And really go through some journal prompts like ask yourself, why do I do the things that I do? Do they genuinely make me happy? Or do they make other people happy? So it makes me happy? Right? This transitive property of happiness? And do I have to do them today?
It's great to have Isra Nasser on the podcast. Isra is an author, speaker, and therapist whose latest book is about toxic productivity. In this episode, we discuss her definition of toxic productivity, why addressing our emotional foundation is one of the most important parts of healing and fulfillment, and how we can challenge the instinct to trust the negative beliefs we hold for ourselves. We also discuss the importance of self care, the connection between productivity and self worth,
and how to transform shame into curiosity. This was an important chat on a topic that I think we can all relate to at various points in our lives, so that further ado I bring you Isra.
I love the jacket.
I love it too, Yes, I got it recently and I can't ever not wear it now.
I mean it's just elevating a plain black outfit. You know, it's so nice.
Thank you for like I love that we just opened this conversation commenting on my style is there. It is so nice to meet you.
It's so nice to me too. Thank you for having me.
Well, thanks for coming on my podcast. Yeah, this is a really important topic, toxic productivity. How do you define toxic productivity?
The way I envision toxic productivity is that the pursuit for productivity takes over your entire life. So the way I kind of talk about it or think about it is three things need to happen for you to kind of get caught in the storm of toxic productivity. So one is that you are extremely outcome driven and all of your life is structured around your outcomes. Two is the pursuit of those outcomes our priority, So your wellness, your relationship, your physical health, that all is secondary to
your outcome. And the third is how good you feel about yourself is connected to the outcome. So when these three things start happening, yeah, yeah, then you're just kind of in this. I call it a paradox because it's like self fulfilling in some ways and kind of like a catch twenty two. But you could call it a storm like that.
Yeah, it does feel like, yeah, a lot of people with low feelings of self worth. Do they tend Can you find them really increasing their toxic productivity as a way to like fill that hole in themselves.
Absolutely. That's one of the central arguments I'm making is is that we are utilizing productivity as a coping tool to feel good about ourselves and feeling good about yourself for the basic human need is the need for belonging and acceptance. So trying to do things, collect achievements, collect goal stars so that you feel like you're you know, you fit in like you and I can sit here and I can feel good about myself because I just did X, Y Z, and so it definitely feels good
in the moment, So there's no denying that. But it's not long term, and it's not sustainable.
Yeah, it's definitely sustainable. Yeah, or also wouldn't be called toxic. So what are the values that drive healthy productivity? Let's say about healthy productivity.
VERSU Yeah, you know, gosh. So one of the things I want to say is I don't want healthy productivity to become yet another achievement marker that we have to work towards, because the way we kind of pursue toxic productivity is that the outcome doesn't matter. It's how you're getting there that becomes unhealthy. So you might want healthy productivity, but the method of getting there, if it's still imbalanced
and unhealthy, it's not going to be healthy. So that's just something I want to say, is you know, healthy productivity shouldn't just become another thing you compare yourself to with others. Yeah I love that, yeah exactly, or like, oh they're healthier than me. I have to change this, and I'm not good enough and all of that stuff. But the values that I think drive sustainable productivity that you can maintain over a lifetime. I think the first
is an intentionality. So why you pursue what you pursue, what does it actually bring you? Being aware of those things is really important. Understanding the roots of your productivity is really important. So is your productivity coming from a desire to mask shame or is it coming from a desire to genuinely learn about the world?
Right?
So your intention and the root matters. That's what defines I think the difference a little bit and healthy productivity, I think to me is a different definition. It includes rest, it includes stepping away, It includes boundaries, like, it includes all of these things. When we are in toxic productivity, we are trying to earn rest, but healthy productivity has rest baked into the process itself. And finally it's more process oriented than outcome or progress oriented.
Can toxic productivity still be productive?
Oh yeah?
Yeah? Yeah. Like I heard an interview with Elon Musk once, right, like he's like, you know, he's so proud that he like never sleeps, and I mean he obviously has toxic productivity, but he's proud of it.
Yeah. Yeah, I mean that's that's the conundrum, right. I feel like that's this is one of the questions I get a lot in different ways, is that you know, why are you against productivity? Or you know, is your book exactly? Yeah?
Right?
Or like as if I'm like evangelizing a life of idleness and laziness, and that in itself makes me see how people see the world in this like stark binary. If you're productive, you're productive. If you're not, then you're idle and lazy, right, And so we get so scared, and so that creates a lot of fear and shame. But another thing I'll say is productivity on its own is not a bad thing, right. Progress is important. That's
how our culture moves, that's how we have innovation. You know, Elon Musk has done a million things, even though somewhat questionable at this point as a public figure, but he you know, he's changed a lot of things because of this drive for productivity. So I want people to understand that your seasons of very intense productivity have to be exceptions in your life. You know, and you have a
very strong deadline. You might be working a lot, but that shouldn't be your whole life, and so welcome the seasons of rest and just ease and intention and then if things are happening, you can rise to the occasion, right, because if you're like that all the time, you are likely going to burn out.
Yeah. When I was reading your book, I really I thought of this distinction that Robert Vallroan makes between harmonious and obsessive passion. I came across that distinction in the positive psychology literature.
No, but tell me that sounds so interesting.
Yeah, it seems right up your alley. Yeah. So, harmonious passion is you have a passion for something, but it's well integrated into your identity, and it's also harmonious with the rest of yourself. You don't feel like you like you. So we'll contrast that with obsessive passion, where with obsessive passion you are not able to disengage from something you know, like if your partner or something wants to have a date night or whatever, you say, no, I can't. I
must work. Continue working like you still work even if it's not paying off dividends, and you're much more likely to burn out. Think about that. It was well when you just burn out, But harmonious passion is so much healthier, and it's been correlated with well being. And Robert Valern has done so much research to showing that that pathway is a much more sustainable root. So that that might be irrelevant.
I love it because you're right, Like you know, when we are harmonious, if you will, you're integrated. Your sense of self is integrated. And integration requires awareness and intention and emotional regulation. And I think that emotional regulation is the key to being successful in any domain of your life. And I think in productivity literature we don't talk about that enough.
Is that really to resiliency?
It does, but it's not only resiliency, right, So, like, of course, if you can regulate your emotions, you can have a lot of emotional resilience, but you're also less reactive. You're also a better decision maker, right, And so I mean resiliency, like everybody defines it a little differently, right, So, yes, I think it's a part of resiliency, but it's not the only thing that's.
Part of the umbrella. Yeah, yeah, So why do you write this book like this? A step back a second. You're a clinical psychologist, is that right?
I'm a psychotherapist, Hello, yeah, psychotherapist.
Yeah, that's great. What is your specialization within that field?
So I work with adults, and I whenever I am in private practice, i'm working with people who are moving through life transitions, because life transitions can be very stressful and like there's a lot of identity shifts happening, and I like to help people kind of emerge into like a new chapter of their life. And my primary work is in digital health, so I do clinical strategy and
operations at health tech startups for mental health. But the book happened because I do a lot of things, and I grew up thinking that that was the only way to live and if you were not stressed out and overwhelmed and frazzled, then you were not ambitious that you didn't want to change the world. And so my twenties was predominantly about like doing the most at all times forever. And in my early thirties I did start kind of
like feeling the burden of that. You know, ultimately, when your life is off balance and you're living in an unhealthy way, it will start to show, and if you have a little bit of self awareness, you will stop to think about it. So, yeah, I was just starting to feel very like disconnected. And because I'm a therapist, my first question to myself was am I depressed? So did the PHQ and which is an assessment for depression, and I didn't really meet the criteria, but I felt
very disconnected from my life. So I just started doing some research to find answers on motivations, social development, learning, human behavior, that kind of stuff. And then these themes just started emerging where I could see how much I was putting into my outcomes. And on the outside, if you had met me, you would have been like, oh, my gosh, your life is great, But on the inside I was not happy. Nothing was good enough. I hadn't done enough, like so much to accomplish like blah blah blah.
So it came from that were you now that I am in a season. The thing is, some of these things are so deeply embedded in our worldview that when your resilience is low, coming back to resilience, when you were stressed out, your most conditioned habits come to the surface. Right. So this unlearning journey that I was on and changing my habits and my worldview, I think has given me a new perspective on how to deal with stressful times
in my life. But inevitably it does come up. You know, I have this book coming out, and so my old habits of relating to outcome and achievement and being the good girl making people proud, like, all of that is coming up for me for sure. And I just I have more coping now than before.
Yeah. Good. Yeah, And you also have a big audience that's already you know there to get your book.
Yeah, thank you.
Yeah, that's a big plus to start with, right, So what are the dangers of operating in autopilot mode?
My gosh, Like that's kind of like where I was before. But I think one of the biggest, or i should say one of the saddest things about living on autopilot is you're not living in the present. You're not actually engaged in the relationships that you have, You're not engaged in the life that you're living. You feel like you have no choice or agency anymore. And that is like incredibly disheartening to the human spirit. And living on autopilot
just feels like going through the motions. I described it as kind of like being underwater and looking up, so everything feels distorted and blurry. Some people have described it as kind of just like like being like a zombie, just kind of like floating through life. And it's not depression. I think it can be a precursor to depression, but depression is more complicated, even though some of the things
are similar. But the dangers of living on an autopilot are you start to not live your own life and you're living somebody else's life, what your parents wanted, what your partner wants from you, what your friends expect from you. It's kind of like just a very empty feeling.
That's so interesting because like to be an Instagram influencer, you're kind of like having to constantly figure out what people want and giving it to them. Does that ever get like resentful? Like I don't know, I've never asked an influencer that before, but I never get a state where it's like, do you always see me for what I provide for you on Instagram? You know what I mean?
So I think I definitely feel a little bit of resentment towards the changing platforms. What's happening, Like, you know, the algorithms change, the way they build things, change, the way they prioritize metrics change, and there's never really like an announcement about it. It's usually retro like they'll they'll roll out the change and then they'll kind of announce it.
So I have a bigger like struggle with the changing platforms as far as like people messaging me and asking me about things or leaving it in the comment send things. I don't take offense to that because that is why I'm there, That's my job. It's like if I went to the er and the er doctor and I was respectful, it was kind about it, but the er doctor was like, why are sick people coming here?
Yes?
Right, Like that's this is the task that I've taken is to educate people, and I want to and a lot of my content does come from what people say.
That's good, yeah, but you still must have your moments for like you're having a day where like everyone's coming at you with something and you're just you need to emotionally regulate that. Well.
I definitely have moments when people are mean.
Really, people are mean to you, people.
Are mean to me, or they're kind of mean about the content itself. Sometimes people can be very disparaging about mental health struggles because they have their own stigmas or they're they're projecting their own understanding of mental health, and they can be very belittling to symptomology or be me into other people in the comments who are saying things like oh my gosh, this happened to me or whatever.
I think that, Yeah, that annoys me. I think when people make unnecessary intersections, like I might make a content, like a piece of content on something to do with like mental health, and someone's going to come in and be like this is feminist propaganda, Like that kind of annoys me, where I'm like, obviously you don't understand this, but no, if someone as long as people are kind, I don't have a problem with it.
Yeah, I hear you. Yeah, I get some of this too.
Yeah, people are ridiculous though.
On Instagram people are ridiculous.
TikTok is worse.
Yeah. I was only on TikTok to dance hip hop. Oh yeah, I do. Like that's the videos.
I love that.
That's it. That's it.
You should use it for joy.
Yeah, that's that's the reason why how I use it. Wait, you so, look, we have a lot of negative beliefs in our heads. You talk in your book about how you can challenge to just not trust them as because a lot of us just assume these things are real or true, right, So how can you challenge that?
Gosh, you know, sometimes when I say this, people get very I get like varied reactions to this. Because the whole point is to trust yourself, right, That's the core of self confidence or being self assured. But I think the practice I want people to actually build, and I hope this comes through, is to learn to question your belief systems so you don't have to automatically mistrust yourself. I don't want people to be like, oh, I'm feeling X thing, I don't trust myself. This is not real.
But I want people to get into the practice of regularly checking in with themselves and asking themselves if the thing they believe is valid, and it is, it's still a to their life. Maybe it was helpful before and it no longer is. And that requires a lot of meta awareness. You have to kind of go above your thoughts. And it sounds abstract, but that's what meditation is, right, So I think meditation is a good way or mindfulness.
If meditation is not for you, it's a really good way to build that practice of like awareness, just like your physical body, but your mental space, like what do I think about? Where do my thoughts naturally flow to and why? Like for me, for example, I constantly have to question myself as to why certain outcomes are important for me, Like what am I seeking? Where is that missing in my life? What's the worst that will happen if I don't get it? That's work I'm doing right now?
Yeah, sometimes the worst does happen, though, but then you just have then it's usually not as bad.
It's not as bad you think it's going to be exactly, or you prepare for it too.
Right.
The part of questioning is preparing for it. As well, so you're not taking off guard.
That's a really good point. Yeah, yeah, how does toxic productivity show up in other guises, like in other forms that maybe it's not so obvious that it's toxic productivity.
In a lot of ways. So I think that was one of the bigger challenges that I was trying to take on when I first started the research. Is a lot of the research is rooted in workplace culture, but my stuff was coming from other places, right, It was coming from needing to have my life look a certain way. Now that I moved to New York and I was newly married, and la la la, and so I did start finding very new research on the fact that we can bring this mindset to other domains of our life.
So the biggest one I see nowadays is self care. You know, before it was like, okay, like I'm going to be toxically productive and this is the salary, this is the title. You know, I want to make its X thing in two years and lots of pressure there. People have taken that same mindset to self care and it's a yardstick. It's something they compare themselves to with other people. There's a lot of shame involved if you're
not doing it the right way. And so toxic productivity has a term productivity productivity in it, which throws people off. But it's a mindset. You can bring it to your romantic relationships. You can make and you know, it's one of the client vignettes in there is about that. And I put that in very intentionally because I work with a lot of millennials and gen z and I see this.
You know, it's I have to date this type of person, I have to do these many things, I have to be married by this time and blah blah blah, blah blah. And they're miserable because it's like, do you even want that yourself?
That's such a good Like you nailed it. Especially in like relationships, we can kind of treat it as though it's like a got to be productive, you know, growing we have this, you know, and it's like you don't let things just happen as they happen.
Yeah, And I see this in this like emotionally aware dating nowadays. I don't know how many it's a whole thing now where people like really want to go on their first dates and just have these like very deep conversations about their childhood traumas and like where they fit in their families, and like people really are bringing their emotional selves. But I find that it's kind of like borderline over sharing. Yeah, like manufactured vulnerability. Yes, yes, yes, that's what it is.
That's totally manufactured vulnerability is rampant. And I would also say forced vulnerability is rampant. Like you ever go to one of these like parties, you know, dinner parties, and then like they like force you to go around the table and just say like really personal stuff, like I don't know you all. Can I get to know you a little bit exactly basic level before I tell you about my traumas?
Yes, And people have confused that with like authenticity, but I feel like that's a different rent that I could go on.
To go on it if you want to, because I agree with you.
Yeah, right, Like it's this idea that if you don't show up as your full self, then you're not being authentic. And so we've lost discernment, we've lost privacy, and we've lost an organic unfolding, right, Like relationships need to unfold organically, and when the time feels appropriate, you share certain things and now you have a lot of card games that you can just pull out, and I actually own a lot of them, so this is not a knock on that,
but there's a whole industry behind this. Yeah, and Bumble has the little prompts now that are very sometimes very personal questions. Yeah.
Yeah, there's like TikTok vulnerability versus like real genuine vulnerability. Like that's a phrase my friend Mark Manson's uses, TikTok Warner will I love it? Yeah? Yeah. How can we confuse being busy with toxic productivity? They seem related constructs?
Yeah, so being busy falls under toxic productivity, but being busy is not productive. So that's kind of like the.
Dystinction I make just simply being busy is not necessarily productive exactly.
Yeah, because being busy is sometimes doing a lot of small things that don't actually roll up to a bigger umbrella outcome, right, And that's why busy work is called busy work. It's just like little things you're doing. And what happens is when we're busy, we are allocating the same weight of importance and urgency to everything across the board.
But maybe you need my one hundred percent right now because you've invited me here, but maybe a stranger on the street doesn't need one hundred percent of me, right, So it's like Busy doesn't have that distinction. You're just giving everything at all times, whereas productive is really weighing the importance, the urgency. Do I have to do this? Do I not have to do this? Can I delegate this? Can I just take it off? Busy doesn't do those questioning, and so I feel like that's the biggest thing.
Yeah, yeah, that's a really good distinction.
Yeah.
Well, your book is chock full of exercises and things and to help people have healthier habits of mind. Can you share some of it, you know, obviously leaving others for them to actually buy the book.
Yeah, I'll share one that I've been trying to do for the last six weeks. So I call it the Chanel rule, which is fully something I made up, But Coco Chanel, the designer, is very famously thought to have said that when you accessorize right before you leave the house, take off one thing, and that will always bring balance, because when we're in the moment, we will put too much on right because we're not looking at ourselves holistically.
But the last time you look in the mirror before going out, you're actually just looking at your whole self. So I try to apply that to my calendar. So I'm intentionally taking off one thing preemptively. Every week I under commit, I commit to one last thing. I try to keep one weekend day free of commitments.
This is after you've already committed to something, you then take it away.
Oh no, I'm not. I'm not advocating for that. I think it's before so preemptively.
Oh I see, I think yeah. So if an invitation comes in you're like, oh, this is going to be my one yes week, then I say, ell, hell's.
No exactly, Or you look at your whole calendar and you're like, oh wow, okay, Like I'm already doing two things next week, I'm not going to do this third thing.
I love this, I'm going to start doing that. Yeah.
I honestly like really has helped me stay grounded, which I need do that.
Yeah, I'm also going to I also decided, like I'm not going to check my email first thing in the morning, Like why do I do that?
Yes?
Why why do I do that myself?
Yeah?
Your curiosity?
Yeah, just wake up and like enjoy my morning coffee.
Yeah. So that's something I started doing two years ago where I intentionally do nothing when I eat breakfast and drink coffee and it's just ten minutes, Like I'm not doing like a journaling exercise and yoga for four hours before. If you can do that, that's great, but I cannot do that. So I have a fifteen minute like quiet window and that's it. That's all I need to feel stable. And being somebody who creates digital content, you can also
like utilize these tech tools to your advantage. So you know, the algorithm wants you to like post let's say early in the morning. That's high engagement. People are, you know, using their phones and stuff. So I just auto schedule it, like I'm not opening the app because trying to open a social media app or your email or the news, these three things are going to spike up your like adrenaline, cortisol.
You're you're like, damn, like horrible things are happening. Like it just like just destabilizes you for the day.
Oh ain't that the truth? Do you have a whole team?
No, Like who helps you with your Instagram? I do not have a team. I am a one person machine. What, Yes, how do.
You figure out how to use all the videos?
So I actually really enjoyed the challenge of learning something new, and I think that is also a really great antidote to toxic productivity because it forces you to slow down, you know, the process of learning something new and you don't have to master it, but just learning it helps you be more in the day to day process. And so it just forces you to slow down a little bit. And it also keeps your brain very healthy, Like just trying to do something new keeps your neural pathways proved
well and like it's very healthy. But I am trying to expec and now I'm trying to bring on people who can support some administrative stuff for me in partnerships. Yeah, but so far it's just been me.
Hold on, I want my neurotransmitters to be pruned.
Well, yes, you cannot do puzzles. Do something new every day? That sentence, Yeah, it's a peak you know therapy nerd.
Yeah, yeah, no, I love that. What is the sand castle lesson?
Oh? Yeah, so the sand castle lesson is out of like a personal anecdote. My partner and I took an unplugged holiday and I could not mentally unplug like he was just chilling. He was sleeping on the bee Yeah, he was sleeping on the beach. He had no concerns about anything. But I was obsessed with optimizing in my head,
the mental calculations of it. And he eventually woke up and just started making a sand castle down the beach while I was beating myself up mentally for not writing like profound statements on the beach and I was like really judging myself that I didn't use this time, and Hemingway wrote in Spain, like you should be writing here just like unreasonable comparisons. I am not close. Yeah exactly, And he called me to do like make a sand castle, and in the process I realized I had never done this.
And we ended up doing it for a couple of hours and it was the most fun I'd had and it helped me realize that I also deserve this.
Why why do you deserve it?
I think human beings inherently deserve to be joyful, that's the answer. Inherently inherently.
It's not like you, you deserve it because yes on Instagram exactly, Oh god, no, my gosh. I just wanted to clarify yea, yeah, yeah, yeah, I worked hard, so I deserve it.
Yeah. That's my biggest beef with like productivity culture is that we think we deserve rest, we have to earn it, And it's kind of socialized in a very powerful way right from the beginning, at least for me, Like I had to finish everything before I could go play. Like when I was younger, I had to finish everything before I could read for fun. So all the things that gave me inher and joy were things I had to earn, and that just became the way I look at life.
Yeah. Well, but but it sounds like your husband offers a grounding there for you.
Yeah.
Yeah, he reminds you that he sounds chilli.
He's super chill. He's like a golden retriever. His job is definitely very stressful. But because he also does comedy. Yeah, finance.
For some reason, I see you with a finance bro. Why. I don't know why I do.
Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
I don't know. It's like in my head, I was like, I bet she's dating a fight.
I sure am. But what is a little unique about him, I'll say, is he is also a stand up comic so he brings a different energy.
I love that.
Yeah, you should come to a show in New York, he invite me.
Absolutely, I do some stand up comic comedy stuff in Santa Monica County with an a name.
Oh that's cool. Yeah, it is a very cathartic experience, he says. It looks terrifying to me, like I could sit and do a Ted talk, but I could not do a stand up bit. No way, Oh boy, yeah, fair enough Terror.
Well I'm shocked you haven't done a Ted talk yet with this book.
Yeah, just manifest that into the universe space.
Yes, manifest absolutely waited talk to We'll do it together. You're so sweet. That was like so kind of Okay, what is our you? You've been talking a lot about shame throughout this whole Episode's like a thread, So what is our shame narrative? Like, can you just unpack it for me a little bit like more and how can we like go into a more curiosity.
So shame is honestly one of the most powerful motivators of human behavior. We know this in a horrible way. It's powerful, But Nike not good for you kind of like, I don't know if you watch Star Wars. But yeah, like the dark Side, powerful but negative outcomes. And we use shame a lot with children to get them in line and do what parents want them to do, and they do it because shame gives immediate, immediate like results. And so while shame can get you started into productivity,
it cannot maintain healthy productivity. And shame, I think shows up in different ways for different people. I think if you're raised very religiously, shame will show up in this Like you know, idleness is an immoral act type of thing. If you are raised as an overachiever, the shame of not being good enough is going to drive you because you're not like you're parents, You're not like your siblings.
If you grow up in poverty, unfortunately, that creates a lot of internalized shame because the world is telling you that you don't deserve things. So your question was about how to transform it into curiosity. And the first thing we need to do is we need to recognize what shame looks like for us. And I didn't know that. I didn't know what my shame looked like up until I was like in my early thirties, and I was already a practicing therapist. Right, So shame is very insiduous,
Like it's very hidden. So a way to understand how shame shows up for you is to genuinely reflect on the patterns in your relationships. Just think back to your last three relationships and see if there's like a pattern. Did you feel the same way even though all the other partners were different. Did you end up behaving in the same way that caused a negative outcome even though
the circumstances were different. Finding that pattern of how you show up can give you insight into the shame you're holding, and then, of course on dismantling shame is life's work, but learning how to regulate your emotions is a good way to start.
Yeah. That's also a real theme that goes through all this.
Well, the thing is my issue when I started doing this research, My issue was that nobody is talking about the impact emotions have on productivity. Everyone's like time management and calendar organization and chunk your time and Pomodoro's and like here's a hack like the two minute rule, and I love all that stuff, but it's behavioral. What's going on underneath that.
That's a great point. Yeah, Okay, so what are some care activities to help us with the rejuvenation. I think like all of us kind of are suffering from that right now. Like I don't think anyone's feeling rejuvenated right now in this society.
No election's over, gosh, I mean there's the elections, not even like it's like a few weeks. Yeah, like it's just like six five weeks I think, or four weeks.
How do we get rejuvenated?
Oh well, I mean, honestly, regulate your news consumption. That's the biggest thing. And that's like less rejuvenation and more boundaries, like emotional boundaries. And I'm not saying be ignorant. I'm saying, have a very structured schedule to when you consume news so that your mind and body are ready for it. Take off the notifications. You're not going to change the world by knowing something immediately. But read the news in the morning, like in the mid morning and late afternoon
or early evening, like stay connected, stay engaged. Read but definitely have boundaries. But rejuvenation, I think is really just about doing something for the sake of doing it, so you're not doing something to finish an outcome. And I think the biggest example of this is reading. I hate
reading challenges. I hate people like releasing their like twelve books to read this year, like the Obama list that comes out, you know, yeah, because it creates this pressure that I have to read to consume and be productive. Even if you're reading fiction. Let's just read for the joy of reading. Let's not race through books. Let's not listen to podcasts at one point five or two speed.
Let's just enjoy something because we're doing it, you know, gardening, making puzzles, crafts, slow cooking, all of these very like traditional activities. I think they have a lot of beauty in just being present and doing them.
Well, that's kind of like the point of your book is that like toxic productivity in a way blinds us to the meaning around us and the beauty and that inherently inherently exists in us, yes, and in others. And I feel like that's like a general theme of all this. Yeah, So, what's your overarching piece of advice for people who are stuck in the toxic productivity trap? I'll call it.
Gosh. People are at different places of the journey, right, but my overarching advice to anyone is whether you even believe you're in toxic productivey or not. Maybe you're like, I don't know what this girl is talking about. I'm so happy in my life because I do all the things. Even if you're that person, I just want you to take out thirty minutes over a weekend and really go through some journal prompts like ask yourself, why do I do the things that I do? Do they genuinely make
me happy? Or do they make other people happy? So it makes me happy? Right? This like transitive property of happiness? And do I have to do them? Like? Just ask yourself that, and that's going to give you some insight because if you especially live in North America, I think I would be hard pressed to find and even a
singular person who does not struggle with this in some way. So, you know, late stage capitalism, the way our work culture is, social media, the news technology, all of that has created this environment. I think I would be hard pressed to find anybody who doesn't struggle with something.
I was going to say, I don't know anyone that when you said someone this is just perfectly happy with Yeah, wow, I mean so that really shows how resonant a lot of people are going to be for this book. Anything else you want readers to take away.
Yes. The only thing I'll say is if you are reading the book, you don't have to read it cover to cover in one sitting. This is a book you can take your time with because there's a lot of prompts in there. There's a lot of exploration of your childhood like things like that. Just thinking about your life and the choices you make can be very difficult. So this is not a book that I'm expecting anyone to be like, damn, I finished it in two weeks.
Uh.
Yeah, Just take your time with it.
And if you've reflected that you've made some pretty bad choices in your life, don't have shame.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Just become passionate because honestly, a lot of times we're just doing stuff because we've been trained to do it, you know, and we are young, so we don't have the capacity to think through things, or we're older and we have a lot of pressure from our relationships and obligations. So it's really just about like, hey, what can I change right now? Oh it's not working?
Well? Sounds delightful. Thank you so much for being on my podcast. I wish all the best of luck with this book. Thank you for having me, My pleasure,