Welcome to Issue 77 of A Good Reputation, a newsletter about storytelling, brand building and how to navigate the need to be online. (Did someone send you? Subscribe here.) (Miss past issues? Read those here.)
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Hello Reader,

I loved Sarah the minute I laid eyes on her.

She came in through the side door and rushed over to greet me in the waiting room. “You must be Renee,” she said with a broad smile.

Maybe it was her kind eyes, her high forehead, and her wavy blondish hair that made me see a little of myself in her. Or maybe it was the warmth she radiated from all the way across the room. But something about her felt immediately disarming and safe—two things that are very important when you first meet someone who gets paid to tap into realms of knowing beyond the rational.

Sarah is an intuitive. An energy reader whose name gets passed around the Bay Area amongst billion-dollar company CEOs and tech bros who, I assume, secretly consult her when they feel stuck. She’s also a holistic healer who practices acupuncture.

I’m no stranger to Sarah’s world of mystics. I’ve had inexplicable encounters with mediums who’ve connected me with people long gone and too many predictions come true from psychics that don’t fit the mold of self-fulfilling prophecy. I’ve also had premonitions in my dreams about people coming and going since I was a kid.

The first I can remember was about my brother and my dad living in a different home from my mom and me. In the dream, my mom and I were very sad that my brother and dad chose to live apart from us, but my brother and dad were doing okay in their new, separate space. They both passed away shortly after I had that dream, within a year of each other.

I’m not sharing this to convince you of anything, but simply to explain the source of my curiosity around consulting people who are open to believing that you can see, hear, feel, and know things beyond physical or ordinary perception.

I usually find myself consulting these intuitive types when I’m at a crossroads and I’m seeking clarity on—or perhaps permission for—a difficult decision. I want them to peer into the future and tell me that the choice I’m leaning toward is the right one. It’s like a check-in with my intuition.

And sometimes I reach out because a friend tells me about their experience and I’m simply interested to see how someone new works.

So when a friend deeply embedded in the world of biotech told me about Sarah, I was, more than anything, intrigued by who could win over such a rationalist.

And while I didn’t have a big choice to make or a relationship I was questioning, I figured I’d use the opportunity to get her take on the one nagging, unknowable question that sends me into an existential spiral anytime I have a bad day or haven’t slept well.

It’s a question I hear many founders, creatives, experts, and entrepreneurs ask themselves regularly:

Am I on the right path?

As I sat across from her in a plain yet comfortable acupuncture studio, Sarah read my energy and answered.

“Yes,” she said. “But the question you really need to sit with is: What’s the message you’re here to spread?”

A Good Answer

Before we got to my “big question,” Sarah told me a lot of things that I had already intuited myself.

She told me that I have a big energy, and therefore need to have a spacious living situation that’s free of clutter. That too much stuff can make me physically ill. She told me that when I get stuck, I need to go high to get perspective. Literally. Like I need to live in a house with a view or climb up to the top of a hill so I can see the full picture before I can get clear on the details.

All true. I live minimally and need organized spaces free of clutter, otherwise I go insane. And I’ve always felt less stifled in living spaces with a view—my current home included. I walk to the top of the hill in my neighborhood when I need to think through a tough problem.

“Also,” she asked, “did you realize you have a gluten allergy?” Something I’ve suspected, but haven’t wanted to address, for years.

It’s been three weeks since I’ve eaten any gluten, and my gut has never felt better.

The point is that once Sarah got to the reason I was there I was convinced she knew something I didn’t. She was saying something I needed to hear, and she had my full attention.

The question I was ultimately asking Sarah was a question about purpose—a question I’ve explored throughout my life, always wondering and worrying whether the thing I’m dedicating so much of my life and attention to is meaningful.

Purpose is one of those lofty and permanent human questions that arguably becomes more pressing the more our basic needs are met and the more our identities get wrapped up in what we do for work. And one of the reasons it feels so fragile is because the thing we do and the purposes we serve in the world are constantly changing.

So if the thing changes, did we lose our purpose? Were we wrong all along? And now, how do we go about making meaning of it all?

I’ve been a reporter, a food blogger, a magazine editor, a content marketer, a brand strategist, and now a community builder. If purpose is just the doing, I’ve had at least six in my professional life alone. Then there are all the purposes I’ve had as a daughter, friend, sister, neighbor, partner and mother.

Maybe, I’ve come to believe, we’re not meant to have one purpose, but several, each fitting the season we’re in.

A message, however, is different.

It’s the constant thing underneath the doing. It’s the idea or philosophy or belief you keep coming back to no matter what job you hold. It's the higher-level purpose.

And while it can deepen and it can shift, if you reach back far enough and see the thread that connects the dots, there’s usually one underlying message that’s always been there taking shape.

A Good Method

In business and branding, this message is the thing we call your North Star. It’s the thing that helps you decide what you build, who you help, what’s relevant, and what you can ignore. Even if you pivot what you do, it stays consistent.

It’s like Nike’s core message that if you have a body, you are an athlete. Or Patagonia’s mission that it’s in business to save our home planet. Or Airbnb’s promise that you can belong anywhere. All these messages were born out of an origin story and core belief that’s remained consistent throughout various iterations of the business.

And it should bring some comfort to know that almost nobody lands on it right away. You find it the way you find anything worth knowing—by paying attention to what you keep returning to and shaping it when it finally comes into focus.

The other thing about this message is that it doesn’t have to be born out of something revelatory—it simply needs to be honest and true to your experience.

For instance, at a workshop I led for mission-driven founders on finding the origin story behind their mission, one entrepreneur came up to me frustrated that she didn’t have some big personally compelling story for starting hers.

Unlike the other entrepreneurs who started because of difficult experiences with racism or death or some sort of tremendous hardship that led them to fix a problem they noticed needed solving in the world, she was “just a graphic designer” who started her company because she was good at it and didn’t want to work for anyone else.

But after five minutes of asking her a few questions and doing some digging, I learned that her entire life she’s been drawn to style, design, architecture, art, and anything aesthetic. She said that while she has always understood the value of function in everything from clothes to buildings, she believes that we often prioritize function over form—especially in the U.S.

“Just look outside at these buildings,” she said, pointing to downtown Atlanta. “Don’t they just hurt your soul?”

Making things beautiful, in addition to functional, changes our entire experience of the world, she added. It makes us pay more attention and feel more connected. “So I just want to make things more beautiful and help people see the beauty in their work.”

That’s it, I told her. Her message is that beauty isn’t extra—it’s how we pay attention.

And then I assured her that this message was just as valuable and meaningful as any origin story born out of a "more compelling" life story.

A Good Takeaway

I haven’t taken Sarah’s advice yet and gone to the top of the hill to sit with her question. But I have been carrying it around, and agree that it’s a much better question than the one I walked in with.

I've realized that the question about being on the right path keeps you staring at your feet and stuck in whether or not you’re doing the right thing. And since the thing keeps changing, the answer never settles.

“What’s the message I’m spreading?” on the other hand, makes you look up. It asks you to see the whole landscape—every job, every role, every season—and find your throughline.

While I know I’m still searching, the message I keep returning to revolves around a question I’ve been exploring since I was kid. It’s a question about how we better understand each other to live in a more harmonious world.

I believe that the more we understand ourselves and share that understanding unapologetically and often, the more peacefully we can coexists, connect, and find the people, places and opportunities meant for us.

I don’t know if that’s the final answer. But it’s the view from here for now.

So if you’re still searching for your main message, start by looking back at all you’ve done and notice what you keep returning to. Then go find your hill.

And if that doesn’t work, maybe you can go talk to Sarah.

A Few Good Resources

1. Want to workshop our messages together live together in the Redwoods by the coast? Applications for the New Narratives Retreat are officially open.
2. Lee, a former New Narratives attendee, always pushed back when I told her she should tell more personal stories. But she gave in eventually, and here's the beautiful result.
3. These higher-level messages are not only the thing that can help us connect all the dots, but help us connect with others who share our higher-order mission. Like the "love thy neighbor tribe" that helped three very different candidates win the midterms. Just some things to think about.

Hope you have a good one,
Renee