Origin Stories
Your story, written.
Patrick has written nearly a hundred and fifty origin stories for CEOs, founders, authors, and thought leaders — each one crafted to read on the page and deliver from the stage.
Why an Origin Story
A bio supersizes you. A story humanizes you.
The people who hire Patrick to write their origin story are accomplished. They have credible bios — venture-backed companies, books, talks, awards, the trappings of recognized success. What they don’t have, often, is a way for a stranger to trust them.
A bio establishes credibility. A story builds trust. They do different work, and the most influential brands now lead with both.
An origin story is the second piece — the one most leaders’ websites are missing. It pulls the reader into the life of the person behind the work. By the end, the reader has met someone, not a résumé. They feel they know what drives this person. And when the story arrives at what they do today, the reader’s reaction is a quiet kind of inevitability: of course that’s what you do. How could you do anything else?
This isn’t theoretical. On most websites, My Story is the first link visitors click. They want to know who you are before they care what you do. Your story is the doorway.
How Patrick Came to This Work
He didn’t go looking for this.
Twelve years ago, a brand agency asked Patrick if he could help a client who couldn’t tell their own story. He said yes. He’s never stopped.
For over a decade, Patrick has been the origin-story artist-in-residence at Influex, one of the world’s leading personal-brand agencies. Outside clients reach him the same way Influex’s do: by referral. Patrick has never advertised this service. Every project has arrived through recommendation — almost always some version of the same sentence: Patrick is the guy you have to have to write your origin story.
He’s now written close to a hundred and fifty.
The Method
What makes a great origin story.
Over years of practice, Patrick distilled what every origin story needs. The list is short, and most of it isn’t intuitive until you’ve heard a few hundred told.
The story must humanize the person. Accomplished people are usually seen as superhuman. A good origin story shows fallibility, because the fastest way to make a reader trust someone is to remind them that the person is mortal.
It must be emotional. Intellectual is fine, Patrick says, but only emotional gets retold at dinner.
It must contain conflict — internal and external. Nobody watches a boring movie. Nobody finishes a boring story.
It must reveal what drives the person. The reader should finish the story knowing the why beneath the work.
It must point to what the person does today — but not until the very end. The reader should discover the work at the moment they would naturally ask, and what do you do today? The answer should feel inevitable.
It must be short. After ninety minutes of conversation that produces twelve to fifteen thousand spoken words, the final origin story is six or seven hundred. Mark Twain said it best: I would have written a short story if I’d had more time.
And the best ones carry a wisdom bomb — a piece of universal truth the reader takes with them whether or not they ever work with the person whose story they just read.
The process is one on one. Patrick interviews the client over a single ninety-minute session. He arrives at the conversation blank, on purpose — no research, no LinkedIn skim, no prior knowledge. The finished story has to work for readers who know nothing about the client, so the writer needs to listen the way those readers will read.
The deliverable is twice-used. Because Patrick has spent thirty years on stages, the story he hands back reads cleanly on a page and is word-for-word ready to deliver from the stage. Clients post it on their personal-brand site, or — increasingly — on their company’s “Our Story” page. (Companies are realizing it’s easier to brand a leader than a brand.) They tell it from stages. They share it in pitches, media kits, and on first calls. It becomes their two-or-three-minute calling card.
Why It Matters
What a bio can never do.
Frankly, everyone has a strong bio. They’re easy to write. They can almost be baked from the start — a list of accomplishments arranged in flattering order. They establish credibility. They impress.
But a great origin story does what a bio, no matter how impressive, can never do.
It reveals the real you. It reveals your why. And it earns like and trust.
That’s the strongest branding a person can ever do.
An origin story helps people see you.
Who Patrick Writes For
Category leaders.
Most clients are CEOs, founders, authors, or professional speakers. Many are well known. Some lead quietly. What they share is a moment, somewhere during the session, when they recognize the story is theirs — and now they can finally tell it.
Patrick’s most recent client is the CEO of the world’s largest garage door company. Past clients include Lewis Howes, Joe Polish, Cameron Herold, Kent Clothier, Shaun T, Alex Shunnarah, Chris Dreyer, Alreen Haeggquist, Jacob Zemer, and Nick Unsworth — alongside many CEOs and founders whose names are quieter but whose stories are no less remarkable.
What Clients Say
Three voices.
“Things like finding your origin story, which I thought were total BS, turned out to be amazing. I’m so happy with the result.”
Roland Frasier
“I went in stressed about sharing my childhood traumas. Patrick made me feel like I was the most important person, and that my story was worth being shared. He made it easy, fun, and less stressful.”
Mimi Dew
“Patrick set the bar so freaking high. I didn’t just do an origin story — it felt like a transformational workshop.”
Sylvia Ferrero
