Your Business Isn't Your Why. It's Just the Conduit.
I was out for a walk recently with a sweet friend, fellow entrepreneur and awesome human. We ended up sitting on a bench talking about business, purpose and why so many people struggle to articulate their "why."
It wasn't an aha moment for either of us. In fact, it was almost the opposite. We both realized we'd been thinking about purpose in exactly the same way for years. We just hadn't known the other person did too. The word that kept surfacing was conduit.
Photography is my conduit. Brand strategy is my conduit. They're not my why. They're simply the vehicles I've chosen to express something that's been true about me for as long as I can remember.
As we talked, I found myself thinking back to childhood. I was always the kid who would befriend the bully. Not because I liked bullying, quite the opposite. It was because I could see something in that kid that everyone else had stopped seeing. I wanted the rest of the world to see what I saw: that underneath the behaviour was a good human who needed someone to believe in them.
Looking back now, I realize that's exactly what I've spent my career doing. Whether I'm helping someone uncover the heart of their brand or photographing a family, I'm trying to help people see the best in themselves so that the world can see it too. Branding and photography may seem like very different businesses, but they're simply different expressions of the same gift.
My friend shared a similar realization. She has built businesses around plants, gifting experiences, websites and entrepreneurship. On paper, they couldn't look more different. But underneath every one of them is the same thread. She's everyone's champion. She helps people believe they're capable of doing the thing they're hesitant to tackle. She gives them the confidence, encouragement and practical tools to build a business or a life they're genuinely excited about. The businesses have changed over the years, but the gift she's expressing through them hasn't.
That conversation reinforced something I've been thinking about for a long time, and it's become a foundational part of how I approach branding through The Pull™.
One of the biggest mistakes I see organizations make is trying to manufacture a "why" by starting with the product instead of the person behind it. A financial services firm might say its purpose is to help people achieve financial freedom or retire with confidence. That's a wonderful aspiration, but it's an aspiration for the business. It isn't the founder's why.
I think we've blurred the lines between purpose and why, and they're not the same thing.
Your purpose is the impact your business exists to create. It's what you hope to contribute to the world through your products, services and the people you serve.
Your why is much more enduring. It's the deeply human thread that's been running through your life long before your business existed. It's the gift you naturally bring into every room, every relationship and every venture you build.
The founder of that financial services firm might have spent their whole life helping people feel calm in moments of uncertainty. Maybe they're driven to simplify complexity so people can make confident decisions. Maybe they've always been the person others turn to when life feels overwhelming. That thread would exist whether they were building a wealth management firm, mentoring young entrepreneurs or leading a completely different business.
The business is simply the conduit through which that deeper why is expressed. Its purpose is one of the ways that why creates impact in the world.
Here's the question I always come back to: If your business disappeared tomorrow, would your why disappear with it?
If the answer is yes, I don't think you've found your why yet.
That distinction may sound philosophical, but it's actually deeply strategic. At The Pull™, we believe the strongest brands aren't built by inventing a compelling purpose. They're built by uncovering the gift that's already been present throughout a founder's life and allowing that truth to shape everything else. When you understand the thread that's been running through your life since childhood, your positioning becomes clearer, your messaging becomes more authentic and your decisions become far less complicated. You're no longer trying to create meaning for your business. You're building a business that expresses meaning you already carry. And you know what? The right people will find you. This is the very essence of The Pull™,
The conduit may change, but the why doesn't. And the purpose simply evolves.