. I thought that being miserable is the price you pay for being ambitious.
Of course, you feel miserable. You have to if you wanna be ambitious,
but that's not true. You can feel nice and be ambitious.
Abel James: Totally.
Man, I I love that. I've done more than 500 of these interviews over the years. I don't think I've ever had anyone say, don't buy my book. Yeah. If even if they had that qualifier after it. But I I really appreciate that because that is totally on point. And I think just about as honest as you could possibly be as far as that goes. But real quickly, we've covered off on toxic productivity and a lot of the things we shouldn't be doing. So what ideally should we be aiming for? What does real and true productivity, the healthy kind, actually look like?
Israa Nasir: I'll say 2 things. 1 is under commit.
I think if we are over committed, if every single minute of your calendar is accounted for in service of achievement,
you must under commit.
And that might mean saying yes to one less thing. It might mean cutting, you know, a 60 minute meeting to 30 minutes and be super lean about it. It might mean taking your kids out of one extracurricular
if they're doing 5 a week. Right? Like, just
try to see where you can under commit. I think that is really helpful.
Because what that does is it leads to the other thing, which is absolutely mandatory for healthy productivity,
and that is time to rest and rejuvenate.
I don't think we can be productive
if we don't bake in rest as part of the process.
So what's happened is
over time, we have put these two things as
oppositional forces.
You're either productive or you're resting.
But it's more kind of
process granted. Right? Like, you your rest needs to be a part of the productivity process
so that you can recharge and come back and then recharge and come back. But we now see rest as something we have to earn because our time is accounted for, so I have to earn it. But if we can under commit, we free up some time that can we can access
rest, rejuvenation,
joy, playfulness,
things like that so that you can have sustainable productivity.
For me, like, I wanna be sustainably productive.
I think in my past, like, in especially in my twenties, I didn't care about sustainability. I just wanted to get to the top as fast as possible
and do, like, 45 different things a week. But now I realized that that wasn't really moving the needle. It just was movement. It was no direction.
But if you have rest and time to introspect and have healthy habits, you can stay in the direction.
Abel James: So it's more about going after those bursts of activity balanced with durations of rest instead of just, like, a long lifelong
slog towards something you might not want when you get there anyways. Right?
Israa Nasir: Exactly. And if you really think about it, Abel, like, the world is so beautiful. There are so many things to appreciate.
And if we just singularly focus on achievement, we actually miss out on a lot of them.
And we only get this one shot. Right? And not to be, like, existential, but it's like it just it's a beautiful, complex world, and we don't need to just constantly be striving
in order to feel good. We deserve better. I think everybody deserves better.
Abel James: I love that. Isra, thank you so much for spending time with us here today. What is the best place to find toxic productivity and the rest of your work?
Israa Nasir: On my website, there is a book page. So istronassar.com
is my full name. And then when you land there, you'll see a little book button. Everything is there. You know, there's a lot of resources on my website as well. And then you can always connect with me over email or Instagram. I'm very active on Instagram, so that would be the best place to chat. Yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for your work in the world. You're doing a lot of good.
Thank you. Thank you. This was such a good conversation. You had really great questions.
Abel James: Hey. Abel here one more time. And if you believe in our mission to create a world where health is the norm, not sickness, here are a few things you can do to help keep this show coming your way. Click like, subscribe, and leave a quick review wherever you listen to or watch your podcasts.
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