Craft Your Origin Story
With Patrick Combs

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How to Use this Guide

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If you’re not an Influex client, Patrick will discuss the fee options
for his Origin Story services when you meet, or you can email him directly at clientcare@influex.com to inquire about his services in advance.

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This guide will give a process to uncover the story you should be telling… and the story that will be irresistibly compelling to your ideal customers. We call this your origin story. Your origin story tells people when and why you created your business.

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FIRST NAME**

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Look for the most meaningful moment in time when your business “began.”

In actuality, every business has many different stories of origin, but you’re looking for the right one to tell.

The right one to tell is the one that shares the most meaning and emotion with listeners. Imagine that someone is asking you, “Tell me, when and why did you start your business?” Was it something that happened to you? Was it something that pained you? Was it something that excited you? Was it a dramatic life change? Was your business born out of a previous failure?

Here, write a very specific moment in time when the idea for your business was born:

STORY IDEA #1*

STORY SCORE:*

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Next, consider other possible origin story options.

Can you think of two other moments in time when the idea for your business was born or a time when your commitment to the idea was cemented? Write two more possible ideas her.

STORY IDEA #2*

STORY SCORE:*

STORY IDEA #3*

STORY SCORE:*

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Now select the best story of the bunch.

The best origin story to tell is almost never the one that explains how you started your business or where and when you actually launched your business. The story you’re looking for is the origin story that contains as many of the following 10 elements as possible.

The 10 Elements of an Epic Origin Story:

Authentic: It’s a true story.
It has heart (causes the listeners to feel something).
It has an element of the unexpected.
It reflects your business’s highest values.
It speaks to your business’s Why (your highest purpose for being in business).
It is set in a time and place.
It reveals what makes you tick.
It’s dramatic and contains struggle or pain  (like a good scene in a movie).
It calls attention to a real problem (large or small).
It includes an “Aha moment” (large or small).

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Score your three possible stories.

Now it's time to score your three stories so that you can choose the best story of the bunch.

Go back to your three stories, and give one point for each of the 10 elements that your story contains. For instance, if Story #1 is authentic, has heart, and includes a revelation, give Story #1 three points.

When you’ve completed this score for each of your three possible stories, the story with the highest score is the winner!

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A Primer on Story Power 
and Additional Resources

Great Stories Go Viral

Story is the new black. Of course, story is not new. It is the oldest form of powerful communication known to man. From ancient times to today’s viral sensations, stories have held readers and listeners spellbound. Stories have been used to motivate listeners to take action.

Stories have been shared to tell people about something important. Stories have been the key to igniting movements. Today’s marketplace and culture are won and shaped by the best stories. If you want to shape the world and be seen as a leader in your space, you need to be in on the story game.

Why Stories Are So Powerful

A well-crafted story has a magical ability to engage someone on an emotional level…and deliver a message that is all at once meaningful, compelling, inspiring, and shareable.

Masterfully told, stories motivate us to action, explain new solutions, and inspire us to want to be our best selves. Masterfully crafted stories rise head and shoulders above a marketplace full of product announcements, feature descriptions, press releases, and talking heads telling listeners what they do and how great they do it.

Great stories grab us by the heart and bond us to a new company, a new product, a new leader, or a new movement.

What an Epic Story Can Do
for You and Your Business

An epic story about your business (or you) can get your audience to connect and identify with you rapidly…to see what your most meaningful values are…to understand your biggest “WHY”…to trust your genuine intentions…and to actually want to help you succeed by participating in what you’re doing as a consumer, as a partner, or as a raving fan that shares your story with many others.

We live in a world where great stories go viral. The right story about your business can elevate you to the top of your niche and increase your bottom line better than many expensive marketing campaigns ever would.

The right story about your business also serves so many other important purposes. It can be the lynchpin in your next talk, the heart of your next pitch, the centerpiece of your marketing campaign, the golden key in your sales, the binding agent to your employees, the manifesto of your executive team, and a loyalty tool with your customer.

You Have a Great Story Waiting to Be Crafted and Shared

A great story about your business isn’t something you have to make up. Every business has an origin story already that is just waiting to be shared with the world. But for most businesses, it’s like an uncut diamond sitting in the attic waiting to be discovered, cut, and polished.

3 Ways You Can
Polish Up Your Story

Write out your winning story.

Tell your story as often as possible, and let experience be your teacher. Experiment with different tellings of the story. Try different story techniques to discover the ones that work best for your story.

Most importantly, tell, experiment, refine, and repeat…tell, experiment, refine, and repeat. Experimentation and refinement lead to story success, especially when you’re reading your audience or measuring your results with the story.

Creativity counts in storytelling, and you can try many different approaches until you hone a story that works brilliantly.

Learn the Techniques of Story Mastery

We’ve put together Patrick’s best storytelling secrets, insights, and tips so you can apply these exact techniques to your story. You can get it all here: Storytelling

In it, you will learn 44 of Patrick’s master techniques for making your story epic – techniques that were hard earned through his 24-year career of presenting on stages, failing hard, and rising to the top, where he’s paid top dollar to entertain 1,000-person audiences with only story.

His 44 master story secrets cover how to not appear to be bragging, how to add humor to your story, how to make your story more dramatic and memorable, and how to perform your story.

Book Your Story Coaching Call with Patrick Now

Uncover your wildly impactful story fast with the help of a story master.

About Your Story Coach

PATRICK COMBS

What’s Your Story?

It is NOT your bio. And it is NOT your brand.

Patrick is going to save you from telling a bad story.
He’s going to help you tell an unforgettable and compelling story.

The London Times and New York Time Out called Patrick a “MasterStoryteller.”

As an expert guide on the craft of story and speaking, Patrick has helped many top Shelf players in the world of business and the arts ascend to even greater heights in their careers.

His celebrity clients include Kenny Aronoff,
one of the world’s greatest rock and roller drummers, Martin Latulippe, widely considered Canada’s greatest inspirational speaker, and Guillermo Romo former CEO of Herradura Tequila, to name only a few.

On the power of his own storytelling, Patrick is one of the only people in the world to have accomplished both a Hall of Fame speaking career and a global, smash-hit, hilarious one man theatre show.

Patrick has spoken for almost 2,000 organizations, and applied his talents everywhere from talks at Stanford and Hilton, performances at the HBO comedy festival, to coaching prisoners on story at the Donovan Correctional Institute. His latest, When You Are Bursting, is a book of personal stories.