You Don't Find a Meaningful Life, You Build One – An Interview with Crissy Fishbane

Crissy Fishbane is a keynote speaker, writer, and former psychology educator exploring what it means to build a meaningful life in a world that often tells us who we should be and what we should value. As the cofounder of HER Health Collective and host of the award-winning podcast Mama Needs a Moment, she has spent years building community and has interviewed more than 160 experts across psychology, relationships, health, and personal development.

In this interview, Crissy explores worthiness, courage, connection, and the stories that shape how we see ourselves. Drawing from both lived experience and years of conversations with others, she examines how we can become more intentional about where we place our time, attention, and energy, and actively build lives that feel meaningful to us.

Crissy Fishbane, Keynote Speaker & Writer

What first drew you to explore what actually makes a life feel meaningful?

When I was 16, I was electrocuted by 13,000 volts in a car accident that very nearly took my life. I was airlifted to a burn unit, where I spent months in and out of the hospital with surgeries, skin grafts, and an excruciatingly painful recovery process. Prior to the accident, I had been a deeply troubled teenager, questioning not only my worth but whether I deserved to take up space on this planet. After the accident, I felt genuine gratitude for the opportunity to live another day.

I realized I did not just want to survive my life. I really wanted to live it. The adventure, the joy, the heartache, the pain. All of it. Because it meant I was still here.

I became obsessed with psychology and personal development. I loved studying human behavior and, in particular, learning more about myself. I had a deep desire to make every day count, but I realized my view of “making a day count” was often very different from what society tells us makes a successful day.

As I thought about what had mattered most while I was lying in a hospital bed, uncertain of what came next, the answer was incredibly simple. It was the relationships. The people who continued to show up in my life and support and love me, even when I was at my worst. So many of the other things I thought mattered hadn't mattered at all in that hospital room.

It entirely shifted my perspective, the feeling I wake up with every morning, and the approach I take to my life.

Twenty-five years later, I am still obsessed with what living a “meaningful life” really means and what it actually looks like to live one.

Why can achievement become a way of proving our worth rather than pursuing what genuinely matters to us?

As we grow up, we are taught that behaving a certain way and accomplishing certain things can elevate our status in the eyes of others. We learn that society will view us more kindly if we prove our worth through good grades, accolades, higher income, nice cars, a pretty home, and a good job.

Psychologist Carl Rogers called this idea conditions of worth, the standards we learn we have to meet in order to feel worthy of acceptance or approval. Nobody ever had to sit us down and explicitly say, “This is how you prove your worth.” But it is an idea we absorb through our interactions with the world around us.

Achievement itself is not the problem. There is a big difference between “I want to achieve something because it matters to me” and “I need to accomplish this so I can feel like I matter.”

The question I continually come back to is this: Who are you if all of the accolades and success metrics are stripped away from you? What are your core values? Who are you at your core, regardless of what room you are walking into or who you are having a conversation with? That is the true guide to knowing what genuinely matters.

The vast majority of our accomplishments will not matter in our final days. I’m all for pursuing big dreams, but accomplishment itself cannot tell you what you’re worth.

What changes when we stop waiting to feel ready and choose to act while fear is still present?

Everything. When we wait to feel ready before we take steps toward a goal, our lives can become stagnant. The truth is, we will never be entirely ready for most of the challenges life throws our way. There will always be unknowns, curveballs, and unforeseen obstacles we could never have prepared for. We can’t prepare for life. We simply have to live, one day at a time and with our whole hearts.

Choosing to act while fear still grips us is one of the most courageous ways we can actively participate in our lives. Fear will always have a voice in our lives. It just doesn’t get the microphone.

Every time we take one single scary step towards a goal, we are gathering evidence of our abilities. We are collecting proof that we are capable. Over time, we stop seeing fear as a reason not to act and start realizing we can carry it with us. That makes the big, courageous leaps life sometimes requires of us feel much more manageable.

What have more than 160 conversations with experts taught you about the ideas people most often misunderstand about wellbeing and personal growth?

People often misunderstand exactly what an expert can give them. I have talked to countless experts with deep knowledge in their areas of expertise, and I have learned so much from them. Yet, I have also discovered that the only person who can truly understand your path to wellbeing and personal growth is you.

Nobody will know your health journey or understand your goals and dreams the way you do. You are the only person entering the conversation with knowledge of all your life experiences, aspirations, challenges, and the vision you hold for your life.

Sometimes we seek out an expert to serve as a hero in our story, someone who will save us. But I have learned that we are better served when we view our relationships with experts as partnerships. That may mean taking perspectives from multiple experts and using our own discernment to decide what deserves to take up space in our lives.

When we mistake an expert's expertise for authority over our lives, we give up agency. We are handing over the reins to someone who simply cannot understand all the intricacies of our lives. Humans are complex beings. We will never be able to discern the full scope of someone's life experience from the outside. When it comes to our wellbeing and personal growth, that nuanced understanding matters.

What has building a community for mothers taught you about why feeling seen and connected matters so deeply?

We are all starved for connection. Our world is becoming more and more centered on transactional and digital interactions, but those interactions cannot always give us the sense of connection we need as humans.

University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) psychologist Matthew Lieberman’s research shows that our drive for social connection is deeply rooted in our biology and evolution. It’s not simply something that’s nice to have. We have a deep desire to feel seen and to be known.

I have watched this play out in real time over seven years of building a community for mothers. A mother walks into a room uncertain of her place and whether she will belong. Then, through genuine interaction and heartfelt conversation, she discovers she isn’t alone in something she is struggling with. You can see the transformation happen. Her smile becomes more genuine, her eyes light up, and her whole body softens. You can almost see her nervous system settle.

Our problems feel less overwhelming when shared, our joy is amplified, and we are given more opportunities to know that we matter. Even one or two relationships where we feel genuinely seen can shift how we experience our lives and how we view ourselves. Those connections can transform the meaning of our lives.

How can someone recognize when an old story about themselves is quietly shaping the choices they make?

I was raised by a single mom and grew up living in a trailer park. One day in elementary school, a girl called me “trailer trash” in front of all the other kids. I didn’t realize it at the time, but that moment became a core part of my identity. It came to mean I wasn’t good enough, I didn’t belong, and I had something to prove.

The stories influencing us most are often the hardest to recognize precisely because we no longer experience them as stories. We experience them as identity.

I began looking for evidence everywhere that would prove how right that original declaration was. I wasn’t good at math. I learned to ride a bike late. I couldn’t make the soccer team. A high school friend’s mom publicly judged my homecoming dress for being too short. Completely unrelated experiences became evidence that I wasn’t measuring up.

Evidence to the contrary never carried the same weight. I held onto validation for a brief moment, then became starved to prove myself again and again. Anything to keep the feeling of not being enough at bay.

That story shaped my choices. I overachieved, avoided things I might fail at, sought approval in all the wrong places, and rebelled. I sometimes stayed out of rooms because I feared I didn’t belong. When I got brave enough to step inside, I had already constructed a story about why everyone else belonged more than me.

Looking back, what I wish I had understood was that I never had anything to prove. I am and always have been enough. My worth is not dependent on someone else’s interpretation of me.

To recognize the old stories shaping your life, pay attention to the conclusions about yourself you keep reaching, regardless of the evidence. Is this actually true, or have I simply gotten very good at finding evidence that it is?

When fear has a strong voice, what helps us keep it from making the decision for us?

Taking one small, decisive step is how I move past fear every single time. If I feel fear overtaking me, I know it’s time to move. I don’t need to have a five-year plan. I just need to take one step forward. Even if it’s the wrong step, I can reassess and realign my direction. The first step is simply getting myself out of the fear spiral.

When fear really makes me feel stuck, I find that moving twice is what gets me through. First, I move my body. Then, I am able to actually move my life.

Sometimes that first movement is doing jumping jacks, taking a walk around my neighborhood, or lifting weights for 20 minutes. It sounds almost too simple, but I have found that physical movement can quiet the incessant chatter enough for me to think clearly again.

Then I take the meaningful step. Action restores my sense of agency. It stops the hypothetical catastrophizing and gives me evidence that fear can’t keep me rooted in place. I moved.

Nothing catastrophic happened. I am capable of figuring out what comes next.

Thinking can keep us stuck in a loop of everything that could go wrong. Action introduces us to what actually happens. Once we have something real to respond to, we can reassess, make a plan, and keep moving forward.

How have experiences like surviving a life-threatening accident and walking the Camino shaped the way you decide what deserves your time and attention?

Surviving a life-threatening accident taught me that my life mattered. I could see, perhaps for the first time, how much one life can leave an imprint on others. It made me recognize that the ripples of my life were valuable and that how I showed up in the world mattered.

Interestingly, walking 500 miles across Spain on the Camino de Santiago showed me the other side of the coin. Looking at breathtaking sunsets, meeting people from all over the world, and standing inside centuries-old churches and monasteries, I saw how infinitesimally small I was in this great big world. I found that realization beautiful and empowering.

Today, I try to hold both truths at the same time.

Because my life matters, I choose to spend more of my time focused on the people I love, giving to causes and missions I deeply care about, and thinking about how my words and actions impact the people around me. I consider the ripples I want to leave in the world.

Because my life is also infinitesimally small, I spend less time battling the things I cannot control. I am one tiny human in an enormous world. It is not my place to carry everything. I cannot control how others perceive me, what will happen tomorrow, or the decisions other people make.

Some things are simply not mine to hold.

What is one question you believe more people should ask themselves when deciding how they want to live?

My answer may be a bit of a cheat because I think the question has two parts.

First: When you reach the end of your one precious life, what do you most want to have been at the core of your life story?

I know my answer will not be the things I accomplished or owned. After decades of thinking about this question and hundreds of conversations on the topic, my answer is the people in my life. How I loved them. How I showed up for them. How I helped others.

But I don’t want to prescribe my answer to anyone else. We are all unique, and only by grappling with our own mortality can we begin to uncover what a meaningful life looks like to us.

The second part is where the magic lives: Does the way I am living today align with my view of a meaningful life?

That doesn’t mean dropping everything to maximize every moment. Meaningful work, striving toward a goal, relationships with colleagues, rest, and even the ordinary responsibilities of life can all be part of a meaningful life.

The point is alignment. Once we have determined what matters most to us, we have a roadmap. Then we can look at how we are actually spending our days and ask whether our choices reflect it.

A meaningful life isn’t something that just happens to us. We must actively build it through the choices we make every single day.

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