---
title: "Mission and enemy"
description: "What a brand is for, and what it is against. The enemy is the shortcut to the mission."
canonical: https://tomsharman.com/glossary/mission-and-enemy/
updated: 2026-10-25
---

# Mission and enemy

What a brand is for, and what it is against. The enemy is the shortcut to the mission.

## Why does it matter?

The brands that compound have a mission, and the fastest way to a mission is an enemy. Naming the enemy in the hooks makes the right audience feel picked.

## How does it work?

1. Write the mission as one sentence about what the audience gets.
2. Name the enemy: a belief, a habit or a type of person the audience already resents.
3. Expect some people to be wound up. Their comments carry it to the people you want.

## Where has Tom used it?

Simon Squibb's enemy is the school system, and anyone who tells you that you can't. When Tom joined [Sam Stoffel](https://tomsharman.com/case-studies/sam-stoffel/), the content had no mission, purpose or enemy; building one was part of the rebuild.

## Related terms

- [The eight things](https://tomsharman.com/glossary/the-eight-things/index.md): Six to eight messages a person says over and over, a hundred different ways, until people know what they stand for.
- [The messy middle](https://tomsharman.com/glossary/messy-middle/index.md): The ground between builder and authority, where a personal brand says both things at once and stalls.

## Where is it explained?

- https://tomsharman.com/playbooks/positioning/a-mission-and-an-enemy/
- https://tomsharman.com/lessons/a-brand-that-compounds-has-a-mission-and-an-enemy/