I was digging through a computer folder and found a transcript from a keynote I gave about a decade ago. It’s a story I used to tell about my two old Jeeps.

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In the past two decades, I’ve owned only two cars. Both were Jeeps, and I drove each of them for over 200,000 miles.

What gives? Am I just a creature of habit? Am I cheap? Do I have a passion for towing things? No, it’s nothing that practical. The reason I’ve only owned Jeeps and drove them that far is because of the story they represent.

It started when I was five. I’d break all my toys, but I had this one metal-and-hard-plastic toy — a small Jeep — that was simply indestructible. I could throw it, step on it, bury it in the sandbox, and it would not break. That made an impression on me.

Then, when I got a little older, my heroes were soldiers, and every soldier I saw on TV drove a Jeep. On the show “Rat Patrol,” the soldiers chased Rommel across North African sand dunes in a Jeep. In the movie “Patton,” George C. Scott commanded the Third Army from the back of a Jeep in the middle of a battlefield.

To me, these were hero cars. They were brave, tough, indestructible.

So when I grew up, what car was I going to buy? A Corolla? I never saw any Corollas chasing Rommel. A Chevy Impala? I don’t remember Patton leading his troops while standing in the back of an Impala. No, it was always going to be a Jeep.

And what was I going to do with my Jeep? I was going to drive it into the ground, because the story said you couldn’t run it into the ground. That was part of the fun. That was its legend.

This might all sound silly and emotional, but most of us make major purchases based on an irrational motive. A friend of mine drives a Lamborghini and loves to tell me it can go 220 miles an hour. Yet, he once got a traffic ticket for doing 40 in a 30-mile-an-hour zone. So what good is 220 miles an hour in a world that won’t let you do 40?

He didn’t buy his Lamborghini for practical reasons; he bought it for emotional ones.

Jeep’s story is that it’s the hero’s car. It’s legendary for being indestructible. So, my question to you is this: What is your business legendary for?

Is it a product, a service, an idea, or a quality? If you don’t know, you have clues. Look at your proudest moments. Look at what makes you different from everyone else. I guarantee you, the seed of your legend is there.

To talk about your business in a way that makes people care, you don’t just list features. You talk about what makes you proud, what makes you different, and most importantly, what makes you legendary.

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Reading this now, that final question — “What is your business legendary for?” — feels corny. It’s the kind of thing a keynoter says, trying a little too hard to earn their fee by forcing in an oversized idea.

But then I think about something the late poet Richard Hugo wrote in his essay, “Writing Off Subject”:

“All art that has endured has a quality we call schmaltz or corn . . . if you are not risking sentimentality, you are not close to your inner self.”

And there it is. That’s the defense for the whole thing. In our rush to be cool and detached, we often run away from the very things that mean the most. We mistake irony for truth.

That “legendary” quality I was talking about isn’t an overblown marketing slogan; it’s the part of your work that you feel so strongly about, that you’re willing to sound a little corny when you talk about it.

Maybe that’s the real test. If you’re not risking a little schmaltz, you’re probably not talking about anything legendary at all.