Last year, Lee and I got into this TV show called “Code Black”. It’s a show set in a hospital in LA that is constantly overwhelmed with more patients than the staff can handle. That’s what “Code Black” stands for.
I love the show for its realism – even though I actually have no idea how an ER looks on a daily basis but it’s that feeling the makers of this show managed to create. The characters are wonderful, human, imperfect, and fight incredibly hard for their patients.
At the end of the series, Leanne, who’s an ER doctor and one of the main characters, wants to adopt a teenage girl who she’d been looking after for a few years. In court, she’s asking the judge a question I want to ask you today:
What business are you in?
Now hear me out. This might sound all a bit weird but Leanne is challenging the judge to think about what their bigger mission is.
The judge answers: “I’m in the business of enforcing justice.”
Leanne answers. “I’m in the business of saving lives, and shouldn’t that be the business that you’re in, too? Shouldn’t that be the business that we’re all in?”
Now let that sink in, please.
This little speech stayed with me for over a year. And it shifted my view of what a business is trying to achieve. Shouldn’t we all be in the business of saving lives? Maybe it doesn’t have to be that dramatic – afterall, I’m not convinced that my photos and films save anybody’s lives. But I do wholeheartedly believe that I’m here to serve, to help and to make people’s lives better in some way.
So if you think about your business… What do you do? What business are you really in?
If you’re a yoga instructor, you probably think about exercise, fitness, and mindfulness, calming anxiety. Isn’t that a way of improving lives?
If you’re a business coach, you might sell strategy, clarity, focus, and business education which hopefully leads to happiness and success. Isn’t that a way to improve someone’s life?
For me personally, as a family photographer, I take photos to capture memories and ultimately cultivate confidence. My work is about identity and acceptance. As a brand photographer, I take photos to help my clients be more visible, show up confidently so they can make a connection with their audience and run a successful business. The work I create is about identity, connection and alignment.
My photos probably don’t save lives. But they save memories, help build confidence and support my client’s search for identity.
This is my mission – my work goes deeper than just photos that are nice to look at.
For a long time, I always just said that I like to capture the beauty I see and that I love documenting life for the sake of it. But it’s more than that – since I realised the impact and power my work can have on the people I get to photograph. It’s actually really empowering to understand that.
Now let me ask you again, when you really think about it, what is it that you do for your customers and clients? When you peel away the layers and go deeper. Do you enrich someone’s life? Can you make something better for them? What is their benefit of doing business with you?
When you understand that, that’s when you know how to really talk about your offerings because suddenly it’s not about the feature but about the impact.
The people I work with, have one thing in common: They want to help others.
This can look different to every person and every profession.
If your main goal is to make money and be rich, then you can absolutely do that, there’s no judgment here. I don’t know you or your situation or background. Everybody has a reason for why they live their lives the way they do.
But I hope this article got you thinking about your own mission, your goals, and the things that drive you. If you’re not sure what your answer is, keep asking yourself “Why?” until you arrive somewhere that makes sense. And if you’d like some accountability for this exercise, ask a friend, your partner, a colleague or someone else you trust, to help you uncover what it is that you really do.
What business are you really in?
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