TRUST ME I KNOW WHAT I'm DOING

Hi everyone. On this episode of TRUST ME I KNOW WHAT I’m DOING, we share a conversation with Israa Nasir, author of the new book “Toxic Productivity”. Stay tuned.

So as you’re enjoying this, and in the spirit of the conversation in this episode, I hope that listening or watching is a meaningful part of your day and serving as like an additive supplement to your purpose and value. I know its a tall order, but listening to these can come at the cost of time and effort, and so I’m greatly appreciative to you for engaging with me on TRUST ME I KNOW WHAT I’m DOING and for sharing this with your friends and family. And if you’re enjoying these , please, take a moment and share a kind rating, and submit a written review wherever you’re getting this right now. I sincerely appreciate it.

So again, in our own personal quests for fulfillment and seeking achievement, we can sometimes find ourselves in spaces where we take on too much, don’t maintain boundaries, and live on this constant precipice of burnout. In fact, as we seek more vehicles and venues to strive and advance and do more, the ambition and drive and joy can be up against the emotional hurdles of shame, guilt, and perfectionism, especially in an environment where hustle culture and social media capital have currencies and markers that blur our boundaries and make it easy to fall prey to poor self-esteem from an obsession with “busyness”. So it was truly great to catch up recently with therapist, speaker, and founder of the digital mental health brand WellGuide, Israa Nasir. Isra was born in Pakistan, and was raised in Saudi Arabia and Toronto before moving to New York. She is a psychotherapist and content creator whose intersectional cultural and professional background serve as fertile ground to focus on evidence-based mental and emotional health, and empowering individuals and communities along the way. Her new book is titled “Toxic Productivity”, where Israa aims to unmask the hidden roots of hustle culture and dismantle the myth that “doing more makes you more worthy”. It’s a guide, with exercises, personal insights, and storytelling, aimed at understanding what drives your toxic productivity habits and how to undo them in order to lead a more meaningful life. I’m a big fan of professor and author Cal Newport, who called Israa’s book a powerful manifesto for reclaiming the idea of productivity - transforming it from something toxic to nourishing. Israa and I chatted about her background and setting boundaries, about the role of pride and ambition in all of this, and about even the arduous exercise of writing the book within the context of being productive. But we started out by discussing if any of her daily habits were essential to building a healthy productivity?

Thanks so much, Israa. Please check out her book Toxic Productivity and go to IsraaNasir.com to learn more. Shout out to Sharmila and Michael on getting hitched and to Kamala Devi Harris for fighting the good fight. Till next time, I’m Abhay Dandekar

Hi. I'm Israa. I'm the author of the upcoming book, Toxic Productivity, that's out November 19th. I'm a therapist and a writer and a speaker, and you're listening to Trust Me. I Know What I'm Doing.

My name is Abhay Dandekar, and I share conversations with talented and interesting individuals linked to the global Indian and South Asian community. It's informal and informative, adding insights to our evolving cultural expressions where each person can proudly say trust me, I know what I'm doing.

Hi, everyone. On this episode of trust me, I know what I'm doing. We share a conversation with Israa Nasir, author of the new book, toxic productivity. Stay tuned. So as you're enjoying this and in the spirit of the conversation you're about to hear in this episode, I hope that listening or watching is a meaningful part of your day and serves kind of like an additive supplement to your purpose and value. I know it's a tall order, but listening to these can come at the cost of time and effort, and so I'm greatly appreciative to you for engaging with me on Trust Me, I Know What I'm Doing and for sharing this with your friends and family.

And, of course, if you are enjoying these, please take a moment to share a kind rating and submit a written review wherever you're getting this right now. So again, in our own personal quest for fulfillment and seeking achievement, we can sometimes find ourselves in spaces where we take on too much, where we don't maintain boundaries, and where we live on this constant precipice of burnout. In fact, as we seek more vehicles and venues to strive and advance and do more, the ambition and drive and joy can be up against the emotional hurdles of shame, guilt, and perfectionism, especially in an environment where hustle culture and social media have currencies and markers that blur our boundaries and make it easy to fall prey to poor self esteem from an obsession with busyness. So it was truly great to catch up with Israa Nasir, therapist, speaker, and founder of the digital mental health brand Well Guide. Israa was born in Pakistan and raised in Saudi Arabia and Toronto before moving to New York.

She's a psychotherapist and content creator whose intersectional cultural and professional background serve as fertile ground to focus on evidence-based mental and emotional health and empowering individuals and communities along the way. Her new book is titled toxic productivity, where Israa aims to unmask the hidden roots of hustle culture and dismantle the myth that doing more makes you more worthy. It's a guide with exercises, personal insights, and storytelling aimed at understanding what drives your toxic productivity habits and how to undo them in order to lead a more meaningful life. Now I'm a big fan of professor and author Cal Newport, who called Istra's book a powerful manifesto for reclaiming the idea of productivity, transforming it from something toxic to nourishing. Israa and I chatted about her background in setting boundaries, about the role of pride and ambition in all of this, and about even the arduous exercise of writing the book within the context of being productive.

But we started out by discussing if any of her own daily habits were essential to building a healthy productivity. Yeah. So recently in the last 3 years, something I've developed and I've realized that it became a powerful game changer for the quality of my day is really practicing something called a slow morning. And when we think about slow mornings, a lot of times we think about these long stretches of time where we're waking up at the crack of dawn and doing an hour of journaling, an hour of meditating, and those things can be helpful for some people. It's just not the most realistic thing for me, but that doesn't mean that we can't have those things.

So a slow morning has become extremely nonnegotiable for me, and that really all that means is I try to wake up between 20 to 30 minutes before I'm supposed to get whatever done. And so I wake up slowly. I put on music while I'm, you know, brushing my teeth, doing my skin care. And then I make breakfast and coffee, and I sit and I have that without a screen, without my emails, without my going on social media. So I think that's it.

Like, I'm not actually doing anything else that's known as, like, you know, the mindful meditation techniques. I'm not doing that in the morning because I can't. That's just not part of it's just not realistic for me. But I am just that, just the very act of sitting and paying attention to my coffee and my breakfast and just being still, that itself is very rejuvenating. And that is honestly nonnegotiable to me now.

Even if I have to wake up super early for, let's say, an airport, I'll still wake up 20 minutes before the time that I have to and do the thing. So it's been really great. As someone who misses flights every once every 13 years, I probably should employ that a little bit more, especially and and, you know, I mean, it's a time based aspect to it, but I appreciate what you just said about the stillness aspect to it. Right? I mean, it's really the decluttering of things that, you know, both technology and tasks can put in front of you.

And it sounds like this is something that, you know, for you required I know for me would require practice. Is this something that for you just sort of has built up that iterative muscle memory, if you will, particularly as you've done it, you know, so frequently now? No. I and I and I say that because I'm actually not doing anything. So it wasn't like I didn't need to build in a habit.

I'm actually doing nothing if you really think about it. Right? So, like, I wake up and I brush my teeth and do all the things, then I'm just sitting. And, you know, so I am a content creator. I create mental health education pieces for social media.

And you're supposed to kind of post first thing in the morning because people are opening up their phones first thing in the morning. And that used to really start my day off poorly, just getting up and hitting posts or whatever. So leveraging technology to schedule these posts to go out automatically has really been helpful. So I think that's one thing that I shifted. I started searching around to see what I can leverage to get the auto posts out so I don't have to open the apps.

But I didn't really have to build in a practice. It was really just waking up 5th 15 minutes early, then pushing it to 20, then pushing it to 25. And then Yeah. Now it's 30 minutes. I'm curious also.

Sounds like that energizes you in a way. Right? Because you're doing nothing. Mhmm. I'm curious where you draw your energy from in that sense also.

Are you someone who draws energy from people around you or actually from that stillness, from within yourself? You know, I know some people you know, does this make you if you're someone who's an extrovert or an introvert, does it make you toggle back and forth between conversations or even the solace of that quiet reflection in a way? As a very classic Libra, I'm in the middle. So I'm not I'm neither an extrovert nor an introvert. I'm something that's known as an ambivert, which means that depending on the situation, I can feel very energized by people around me, or I can find that depleting and I need time on my own.

One thing is for sure about me is I certainly need to have solo time at least once a week where I'm just on my own, and I find that very, very rejuvenating. And that means I'm not on social media either. So when I'm with myself, I'm just with myself. Sometimes just listening to music, going for a walk. I often go on biweekly dinner dates with myself or lunch dates with myself.

So I think as a whole, I do find some solo time to be rejuvenating. But I also need to be around people to kind of feel a little bit more energized depending on the situation. But starting your morning, at least for me, starting my day from a place of stillness really just gives me a sense of grounding. More than energy, it gives me a sense of grounding and rootedness so that I'm not overwhelmed. I've learned through the years that I'm somebody who can become very easily overwhelmed.

It's kinda sometimes it's kind of like a bag of marbles has exploded and everything is just going everywhere. You know, my not to be very jargony, but, you know, my nervous system is very dysregulated often because I'm doing so many things. I'm and it's kind of this, like, toxic productivity mindset, which is, like, I'm just trying to do everything all the time for everyone. And so this idea of, like, a slow morning just kind of happened by chance. But once I started feeling the benefits of it, I became more intentional about it.

There are people whose lives are intertwined with partnerships and spouses and significant others and whatnot. And how do you tell people to approach those slow mornings when their partners or their families mornings are anything but slow? Yeah. So especially if you have kids, I think it's very challenging. I don't have children, but I was a child before and I remember that.

Yes. So the morning. Right. You know, it's very challenging. And so and so and my partner, he is, like, a true extrovert.

Like, there could not be more of an extrovert than him. So we're very different in that way. And then, you know, if you think about the biology of between, you know, biological males and females, and you probably know this more as a medical professional. You know, like, we're waking up with different hormones. Like, men are waking up at their peak and, like, women are kind of going through the cycle over 30 days.

Right? And so I think just kind of being in touch with your own body's rhythm is really important. Because a slow morning works for me, doesn't mean it's gonna work for everyone. So the point I really like to hone in on is to find the thing that works for you in your circumstance. So as a therapist, that's something I really help people feel empowered in.

If you have children and your mornings are chaotic, think about what needs to change to just shift one aspect of your morning. And a lot of times, good mornings are made the night before. So can you prepare some stuff? Can you empower your children to prep their outfits the night before? Small things like leaving the socks out with the shoes the night before so you're not scrummaging for them in the morning.

You know, that's kind of how I built up, like, a gym practice as I would really struggle to get my life together to get put gym clothes on in the morning. So I just lay them out the night before the mornings. I have to go to the gym in the morning. So it's just kind of like shifting small habits wherever you can. Because making a full routine change, if you have a partner, if you have children, if you have like parents you're caring for, that's like it feels impossible. So if you can just shift small things to enable yourself to start moving towards the ideal state, You're not gonna get to the ideal state right away.

So even for me, I started off by waking up only 15 minutes earlier. Right? And still just being able to listen to music and do my skincare, but not and but still eat breakfast while doing my emails. And then I just expanded it by 5 minutes and 5 and it took, like, it took, like, 3, 4 months. It didn't just happen.

It's hard to break habits even though they seem very small. And that's what I meant by the iterative practice where you sort of, like, you get to a steady state and, you build up this kind of, you know, cache of success and Mhmm. A lot of what you're talking about I mean, at least in my house, the pre prep, where you're talking about, talking about involves, you know, does the car have gas in it for my children, that kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, that can be a but, you know, meal prep is what makes meals successful. So, you know, planning ahead of time and all those things are wonderful. You mentioned the ability to be still, especially to quiet down that kind of toxic productivity, you know, spin that's going on in your head often. And I'm curious how you particularly stay driven while also quieting those inner voices. Right?

Whether that's an inner critic, it's an inner guide that's constantly telling you to achieve or do something or, you know, get that thing done today. How do you maintain that kind of drive and ambition while also remaining still and quieting those voices? That's a really good question, and it's one that I explore in detail in the book. And the reason it even came about is because of my own personal experience with this. So this is something that I definitely struggled with a lot, especially in my twenties, of seeing rest as the enemy to progress, seeing taking breaks as antithetical to success.

And that's the inner critic voice that's constantly telling you to keep moving. And the journey that I really had to take that started off with just doing research on this topic, because I was trying to understand how I can break these habits myself, is really reframing and actually even to the endpoint is to redefine productivity to include rest and stillness in it. But that's a really big ask at the upfront. So starting off with just kind of, like, reframing those inner critical thoughts to see how you can transform them into something more helpful. So if I am sitting and the thoughts begin, it's like, oh my gosh.

It's, like, 850. Like, you should have started already. You should have started already. It's the should statements. I have to really stop myself now and have a conversation with myself and say things, like, that are validating.

So it's okay if it's 8:50. You're meant to start at 9 anyway. Right? Or things like that are completely reframing as if you don't finish this well right now, you're going to be stressed the rest of the day. Then you're gonna get really tired in the afternoon.

You have a long day. Like, you know, you're actually talking through. Oh, yeah. By the way, are those reminders? Because some people have a difficult time having that conversation with themselves.

They need coaches. They need Yeah. Visuals. They need to post it someplace. Like, slow down.

It's 850. You're okay. That kind of thing. So mine is just kinda like a mental thing because I think as a child, I was very like, imaginative play was a very big thing for me. So I think it's just like a natural skill that I have that I can kind of mentally talk myself through it.

However, I think for people who are more visual, having, like, something that I recommend people do is when you're actually in a good state of mind, open up a notes in your note app. And when you're in that positive or healthy or balanced state of mind, write down the things that are going to be helpful to you. Trying to think of stuff when you're in a crisis is very unhelpful because it doesn't usually happen. So you can keep it in your notes app. You can have visual reminders.

I have a friend who can download this app that changes the wallpaper of your phone to various affirmations on a time, like, time clock. Like, every 20 minutes, it shifts a new affirmation. And it's just on your desk, on your wallpaper, so you're not actually getting a notification for it because we have notification fatigue. So, like, trying to get creative in ways like that is really helpful. Having a set place where you have your breakfast or your coffee.

Again, like, the more you ritualize it, the less powerful the inner critic comes. So in the beginning, you might need the reminders, but eventually, it's something that becomes just a part of the way you're thinking. You're listening to trust me. I know what I'm doing. After a quick break, we'll come back to our conversation with therapist, speaker, and author, Israa Nasir.

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Hi. My name is Richa Morjani, and you're listening to Trust Me, I Know What I'm Doing with Abhay Dandekar. Welcome back to Trust Me, I Know What I'm Doing. Let's rejoin our conversation now with the author of the new book, Toxic Productivity, Israa Nasir.

Has that been the experience for you where as you have begun to ritualize this and especially with surprises.

Right? I mean, transitions. Mhmm. You know, younger children go through this where they find it really difficult to navigate through transitions or the surprise that comes by because the ritual gets broken. Yeah.

So, you know, when you're trying to quiet those voices a little bit and quiet that critic in you, when there are surprises or shocks to the system, how do you sort of brace for that? Does that also require a lot of forethought and practice and skill? So something I laugh about with my sister a lot is that I'm big on rituals. Right? But the problem with rituals is if one is disrupted, it's kind of like a domino effect on the day.

And you're kind of just like, why do I even have rituals? Because it feels limiting, but it's actually not. So one important part of building healthy habits, whatever the eating well, sleeping better, whatever it is, like not using your phone, is to bake in a contingency plan. And that's part of building a ritual. That's part of and, of course, when you work with children, you have to adapt it in a way that's developmentally appropriate.

And my experience with children is very, very limited. But with adults you when you plan for it, when you're sitting it down and you're thinking about how you want to build in this new habit, you are thinking about things that are disruptive, like vacations. Right? Like stressful periods at work. Some people, due to their professions, they already know seasons that are very busy, like accountants, for example.

Right? Or dentists. Like, the end of the year is really busy for dentists because people are trying to use up their, you know, their benefits. And so knowing the baseline of your life is really important when you think about building new habits. And rituals are really powerful because they are anchoring.

Right? You recognize that I have these anchor points in my day, in my week that will activate me into doing these things. And when the rituals are disrupted, my recommendation, and this is something I practice, is to compress the ritual. So if you can't do 100% of the whole thing that day, just do 20%. That's okay.

So Yeah. One thing that so something I struggle with a lot is regularly, like, exercising at the gym. I can go to classes, you know, Pilates and yoga. Like, that's great. But that weight training piece is very hard for me because I just was not a very athletic person as a young child.

And so when I don't have a solid 60 minutes to work out, I'll just take the workouts that my trainer has given me and do it for 30 minutes. And I even asked her, I was like, hey, can you just create 2 workouts for me? 1 is at 160, 1 is 30, Because at least I can get some done. So when we think about positive habits, we don't wanna get into this, like, 0 one binary mindset. Just even if you can do 80%, you can do 20%.

Do what you can for that day, and it's still a win. I love how that's kind of baked into everything. Right? That the ritual doesn't have to be a 100%, 0 versus 1 binary, but being able to to get graduated results is also, you know, super beneficial. Mhmm.

And, of course, us as South Asians, we're no strangers to ritualization of things. And I'm curious for someone like you and your own sort of formative background growing up in multiple cultures with lots of, you know, having this kind of South Asian cultural backdrop and heritage. Was your cultural background at all an accelerator to tackling and addressing this issue of toxic productivity in a way? Did that sort of tee up this conversation for you? That is such an interesting question.

You know, I think certain aspects of toxic productivity, and this is really just an like, the output of the way my family operates. The foundation for this kinda, like, toxic level of high achievement and needing to always be optimizing. And so I think that does definitely come from my family background. And, you know, when it's when I think about, like, the mornings and the chaotic mornings and, like, the false sense of urgency, I think a lot of that does come from the foundation of my parents, specifically more my mom. My dad is a little bit more chill, but this is not a knock on them.

I love them, and I honestly had a few And and by the way, the immigrant story probably resonates for a lot of people. Right? Yeah. That's the thing. You know, like, as immigrants, you kind of are in survival mode.

Right? So it's not even, like, something that my parents were intentionally, maliciously doing. It's the thing that helped them get out of survival into thriving. Yeah. So, you know, my parents were caught up in the 1971 war between Bangladesh and Pakistan.

So they were displaced in that war as a minority. And so that already starts you in survival mode. Right? That starts with this false sense of urgency. And I think this is a story a lot of South Asians' diaspora adults can really identify with because we have this intergenerational component of trauma.

Our grandparents lived the partition. They passed down that nervous system dysregulation, the scarcity mindset, the I need to do everything now. They pass it to their kids who are our parents. And then our parents pass it to us because we then immigrated from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Afghanistan to Yeah. The Middle East or to North America or Europe.

And then they had to start all over again. Right? And so there is this compounding effect in immigrant experiences that really sets the stage for toxic productivity to take hold. And then you layer that on with the South Asian culture of excellence. Right?

We do have this idea that, you know, we have to be the best at everything because that's how we win. Right? That's how we win at life. Yeah. And you layer in the model minority myth.

Then you layer in socioeconomic things. Right? Like, the more you layer it, the more foundational this belief becomes that we have to keep moving and doing and achieving in order to be valued. Right? And then that just locks in.

Yeah. And and and let me ask something about that. I mean, of course, immigrants and and this incredible backstory for many, many folks in the diaspora becomes signature in a way and maybe makes people prone to this kind of behavior. And then is it important in some ways to not fool yourself into separating out pride with that? On the one hand, of course, you don't wanna necessarily have to have that drive everything about you where it's a scarcity mindset, it's an urgency mindset, it's a excellence, you know, at all costs.

Mhmm. And yet, there there is great pride also in what our achievements are as a community. Yeah. How do you kind of really sort of integrate those 2 together? Yeah.

So the way I think about it, and this is kind of the argument I make in the book, is the opposite of toxic productivity is not the absence of productivity. It is healthy productivity. So when we think about pride in our achievements, we have to think about at what cost are we pursuing this achievement. And that's really the most important question for us to think about is there are seasons in your life where you really have to push through. Right?

Let's say you're an entrepreneur. You're raising around. But, yes, you have to push through. However, even in that period, even that very tight period of, like, heavy deadlines, if you don't prioritize rest, it's going to affect your bottom line eventually. Right?

So, again, it's like thinking about, you know, at what cost am I pursuing this achievement, and how am I getting in my own way? How is my desire for pride getting in my own way of achieving things in a sustainable manner? So for me, we wanna make our productivity sustainable. We wanna make it something that is constantly kind of going through instead of something that goes up and down, ebbs and flows where we push ourselves and we burn out, then we push ourselves and we burn out. There's nothing wrong with feeling pride or wanting to be high achieving.

That's definitely something I want to clarify, and I want people to realize that it's really important that we feel good about the things that we do. But when we overdo it, we stop feeling good about it. We just feel like we have to do it. We should do it. We must do it.

And then it becomes a very joyless experience. I love that there's this great, I think, reminder to redefine. And in some ways, at least for me personally, constantly remind myself that the should part is always relative. Right? I mean, that voice is Mhmm.

Is something to to maybe quiet down as well. And and in the book, I imagine there's a lot I know there's a lot about managing trigger words, trigger emotions, whether that's shame or guilt or perfectionism. And why do you think those emotions and triggers are at the core of this sort of toxic and unhealthy productivity? Gonna make you wear your therapist hat for a second. Yeah.

These are really all swirls, and they're not necessarily always kinda siloed out. But why are those, you know, so important to really call out and and really recognize and and try and manage? One of the reasons that's so important is because those intense emotions are often connected to core emotional needs. And these are, like, our biological drivers for connection, for acceptance, for love, for respect. These are things that are kind of hard coded in us.

And so these emotions such as guilt, shame, they really activate a primal fear of being rejected by the group by your in group. Right? Whether it's your family, your peers. And so what happens is the mechanics and the dynamics are so deep inside us that we don't realize that they are now in the driver's seat. And that's why I think a lot of the productivity literature is focused on habit changes.

It's how you can have, like, optimize your habit changes, and even we've been talking about that. Right? Because that's the most tangible impact we can make. However Right. If the emotional dynamics are still moving in the space of fear, shame, guilt, comparing yourself to others, not feeling good enough, you can make the habit changes and they'll last, but eventually your primal fears will take over.

And those are really hard to talk yourself out of if you don't even know what's driving it. And so thinking about what is the core emotional need that I am trying to fulfill as I pursue achievement at all costs will really help you start to deconstruct it. And this foundation is laid so early on. You know, a European tradition, like, you probably see this all the time. Parents unknowingly can use shame as a weapon against their children.

Like, they don't even mean to. Right? Especially in South Asian culture, comparison is a parenting technique. Right? Like, look at those people's children.

Look at that person's kid. And what are they going to say about this? And I know this because I heard this a lot. And it instills this fear that I will not be accepted by my parents if I am not good. Yeah, it's striking.

How much both toxic stressors and adverse childhood experiences are are so woven into, you know, what we do as adults. Yeah. And also as important are those great accelerators when you have sort of the opposites of those. Those are also really apparent when you see adults who don't have all those kind of core problematic triggers Mhmm. That is there as well.

Yeah. You're listening to Trust Me. I Know What I'm Doing. After a quick break, we'll come back to our conversation with Israa Nasir. Stay tuned.

Every story told is a lesson learned, and every lesson learned is a story waiting to be told. I'm Abhay Dandekar, and I share conversations with global Indians and South Asians so everyone can say, trust me. I know what I'm doing. New episodes weekly wherever you listen to your podcasts. Hi.

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Let's rejoin our conversation now with the author of the new book, Toxic Productivity, Israa Nasir. One thing I want that it made me think of is, you know, you talk about these sort of core emotions, and it's always a work in progress, of course. But I'm curious for you whether there were some moments of reckoning that kinda helped you to redefine your own relationship with productivity. Yes. There were 2 really powerful ones, and I talk about it in the book as well.

But one is and, you know, I'm a therapist. I've been with therapist for 10 years. And so the assumptions people make about therapists is that, you know, we have it all figured out in our own heads. But it was really it was really, like, 4 years ago when I first recognized the shame I have around achievement behaviors. And the shame how shame operates for me.

It's just something I just was not aware of. And I am a fairly self aware person, but it just never I never transitioned into recognizing that, and it really took a incident at work where there was a little bit of, like, kind of, like, a racialized experience that I was on the receiving end of. And I just completely was frozen. It was like my freeze response completely got activated. And in deconstructing that moment with my therapist over the next few months of, like it was my first racialized encounter as well.

So I've never been on the receiving end of this kind of stuff, especially in the workplace. And so Yeah. In deconstructing that, that's when my we kinda got to the place where I was like, wait. I operate from a lot of shame around being good enough. Being you know?

And then I realized that I was always the good student, the good daughter. Teachers love me. My parents like, I was, like, you know, the child they didn't really worry that much about when it came to academics and stuff. Are you an oldest child, by the way? No.

I'm the oldest daughter. I'm the middle child. And I was just, like, temperamentally a little just chill kid, and I like to read a lot. And so I feel like that kind of transforms the way parents react to you. And so that was one incident that that that I was like, oh, wow.

Like, this is why part of why I overwork myself and, you know, it distresses me so much. You know? And so that was one really big one. And the second is I found a journal entry from when I was, like, 20 while I was doing research for the book, and I was kinda going through my own things. And the journal entry was so sad.

It it it was I think I wrote down the sentence in stat in stillness as death, stagnant waters hold no value. And I must have been 21. And I would just kinda feel sad for my younger self who really just had such an antagonistic view on rest. Sure. You know?

And then I think about all the decisions I made in my twenties, which some of them are so amazing and fun, and it got me great outcomes. But, you know, I think I did struggle with my burnout for a long time. Of course. And reading that itself. Right?

Coming to that moment of reckoning, that sort of moment. I wonder if in writing the book and in having this kind of or or expression so that you can address both of those kinds of moments of reckoning. Was there a catharsis with this process for you that that sort of allowed you the space, the template playbook almost to to really address both of those concerns or both those incidents, I guess? Yeah. I I think there was a lot of, like, acceptance and awareness.

Like, I think I learned a lot about myself. And the book is not particularly a very personal book. Like, there's definitely a lot of me in there and lots of clients, like, amalgamations. But it's because it's not a memoir, it's not supremely personal. But I definitely think that I can catch myself when I'm doing the emotional dynamic that is harmful.

Like, at least I can kind of name it. So I kind of have this, like, observational, like an aerial view of myself. So I can definitely The drone view of Israa. Yes. The drone view of me.

Yeah. And I think there was, like, an like, an acceptance to it. Like, I was like, okay. Like, this is how I'm operating, and I don't want to operate like this anymore. And, you know, the one thing I do want to say, and I want people to kind of know this, is when we think about productivity and achievement behavior, we often think of the archetype as a type a person.

I'm a type b person. And I know it doesn't sound like that because I have all these habits in place now to kind of keep it structured. But type b people can also struggle with productivity, Like, toxic productivity, it looks like avoidance behaviors. It looks like procrastination. It looks like a lot of overthinking analysis paralysis.

So Yeah. It's not just that people who are very type a are struggling. It's really anybody who has a connection between their self worth and their achievements can struggle with toxic productivity. I wonder about and and this is sort of a thought that just popped into my head that it's a kind of a question that's steeped in some kind of circular irony. But there's this kind of mirrored harmony of achievements, whether you're type a or type b.

And, you know, this mirrored harmony of achievements and productivity that's itself involved in writing and publishing a book Mhmm. And maybe recognizing the strategy and the exercises involved to make that process peaceful and nontoxic Mhmm. Are itself I don't know if that makes sense, but itself, the substrate for how you are really going through and practicing the things that I'm sure are in the book itself. Did you find some struggle with that in saying, hey. I have deadlines.

I have you know, making a book is no joke in 20 24. No. My goodness. No. It's certainly not.

And so absolutely. I when I started the book, I approached it with a very toxic productivity mindset. I was like, I'm gonna finish this manuscript in 10 months. Like, it literally took me 24 months, actually. Like Right.

April to April. But yeah. So I definitely and I share some of these stories in the book itself where I taught it's kinda like a meta awareness. Like, I'm actually writing about the toxic productivity stuff that I'm struggling with as I write the book. Right.

Right. And I was having dinner with a friend a couple of months ago near the close to end of the book. And she was kinda to ask me how I'm doing, and I was kinda, like, rambling on about, like, all the other things that I was doing besides writing the book. Because I was consulting. I was working as a therapist.

I make digital content. I do workshops for corporations. And she stopped me mid sentence and she said, are you struggling with toxic productivity? And I was so embarrassed, and we laughed about it. And so yes.

So there was a little bit of, like, a meta experience because I didn't write I didn't start writing this book after I figured it all out. I figured it out a little bit near the second half of the book where I was like, oh, these are things I'm doing right now. You know, and the slow mornings really came out of that. Now to kind of tie back to the beginning. The slow mornings came out of that because I was having a lot of writer's block.

And I was realizing that I'm having writer's block when I'm cramming my schedule, when I'm just getting up and running to my call, like, opening up my laptop and doing too many things. And so in the book, I talk about strategies of streamlining your calendar so you can actually do the things that align with you. And that has more sustainability versus doing the things that you should be doing. And when you have to do the things you should be doing, like deadlines, how can you find purpose in that? How can you transform that so that it can be meaningful?

I've read and and seen lots of content related back to these, like, sort of hacks, right, that you're trying to, you know, maximize things and become more efficient. But is that just a mask for actually seeking more and more productivity in the end? The hack. And I ask this because I'm at a stage where I'm actually, you know, I'm actually wanting to shed tasks. Right?

I mean, I need to I wanna let go more, and I don't feel guilty about that. But am I just fooling myself and masking this toxic productivity with trying to become more efficient? Does that make sense? And I'm gonna solicit some free mental health advice. I love this question because it's a really common one.

One of the core tenets of toxic productivity is the mask of efficiency for sure. Yeah. Right? The way it becomes healthy is if you are using the efficiency to clear up time, not so that you can put more things in. Right?

So being really intentional about the tasks, the commitments, and not just in work, but your personal life. I mean, you said that you have children. Right? I do. I have a 20 year old and a 70 year old.

So, you know, when they're younger, a lot of times parents, like, kind of slam the schedules with, like, 14 different after school things without realizing that that's a commitment to them as well. Right? So it's like being intentional. Am I being efficient so I can squeeze more things in, or am I being efficient so I can make gaps in my calendar? And am I being efficient so that I'm doing the thing that is aligned with my values that will give me the outcome that will make me happy, not the outcome that will check a box?

Right? And so it's kind of being intentional about that. I don't think the hacks are necessarily harmful. But if you're, again, if you're approaching it from the mindset of needing to do more so you can feel good about yourself, then that does become harmful. Let me ask you this.

I mean, we're speaking with a common thread of having South Asian backgrounds and heritages. And, are there specific conversations that we kind of should be having in this global South Asian community with all the things that we've mentioned here Mhmm. But particularly about steering toward that healthy productivity? How do we I mean, we can do this as individuals. How do we do this as a collective?

So I think 2 things need to shift. This is just my perspective. Yeah. The one cultural shift that needs to happen for us as South Asians is we need to step away from the timeline. We are very timeline oriented people, which is kind of ironic because we're never on time.

You know, like, Brown Standard Time is a thing and a lot of endearment for a lot a lot of things in our culture. Yeah. But we are very timeline oriented. Right? I remember my mom telling me that I should try to finish undergrad, like, 1 year early for no reason.

Right. Right. Just for doing for the sake of doing it. Right? I took a gap year in the middle between undergrad and masters, and that was, like, a very foreign thing to my mom.

She was like, what? What? What are you doing? Right. What are you doing?

What do you mean? Why is this happening? Yeah. So this timeline thing then then, like, you know, undergrad, master's, job, marriage, house, first kid, 2nd. Right?

Like, we can't move through this. So we need to step away from that because that really locks in well with the toxic productivity mindset. It's like the prime background for that to develop because that activates shame, that activates the fear of being kicked out of your community or being rejected from the people who love you and that kind of stuff. The second shift that we need to make is kind of connected to the first one is we need to open ourselves up to nontraditional lifestyles, nontraditional paths of living because the pressure eases a little bit. And this is within the context of South Asians.

Right. So when I was growing up, like you had 4 careers. Right? You were and I'm not even being stereotypical. You were either an engineer, a lawyer, something in medicine, or teaching type of jobs.

Right? But now I'm seeing this new outcrop of, you know, younger out gen alpha, gen z, South Asians who are pursuing nontraditional paths. Paths. Right? They are pursuing creative arts, and they are pursuing entrepreneurship.

And I think, literally everything. Yeah. Even not having children, not getting married. Right? I think all of that will shift our cultural mindset of needing to be a certain way so that we can achieve, achieve, achieve.

The way that happens is very slow. It's generational. I'm seeing millennial South Asian parents re, like, redo or sorry, breakthrough the cycles, change some of their parenting habits. I think that is one way. And the second way is, like, if you're not a parent, or you won't be a parent, is to talk about it.

Yeah. That's something that I like, as a therapist, that's my niche. I work with predominantly Asian, you know, children of immigrants who are in life transition or who are choosing nontraditional life paths. So empowering people to talk about it, give it language, help them navigate setting boundaries that are appropriate to our culture. Right?

Help them navigate finding community. And I think that is something that is really important. We need champions from within our community who talk about it. So one of the things we talk about a lot, this little bit of personal thing is, like, you know, I'm choosing not to have kids. As a Muslim Pakistani person, that is, like, probably Right.

The saddest thing in for my brother. Right. I know. And that's that itself is so sad. Right?

That, like, that has to be a strange conversation as opposed to something we celebrate and accept. And I think you're right. Like, getting rid of timelines, having more dialogue, having more conversation is huge. And Mhmm. You mentioned the word boundary, and I'll and I'll try and get you out of here on this one.

Sure. In the end, I imagine that we save a lot of energy if we were just more content Mhmm. And more conscious of Mhmm. Of boundaries at any given time. And I imagine that helps us to stay healthy and to stay, you know, in harmony in a way.

So what do you do both to be at peace with these boundaries, to be content, but again, also satisfy and and be empathic to those in different generations with different mindsets who are, you know, making their way towards being content, making their way towards changing those boundaries. And how do we, you know, again, find a way to sort of connect the dots here so that we can eliminate, you know, some of the barriers to making those boundaries. That's a weird way to put that, but Yeah. Hopefully, that makes sense. It does.

It does. And I'll try to answer from the way I understood your question. I think when we think about setting boundaries in our communities around this type of stuff, right, like achievement, career paths, stuff like that. The notion is that it needs to be this, like, statement. I need to, like, put up this wall, and now I'm just stating this, and you have to accept it, and how you accept it as your problem.

That's not the way to do it. We have to build relational boundaries because we are constantly in relation because our culture is collectivist. Right? And so barring abusive power dynamics like this is not for that situation, is having your boundaries in dialogue. So really understanding where your parents are coming from or where your grandparents are coming from.

Like, why is this so hard for them to accept? What are their fears? Like as parents, irrespective of culture, parents are just afraid something bad will happen to their kids. Right. That's just the core fear, whether and that manifests as not accepting interracial marriages that manifests as not accepting, like, your queer children.

But the core in there is that they're afraid. They're afraid something bad will happen. And so trying to access that piece, trying to understand where your parents are coming from when they are having a hard time with a choice that you're making and continuously having an open dialogue with them. So the way I did it, especially in trying to help my mom understand my choices, is first understand where she was coming from. What were her fears?

Why did she feel this way? What were the misconceptions? That was one conversation. Then there was another conversation about, like, another thing. Right?

Like, so we had these, like, a year of actually, a year of conversations. And in that year, trying as you as the child try to understand that I'm gonna be in the exploration phase, so I'm not gonna take their stuff personally. Whatever they feel about this choice is an outcome of the way that they were raised. It doesn't have anything to do with me. And that is a journey that you have to take in accepting that your parents will be disappointed in you.

When you get over the fear that your parents will be disappointed in you, you can set the boundary in a healthy way without kind of jeopardizing the relationship. So we have a great relationship even though my mom fully does not agree with my choice. Right? But I talk to her literally 4 times a day, and she lives in Toronto. So I think it's that piece in understanding where they're coming from and just making sure that their opinions doesn't impact your decisions and not taking their things personally.

And that's if you have the privilege of having these conversations, I understand. Sure. If you don't have the privilege of having these conversations, I think it's much harder. You have to have the conversation differently. Sometimes you need to create a little bit of space between whether you talk to them about it, whether you bring it up, you limit certain conversation topics.

But the work of accepting that your parents will be disappointed in you is internal. And we have to do it ourselves with our therapists, with our journals. And it's very hard for sure as a recovering good girl. I can tell you that. So, yeah, it's that that's a I could talk about this forever.

Like, I love this conversation. Well, I was gonna say, you know, understanding where people are coming from and tackling pro toxic productivity and really developing great dialogue about all these things. Israa, thank you so much for joining us. This was really a treat, and I hope we can visit with you again down the line. Yeah.

Thank you so much for having me. Your questions are very insightful. Thanks so much, Israa. Please check out her book, Toxic Productivity, and go to Israa naseer.com to learn more. Shout out to Sharmila and Michael on getting hitched and to Kamla Devi Harris for fighting the good fight.

Till next time. I'm Abhay Dandekar