A personal brand template built from your own stories

You sit down on a Tuesday to post, and nothing comes that only you could say. A logo, a colour palette and a tidy bio won't fix that, and that's what most personal brand templates give you. They help people recognise you once they've found you, but they never hand you a post.

This one does. Generic advice gets scrolled past, and people follow a person: what you believe, what you've done, what you're against and where you've failed ^[2]. For a coach, a lawyer or a property agent, those are the things a client weighs before they pick up the phone.

It comes from a talk Alex Hormozi gave called "How to build a cult". He writes down who he already is in 8 columns, the way a comic book writer briefs a hero: origin, beliefs, powers, enemies, weaknesses ^[1]. His line at the end: "this whole list is your content calendar for the next two years" ^[1].

Every cell is a moment that changed how you act. Tell that moment and people get the lesson without the scar ^[1]. After three of those moments, a stranger already has a feel for how you'd handle their case.

Here's what each column asks, with made-up cells from Mei, a property agent, and Ana, a career coach, so you can see the shape in two different jobs:

Copy this into a doc and add lines under each column as you go. Hormozi's own Dogma column runs to pages ^[1].

PERSONAL BRAND SHEET

1. Origins (5 to 8 bullets a stranger would use to retell your story)
Cell:
The story behind it (two lines):
Source:

2. Dogma (what you believe about your field that most people get wrong)
Cell:
The moment that taught you:
Tag (philosophy, sales, marketing or strategy):
Source:

3. Exceptional (results few people have, and work most people won't do)
Cell:
The story behind it:
Source:

4. Enemies (behaviours and ideas you're against, not people)
Cell:
The story behind it:
Source:

5. Flaws (what you're bad at, and what it cost you)
Cell:
What it cost:
Source:

6. Associations (who and what you're tied to, and what you've turned down)
Cell:
The story behind it:
Source:

7. Language (frameworks and words you've named, or say so often they're yours)
Cell:
Where it came from:
Source:

8. Likability (the human side between the points)
Cell:
The story behind it:
Source:

Source is where the cell came from: a post, an email, a transcript or your own memory. It keeps you honest when you film the story later.

Filling the sheet from a blank page takes a weekend, which is what Hormozi suggests ^[1]. You've already written most of it, though, so start a new Claude chat, or better, a Claude Project, and drop these in ^[1]:

• Your bio or about page, the public version of your story ^[1].
• 10 of your best posts or captions, which hold your beliefs in your own words ^[1].
• 2 transcripts of you talking: a podcast, a sales call or a long video. Stories come out when you talk ^[1].
• 3 DMs or emails where you explained what you do, the plain version of your dogma ^[1].
• Your resume or LinkedIn, where the exceptional column hides ^[1].

Don't clean anything up. Rough is better, because Claude is looking for the stories ^[1]. Do take out client names and details before you upload a call transcript or an email.

No posts yet? Record yourself answering a few questions about your work for ten minutes, transcribe it, and use that with your LinkedIn and a couple of emails.

Paste this after your files. Claude fills what it can, then asks you the rest, one column at a time ^[1].

You're helping me fill in an 8-column personal brand sheet from the files above. The columns:
1. Origins: the 5 to 8 bullets a stranger would use to retell my story.
2. Dogma: what I believe about my field that most people get wrong, with the moment that taught me each one. Tag each belief as philosophy, sales, marketing or strategy.
3. Exceptional: what I've done that few people have. Results, and work most people won't do. Small things count.
4. Enemies: behaviours and ideas I'm against. Behaviours, not people.
5. Flaws: what I'm bad at and what it has cost me.
6. Associations: who and what I'm tied to, and what I've turned down.
7. Language: frameworks, steps and words I've named, or say so often they're mine.
8. Likability: the human side that shows up between the points.

Step 1: Read everything I gave you. Fill every column with what the files prove, and name the file next to each cell so I can check it. Never invent a story or a number.
Step 2: Mark each column full, thin or empty.
Step 3: Interview me. For every thin or empty column, ask me at most 3 questions, one column at a time, and wait for my answer before moving on. Ask for specific moments (when, where, what happened, what changed) rather than opinions. For Flaws, don't accept "I'm a perfectionist". Push for a real one and what it cost.
Step 4: When all 8 columns are full, give me the finished sheet as a table: column, cell (one line), the story behind it (two lines), source (file or interview). Then list the 5 cells you think are strongest and say why.

Don't let it invent a flaw. A fake flaw reads as fake ^[2]. Save the finished sheet as a file in the project, and it becomes the source for every post from here on ^[1].

Dogma is the column most of your best posts come from. Write one belief per line, each with the moment that taught you, and tag it philosophy, sales, marketing or strategy ^[1]. Every dogma cell should disagree with something people in your field commonly say ^[2]. If nobody would argue with it, it's a platitude, and platitudes get scrolled past.

A brand manifesto is your dogma column written as a short piece: what you believe, what you're against and what you promise the people you work for. For a solo professional it can be five to seven sentences on your about page, your LinkedIn or a pinned post.

Using the Dogma, Enemies and Origins columns of my sheet, write a brand manifesto of 5 to 7 sentences in my words. Open with the belief most people in my field would argue with. Name one behaviour I'm against. Close with what I promise clients. No slogans, and no words I haven't used somewhere in my files.

Read it aloud. Cut any line that sounds like a slogan on a mug, and any line a competitor could sign.

Hormozi's point about flaws: say the bad before the good, and the good becomes believable ^[1]. Run this on any bio, about page or pitch you already have:

Here is a piece of my copy: [paste]. Using the Flaws and Exceptional columns from my sheet, rewrite it so it opens with one real flaw or loss, then earns the claim. Keep my words. Keep it the same length or shorter. Give me two versions: one for a bio, and one for a spoken 10-second hook.

As a professional, choose flaws about how you work: a slow start, a habit you fixed, a mistake you learned from. Keep away from anything that would make a client worry about their money or their case.

New message, same project ^[1]:

Using my finished 8-column sheet, write 50 short-video ideas.

Rules:
- Every idea starts from one cell and tells the moment that changed how I work. The lesson comes out of the story.
- Cover all 8 columns, with at least 10 from Dogma and at least 5 from Flaws.
- For each idea: the column, the cell, a spoken hook in one breath written the way I talk (study my captions), the lesson in one line, and a format (talking head, screen recording, carousel, faceless story).
- Where a Flaw and an Exceptional cell belong together, pair them: the flaw first, then the win. Mark these pairs.
- No hashtags, no generic advice, nothing someone else in my field could post.

Give it to me as a table I can paste into a spreadsheet.

Where a flaw and a win belong together, post them as a pair: those pairs are usually your best videos ^[2].

To check which ideas earn their place, the Outlier Method scores your posts against your own median, and the hook formulas give each idea its first line.

Postmosis keeps your brand kit and a voice profile built from 3 to 5 of your past posts, and uses both on every draft, so each idea from your sheet comes back written in your voice. See the post writer

Fifty ideas only help once they have dates. At one post a week they last roughly a year ^[1]. At three a week, the goal most professionals set themselves, they last about four months, and the monthly rerun below tops them up.

Cycle the columns so no two weeks lean on the same one ^[1]. Here's a four-week rotation for three posts a week. Dogma takes every Monday because it holds the most cells, at least 10 of the 50 ideas ^[1]:

Then let Claude put dates on it, in the same project:

Lay out the 50 ideas from my sheet as a 12-week calendar, three posts a week on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, starting [date].

Rules:
- Dogma on every Monday.
- Never the same column twice in one week, except a flaw and win pair, which goes on a Friday.
- Put my five strongest cells in the first two weeks.
- For each slot give me: date, day, column, the spoken hook, the format, and anything I need to film or find first (a photo, a document, a screen to record).

Give it to me as a table I can paste into a spreadsheet.

Paste the table into the content calendar template, and block one hour a week to film the next week's three.

In Postmosis, each idea goes on a calendar by month or week with your posting slots, and you get a phone alert when one is due. See the content calendar

The sheet is never finished. Every month, drop the month's new posts and transcripts into the project and ask Claude which columns grew ^[1]. New flaws, new enemies and new language make the fastest posts you'll ever write, because the story is still fresh ^[1].

When a topic from the sheet does well, don't move on. Repurpose content shows how to get several more posts out of it.

• If confidentiality binds you, as it does lawyers and therapists, build cells from patterns you've seen across many clients rather than one person's story, and change every detail.
• New to the work, with a thin Exceptional column? Lean on the work most people won't do, like answering every enquiry within the hour, until results arrive ^[1].
• Likability can stay at work if you'd rather keep your private life offline: your desk, your routine before a meeting, the line you say in every first call.
• When a flaw would worry a client, swap it for one about how you work, and leave their money and their case out of it.
• If the ideas still sound generic, a cell is usually an opinion with no moment behind it, so go back to the interview and ask for when, where, what happened and what changed ^[1].

• Every column has at least 2 cells ^[2].
• Every dogma cell disagrees with something people in your field commonly say ^[2].
• Every flaw is real and cost you something specific ^[2].
• At least one language cell is a name you coined ^[2].
• No idea in the 50 could be posted by a competitor without changing it ^[2].
• You'd say every hook out loud without cringing ^[2].

Once the sheet is full, you can say your brand in one line for your bio, your link in bio page or the top of your about page. Pull it from three cells:

I help [who, from Origins or Associations] [get what result], because [the moment from Origins]. I believe [your strongest Dogma cell]. I'm against [one Enemies cell].

Rather do it yourself first? One question per column gets you started:

• Origins: how would a client who's known you for years explain how you got here?
• Dogma: what do you tell clients that contradicts what they read online?
• Exceptional: what do you do on every job that others in your field skip?
• Enemies: what habit in your field makes you angry on a client's behalf?
• Flaws: what did you get wrong early on, and who paid for it?
• Associations: which places, groups or tools do you want people to think of when they hear your name, and what have you said no to?
• Language: what phrase do you say so often that clients say it back to you?
• Likability: what would someone see if they followed you around for a working day?