You Are the Tree, Not the Fruit
The difference changes everything about how you show up for the people you love.
Core Insight
I used to believe that giving more was how I proved I deserved to be here. What I know now is this: the most generous version of me is not the one who gives until she is empty. It is the one who stays so full that the overflow becomes effortless, and what lands in the world is something real.
This is article #6: The Need for Overflow.
Part of a 7-Human Needs series on Why We Do The Things We Do.
If you are new here, you can start with
Need #1: Safety
Need #2: Curiosity
Need#3: Meaning
Need#4: Belonging
Need#5: Thriving
Need#6: Overflow (You are here)
I have not been totally truthful with you.
Previously, I mentioned that I left the corporate scene many years ago (ten years to be exact) but I’m not doing nothing. My ex-colleagues once said that I wouldn’t be idle for too long and they were right. In less than a year, I found myself learning and trading Futures. Yes, I’ve been trading the financial market for almost a decade.
Now before you click away thinking that I’m going to start predicting the market etc, I assure you that I’m not.
You see, in my corporate life, I was a marketer in the Property Developing Industry. I love marketing so much that it has been my north star since I was 15. Life was good. However, I was so badly burnt-out that when my mum had a health scare, I started questioning everything in life and decided to throw in the towel.
But I was so used to that busy yet fulfilling lifestyle that I started to look for something to do. If you still remember, working from home wasn’t as popular in 2016/2017 and I couldn’t bring myself to go out to work to leave Toto alone at home (sounds weird to non-pet owners but that’s the truth).
Through a series of coincidences, I ended up signing up for courses to learn Futures trading and have been trading the financial market ever since. The trainers in the course also have a trading community and I’m quite active in it. At first, I was merely helping other fellow traders with their laptop or charting issues. The trainers (now my mentors) noticed my openness in helping others and asked me if I would help them and I said yes.
I’ve been helping them with some administrative tasks for years, as well as handling email enquiries. At our recent CNY get-together, other traders assumed I was an employee. I had optimized myself into a role I didn’t even own.
The Invisible Leak
Now, here’s the thing that nobody tells you about high-functioning people. They over-give. Often unconsciously. And I don’t do it because I’m selfless. But because somewhere along the way, I believe that my worth is in my usefulness.
And honestly, having such belief is a killer for us traders. It doesn’t take a genius to know that the markets do not reward usefulness. By keeping the tap running or pouring from an empty cup, it’s no longer being dedicated or dependable. We inevitably become depleted and perhaps start hiding in a toilet during a networking event.
Back in my corporate days as a marketer, I thought I understood consumer psychology well as my marketing campaigns were often successful. I was wrong in ways I could not have predicted when I started trading Futures.
Trading Futures pulled me into a rabbit hole of human psychology and opened a door I did not expect.
Looking back, I realised that I helped because I tied my worthiness to being useful, needing to be validated. Thankfully, my mentors never took advantage of me. They are always very appreciative, show gratitude towards me and very mindful to give me space.
Notice that I frame this as the need for overflow, rather than the need for giving, or contribution. So, what is it exactly?
What Nature Actually Does
A river does not give water it does not have. It overflows because it is full. Not because it is trying.
Overflow is not an act of will. It is a natural consequence of fullness.
A fruit tree does not force its fruit. The fruit appears when the tree has been adequately nourished. The giving is effortless because the conditions for abundance were honored first.
We have confused the fruit with the tree’s purpose. The tree’s purpose is to be a tree. The fruit is the overflow.
You are the tree. Not the fruit.
And yet most of us have built entire identities around producing fruit continuously, in every season, regardless of whether we have been fed.
The Overflow Trap
I spent three-quarters of my life thinking that my value was measured by how much I could deplete myself for others.
Back in corporate days, I was the one who stayed late to fix “operations bottleneck”. I was the one who anticipated my boss’s needs before they even articulated them. I was that person who would be at the showsuites during weekend to “feel the ground” and see if my marketing campaign was successful, while some of my colleagues enjoy their weekend with family.
The cruellest irony of this need is that the people who struggle most with overflow are also the most capable of it.
They are the ones who feel everything deeply. Who genuinely want to help. Who would give you the last of their energy with a smile, and cry about it quietly on the commute home.
They do not lack generosity. They lack permission to receive.
Because somewhere in childhood, or in the corporate corridor, or in a relationship that asked too much, they internalized a quiet, devastating rule: my needs come last.
So they optimized around it. They got very, very good at being last.
And now they wonder why they feel empty.
The Mindset Shift: The best contributions don’t feel like effort. They feel like overflow.
I used to think that putting myself first was something I had to earn. I would rest after I finished. I would receive after I gave enough. I would fill my cup once everyone else’s was full.
What I did not understand is that a dry cup cannot fill anything.
Here is the reframe that changed everything for me:
My overflow is someone else’s miracle.
When you are genuinely full, what spills out of you is different. It is not performed generosity or guilt-driven help. It is not the quiet desperation of someone trying to justify their existence through service.
It becomes something real and warm, something that actually lands. And quietly, without trying, you don’t even feel exhausted.
When you are saturated with your own peace, your own rest and your own clarity, everything becomes better. Not because you worked harder, but because you are operating from a state of surplus. Success does not require suffering; it requires the audacity to be too full first.
The people you love deserve your full presence too. And you cannot give what you have already spent. The world does not need more tired “fixers.” It needs people who are so grounded in their own brilliance that their success is inevitable and their presence is a gift.
Overflow is not selfish. It is, in fact, the most generous thing you can do.
Today, I still help my mentors but I do it from overflow. I check in with myself constantly to ensure I’m not trying to squeeze myself dry.
The Micro-Shift
This week, before you give anything, ask yourself one question:
Am I giving from overflow or from obligation?
You do not need to change your answer immediately. Just notice it. Because awareness is always the first act of participation. That is where your brilliance lives.
You do not need to be a martyr to be a masterpiece.
Your inner brilliance is not a limited resource that you must carefully ration. It is a state of being that you must cultivate until it becomes too much for just you.
The fruit will come. It always does.
Success does not require suffering. And generosity does not require depletion.
Once you stop giving from empty, everything you give becomes extraordinary.
Missed a step in the series?
Article #6: The Need for Overflow (You Are Here)
💡 Question: When was the last time you gave from a place that actually felt full? What did that feel like compared to when you gave from empty?
Share it in the comments. I have a feeling we are not alone in this.
P.S. Creating from a place of Sanctuary requires a commitment to rest. If you’d like to support the “Unforced Brilliance” of this series, you can buy me a bubble tea. It’s a small act of participation that helps keep this space thriving.
This article is #6 in the series of 7 Human Needs – Why we do the things we do?
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Yep. Yep. Can I say "yep" 20 more times? You hit the nail on the head, Jean.
This line resonates with me, "I optimised myself into a role I didn't even own." It's not always exploitation. Sometimes the conditions are perfectly kind and you still end up over-giving, because the habit of tying your worth to your usefulness runs so deep you don't notice it happening until you're already empty. I love the river metaphor because that's exactly it and you can't will your way to overflow. You have to actually be full first. That's the bit that takes the longest to believe.