Why I Built The Pull™

I think one of the reasons I even bothered building The Pull is because I look around online right now and people seem exhausted.

Everyone is trying so hard to become something.

To sound right. Look right. Chase relevance. Build brands that barely resemble who they actually are.

And eventually, performing all the time becomes unsustainable.

At some point, you start wondering if the answer is actually the opposite of everything we’ve been told.

What if the real work is figuring out who you already are, standing deeply in it, understanding who you may genuinely be helpful or relevant to, and then simply being that? Not performing. Not chasing. Not trying to appeal to everyone.

Just being clear enough, honest enough, and human enough that the right people recognize themselves in what you stand for. That’s really the foundation of The Pull.

Simon Sinek was the first person who helped me put language around that. His Golden Circle TED Talk fundamentally changed how I thought about marketing.

People don’t buy what you do. They buy why you do it.

That idea changed everything for me because it made marketing feel grounded instead of performative. Purpose became bigger than promotion. Trust started mattering more than tactics. It allows you to stand out even when your space is crowded because you built your company for a very specific reason.

Then Debbie Millman shifted my thinking again. She helped me understand that branding is not just communication. It’s identity. Brands live in culture, personality, values, and belonging. They help people recognize themselves and the kind of world they want to be part of. Her work made me realize that relevance is not about reaching everyone. It’s about deeply resonating with the right people.

And then Brené Brown connected everything together in a way I wasn’t expecting.

I was listening to Dare to Lead when I suddenly realized that modern marketers are leading teams too.

Just not traditional ones. Our teams are the communities around our brands. The people purchasing from us, following us, considering us, trusting us, rejecting us, advocating for us, and deciding whether our brand belongs in their life at all. That realization completely reframed marketing for me.

Because the same things that make great leaders believable also make brands believable: Clarity, Trust, Consistency, Values, Vulnerability, and of course Courage.

The strongest brands are not forcing people toward them. They are leading in a way that naturally draws the right people to them.

Not through pressure, performance or trying to convince everyone. Through clarity, identity, trust and values. All the same things that make powerful teams in a company successful.

That’s the difference between push and pull.

Push tries to persuade everyone. Pull allows the right people to recognize themselves in what you stand for.

And when people feel understood, drawn-to, and emotionally connected to a brand, they stop feeling marketed to. And start feeling like they belong there.

No push. Just pull.
That’s us.