The Story of Purpose: The Path to Creating a Brighter Brand, a Greater Company, and a Lasting Legacy

3

The Master Idea

Some ideas are bigger than others.

—Joey Reiman, on ideas

My biggest idea was born out of every mother’s purpose: to protect and inspire her child’s spirit. I named my consultancy BrightHouse, because my mother made me a toy White House when I was eight years old. She said, “One day, Joey, you will work in the real one—maybe as president.”

I didn’t make it as chief executive officer (CEO) of the free world, but I did become the leader of an organization whose chief focus is helping business generate commercial success through social value. I managed to break through the archaic world of traditional advertising to create the world’s first ideation firm—and I began thinking for a living.

Some Ideas Are Bigger Than Others

Shortly after creating BrightHouse, I received as a gift a book by Cal State East Bay professor Theodore Roszak. Upon reading Roszak’s commentary on ideas, I was wildly inspired with one of my own.

Roszak calls certain ideas “Master Ideas—the great, moral, religious and metaphysical teachings which are the foundations of culture.”1 He believes that we occupy our minds with so much data that it obscures our thinking. But beneath our daily thinking lies foundational ideas that shape us. Master Ideas are not based on facts but the conviction that the thought will stir the soul.

These ideas come to us in the form of powerful statements such as “God is love,” “All men (and women) are created equal,” and “We shall overcome.” These megawatt concepts can’t ...