Core Truth: The Touchstone for Everything You Build
There is a bookstore I visit the way other people visit cathedrals. I come with reverence and expectation, the kind of quiet hope that something holy might happen if I show up ready to receive it.
I wander the aisles slowly, running my fingers along spines and pausing at covers that catch my eye. Book shopping for me is a treasure hunt, a ritual of faith. If I show up with openness, I will receive exactly what I need.
That particular day I was in the early season of rediscovering myself. Grief had hollowed me out, and I was rediscovering pleasure again. I had no agenda, no list. Just the familiar comfort of possibility stacked on shelves around me.
And then I saw it. A Book That Takes Its Time.
It called to me the way certain things call when you are ready to hear them. My soul recognized the invitation before my mind understood what I was looking at. I pulled it from the shelf and began turning pages, and each one felt like a small delight. Prompts and paper crafts and meaningful activities. Little pleasures that stirred my sense of wonder and play.
I could hardly believe such a perfect book existed. It felt like someone had made it just for me.
That feeling is what a Core Truth creates. Not "this is useful" or "this is well-designed" or even "this is good." Something deeper. Something that whispers: this was made for me, this is the missing piece, how have I gone so long without this?
Flow, the Danish company that created that book, has a Core Truth that radiates from everything they make. They believe life is worth living slowly, with intention. They believe introspection is a practice, not an indulgence. They believe art and journaling are ways of relating to self, and that traditions and rituals are doorways to contentment.
They never had to tell me any of this. I felt it in the weight of the paper, the care of the illustrations, the invitation woven into every activity. The belief was so deeply embedded in the work that it reached across a bookstore and found someone who needed it.
This is what a mission statement cannot do.
Most mission statements are sophisticated ways of saying nothing at all. "We strive to deliver innovative solutions that empower our clients to achieve their goals." "Our mission is to be the leading provider of world-class services." "We are committed to excellence and customer satisfaction."
These could be literally any company in any industry. There is no belief system, no fight, no reason to care.
If your mission statement could work for your competitor, is it really yours? If your team cannot remember it, does it matter? If it does not guide actual decisions, why does it exist?
Mission statements try to say what you do. Core Truths say what you believe. And belief is what creates heartfelt connection.
Your Core Truth is the Big Idea you want your audience to rally around. It is not a description of what you do or a summary of your process. It is a declaration of why your work matters, the perspective that shapes every decision you make and every piece of content you create.
Consider Patagonia. Their Core Truth is not "we make outdoor clothing." It is the belief that business can be a force for environmental good, even when that is inconvenient. This belief led them to run a full-page ad on Black Friday in 2011 telling customers not to buy their jacket. It led them to sue the federal government over shrinking national monuments. It led their founder to give away his entire $3 billion company to fight climate change. Every choice they make flows from this single animating conviction. That is a Core Truth with teeth.
My Core Truth is this: Authenticity is Addictive™. Storytelling is intrinsically human work that cannot be outsourced to algorithms, and brand strategy, done properly, is an act of resistance against the devaluation of art. This belief shapes who I work with, how I teach, what I refuse to do. It makes some people nod in recognition and others roll their eyes. Both responses tell me it is working.
Because a Core Truth that no one could possibly argue with is not a Core Truth. It is a platitude. If everyone agrees, you have said nothing. The power of a Core Truth lies in its capacity to divide, to draw a line, to say "this is what we believe and we understand that not everyone will come with us."
When I work with clients to excavate their Core Truth, I am not looking for something clever. I am looking for something that makes them sit up straighter.
I want them to feel awestruck by their own power. I want them to be arrested by the weight of what they are birthing into existence. I want them to be captivated by their own glory. Because if they are not enraptured by what they stand for, they will never evoke that feeling in their audience.
The signs are unmistakable when someone finds it. Their eyes light up. Their tone shifts. A flood of new ideas bursts into the room: connections they had never seen before and directions they had never considered. All because they have tapped into their deepest well, the origin, the fountainhead.
That is what I am listening for. Not the bland blather any other company could say. The thing that could only come from them.
Here is how you begin to find yours.
The signposts reveal themselves along the way. There is a boundary you keep returning to no matter how many times you try to negotiate your way around it. There is something you will always do, and something you will never do, regardless of what it costs you. There is a line you would not cross for a million dollars, and a practice you protect no matter how full your calendar becomes. These are not random preferences. They are breadcrumbs leading you back to the source.
Start at the surface level with what you do, the operations and offers and day-to-day rhythm of your business. Then ask yourself how you do it. What principles guide your methods? What do you refuse to compromise on, even when it would be easier to let it go? This layer reveals values you may never have named, beliefs that have been shaping your work all along without your conscious awareness.
Then go deeper into why. Why this business? Why these methods? Why does it matter to you personally, in ways that have nothing to do with profit or recognition? Keep peeling back layers until you hit the seed, the idea that sparked everything, the thing that keeps you getting out of bed on the mornings when it would be easier to quit. You are a real person with a real story, and your personal lore animates everything you do whether you have articulated it or not.
In the old days, merchants and alchemists used a touchstone—a piece of dark stone against which they would rub gold to test its purity. The streak it left behind revealed whether the metal was genuine or counterfeit. Once you find your Core Truth, it becomes your touchstone, the thing you press everything against to see if it's real. Every product you consider building, every piece of content you think about creating, the way you present yourself visually, the clients you take on and the ones you turn away. The question is no longer "does this sound good" or "will this perform well" or "what will people think." The question becomes simple, almost ruthlessly so: does this align with what I believe? Yes or no. If the answer is no, you have your answer, and you can release it without guilt or second-guessing. If the answer is yes, you have your permission, and you can move forward with the kind of conviction that other people can feel radiating off of you before you say a word.
Somewhere, right now, someone is wandering an aisle the way I wandered that bookstore. Maybe they are scrolling through a website or pausing on a social media post that caught their attention for reasons they cannot quite articulate. They are in a season of searching, of becoming, perhaps of grief or growth or both. They are ready to receive something they did not know they needed.
Your Core Truth is what allows your work to call to them. It is the thing that reaches across the noise and the distance to say: this was made for you, this is the missing piece, you have found what you were looking for.
The brands that last are the ones grounded in a belief so deeply embedded in everything they create that the right people feel it before they can name it.
What do you believe that your competitors do not? What would you fight for even if it cost you business?
Start there. Your Core Truth is waiting.
