ENCORE: Why Giving Doesn't Make You Great
About this episode
Lisa Carpenter revisits the theme of giving and self-worth, exploring how societal messages affect women's perceptions of their value.
In this episode, Lisa revisits one of the earliest episodes of the podcast, originally titled ”Why Giving Doesn’t Make You Great,” with a new introduction recorded after a conversation with a friend and former client at a conference in Calgary. That conversation centered on the children’s book Rainbow Fish, in which a fish gives away each of his sparkly scales in order to be liked and accepted by the other fish. Lisa connects this to the messages many women receive growing up: don’t be too much, don’t shine too brightly, but also don’t shrink too far. She traces this back to core human needs for love, safety, and belonging, and invites listeners to examine where they learned that standing out put those needs at risk, and what parts of themselves they may have given away as a result. The original episode explores the theme of martyrdom and over-giving, using the children’s book The Giving Tree as a central metaphor. Lisa unpacks how the tree gives away everything she has, her apples, her branches, her trunk, until she is left as a stump, and is still described as ”happy.” She connects this pattern to the belief that self-worth is tied to how much of yourself you can give away, and…
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