How Story Mining Generated $80 Million and Why Your Messy Story Is Your Business Asset

I'll never forget the moment Andrea Merrill told me she came home seven days after giving birth to find her house in foreclosure, her HOA auctioning off her home, and her water turned off.

But here's what stopped me in my tracks: during that same crisis, while in and out of hospitals for three months with life-threatening pregnancy complications, she'd helped a friend rebrand her business and generate a million dollars in revenue.

If you're an ambitious woman who feels like you're supposed to have it all figured out, who's building something meaningful while simultaneously trying to survive, Andrea's story will change how you think about your own journey. Because her path from trauma therapist to speaking coach who's helped clients generate over $80 million in revenue proves that your messy, complicated story isn't something to hide. It's your greatest business asset.

We're Told to Polish Our Stories Instead of Mining Them

The entrepreneurial world loves a good origin story. But we're taught to package it neatly, to sand down the rough edges, to skip from struggle to success without dwelling in the uncomfortable middle.

We see the highlight reels: the sold-out stages, the million-dollar launches, the perfectly curated Instagram feeds. What we don't see is the woman crying to the water company while building a website on her iPhone 8. We don't hear about the ruptured appendix at 20 weeks pregnant, the near-blindness, the PTSD from months in the hospital.

And because we don't see those stories, we think ours aren't good enough. We think we need more credentials, more polish, more perfection before we can step into our authority and use our voice.

But here's what I learned from Andrea's unique combination of behavioral psychology and speaking strategy: the stories we're afraid to tell are exactly the ones that create the deepest connection, the most powerful transformation, and yes, the most significant revenue.

When Your Entire Life Implodes and You Build Anyway

Andrea holds a master's degree in psychology with a focus on applied behavioral analysis. Before becoming a speaking coach, she worked as a behavior and trauma therapist for high-profile cases in Arizona, working with both victims and perpetrators.

Then her life imploded in ways she never could have anticipated.

Severe migraines led to the removal of her birth control, which led to an unexpected pregnancy. She was diagnosed with pseudotumor cerebri, a benign tumor that sits on the brain and pushes on the eyes, causing constant migraines. During pregnancy, the condition worsened dramatically, and she faced the real possibility of going blind.

At 20 weeks pregnant, her appendix ruptured. She spent three months in and out of the hospital, caught MRSA, and needed a drain placed. She describes it as a pregnancy from hell, one she wasn't sure she would survive.

When she was finally home for seven days, her water broke a month early. And when she came home with her newborn, reality hit: foreclosure notices, HOA auction warnings, disconnected water service.

On the drive home from the hospital, crying about how she'd turn the water back on, Andrea listened to a podcast. And she had a realization: if she could help her friend generate a million dollars while her world was falling apart, she could help other people too.

She built her first website on her iPhone 8 using the Squarespace app. Within seven days, she landed $12,500 in contracts.

The Quarter-Million Dollar Business She Burned to the Ground

Within about two years, Andrea had built her branding, website design, and SEO business to a quarter of a million dollars in revenue. By conventional standards, she was crushing it.

But she wasn't happy.

This is the part of the entrepreneurial story we don't talk about enough. Sometimes success by external metrics doesn't equal fulfillment. Sometimes the thing you're good at and the thing you're meant to do are two different things.

Andrea looked back at all the areas where she'd really helped her clients. She analyzed what was actually creating their transformations. And she discovered a pattern.

It wasn't the pretty websites or the technical SEO. It was all around messaging and marketing. It was about helping them really use their voice. When she dug into the results, she'd helped clients generate over $80 million in revenue. And the common thread wasn't design. It was a story.

That's when she made the bold decision to pivot completely, leaving behind a successful business to build something aligned with her deeper purpose.

What Story Mining Actually Is and Why It Changes Everything

Andrea's background in behavioral psychology gives her a completely unique approach to speaking coaching. She calls her process "story mining," and it functions similarly to the intake process you'd experience when starting therapy.

When you begin therapy, you go through an intake where the therapist asks deep, probing questions and then develops a treatment plan. Andrea does the same thing for your business story, asking the meaningful questions that pull out who you were, who you are, and who you're becoming.

Most speaker coaches look for the arc, the single overarching theme. Andrea weaves in multiple stories with your offerings, getting to a deeper root of what you actually want to share with the world. She's pulling from your past, your present, your future dreams, creating a comprehensive narrative that positions you as an authority while maintaining authentic connection.

I've been through Andrea's story mining process myself, and I can tell you it's almost therapeutic. You have to unravel your own story in ways you haven't before. As business owners, knowing your story is critical because it connects directly to what your business is. Your business is what you've gone through. It's your purpose distilled into offerings.

Going through that process unveiled another level of purpose within me. It clarified my why, what I was really doing this work for. And even though your story is always evolving as you grow, having that foundation is pivotal.

Andrea considers story mining a business asset, as important as your marketing assets. It's your messaging asset, the root of your story, the core of your why. If your brand could speak for itself, this is what it would say.

She's had clients cry when they read their completed stories. Others get immediately fired up, ready to crush their next talk or sales call. Because you get to return to that core story again and again.

The Most Important Part of Know, Like, Trust

At a recent speaking event, Andrea asked her audience what they thought was the most important part of know-like-trust. Most people said trust.

But she points out the obvious flaw: how can someone trust you if they don't actually know you?

Knowing comes first. And knowing doesn't mean what you're putting out on social media or what you're selling. It doesn't mean the version of yourself you think you should be or the tactics you're copying from other successful entrepreneurs.

Real knowing means understanding who someone truly is. Their values, their story, their unique perspective.

Many of us fall into a vicious cycle when we're not clear on what we offer or who we're offering it for. We end up playing out who we think we should be instead of who we actually are.

With clarity comes confidence. With confidence comes visibility. And visibility is what builds real business growth.

Human Design and DNA-Level Customization

Andrea is now taking her work even deeper by incorporating human design and Gallup Clifton Strengths into her story mining and speaking strategy.

Human design taps into the astrological and scientific elements present at the moment you were born. It reveals your unique energy type and how you're designed to communicate.

Both Andrea and I are projectors in human design, which represents about 20% of the population. But she's a mental projector while I'm an emotional projector. When you get even more specific, Andrea is working with just 0.05% of the population with her particular design.

She tested this approach with a client who liked her story but felt something was missing. Andrea rewrote the talk using human design principles. The pacing changed to match her client's specific energy. The tones shifted. There were moments where the talk instructed her to touch her chest for grounding. The client cried three times during that revision call because it finally felt completely aligned.

Andrea is also incorporating Gallup Clifton Strengths, which identifies 34 DNA strands that make each person uniquely themselves. You take a 200-question assessment requiring gut-reaction responses in under 20 seconds.

She discovered she has strengths in every single category, which is typically unheard of. She has Developer (strategy and development), Individualization (customizing for each person), high Belief (deeply rooted values), and Strategic (seeing multiple solutions simultaneously). Understanding these core traits has helped her refine exactly how she works with clients.

Start With Story Banking

If you're just starting to work on authentic marketing and messaging, Andrea recommends story banking.

Keep the notes app on your phone accessible, or use tools like Voxer or Slack to message yourself. Share stories every day. These don't need to be polished. Just capture the moments, the insights, the experiences as they happen.

Then take those raw stories and feed them into AI. Andrea is a huge advocate of using artificial intelligence strategically. Ask the AI to transform your conversational story into marketing material formatted for Instagram, LinkedIn, email newsletters, and blog content.

Andrea uses AI to transcribe all her client videos, then analyzes the transcripts to identify pain points and extract the exact language her ideal clients use. When she's stuck on content ideas, she asks her AI system what her ideal client is looking for that day.

Her current favorite tool is Prompt Perfect, an AI extension that costs about eight dollars per month. You write a basic prompt like "act as my social media manager and come up with a content strategy," click the "perfect" button, and the extension transforms your simple prompt into something detailed and specific that generates actually useful content.

Get to the Psychographic Level

Most of us think about our ideal client on a surface level. We create avatars like "Jenny, 35 years old, has two kids." But Andrea pushes deeper into the psychographic details.

What is keeping your ideal client up at night? What is she fighting with her partner about in the morning? Does she grab coffee on the go? Does coffee give her anxiety? How does that affect her decision-making?

These psychological and behavioral details matter because if you don't truly know who you're serving, you can't effectively serve them with an offer. And if you don't know what offer solves their actual problems, you'll struggle to craft a story that positions you as the solution.

This level of depth only comes from real conversations, from asking probing questions, from analyzing the language people use when they describe their struggles.

Your Story Is Your Competitive Advantage

Andrea's journey from coming home with no water and a foreclosure notice to becoming a speaking strategist whose clients have generated over $80 million proves something critical: your story isn't something to overcome or hide. It's your competitive advantage.

Every struggle she faced, every impossible situation she navigated, every moment she wanted to give up contributed to her unique perspective and methodology. Her trauma therapy background gave her the skills to ask the right questions. Her personal crisis gave her the resilience to build anyway. Her willingness to burn down a successful business when it wasn't aligned gave her the courage to help others do the same.

She now works with entrepreneurs, business owners, and thought leaders to craft powerful talks that move people to their core. She teaches speakers how to command attention, create lasting impact, and turn every speaking opportunity into a business growth tool.

One of her clients just delivered her first TEDx talk, a full-circle moment for Andrea as both coach and strategist.

Authenticity Is a Business Strategy

When you're willing to do the deep work of understanding your own story, when you can articulate not just what you do but why you do it and who you were before you figured it out, you create a connection that transcends typical marketing.

People don't just want to learn from you. They want to know you. They want to see themselves in your struggles and your breakthroughs. They want proof that transformation is possible because you're living evidence of it.

Your messy middle, your darkest moments, your pivots and failures and terrifying leaps aren't obstacles to your success. They're the foundation of your authority and the bridge to your community.

Whether you're just starting out or you've built something successful that doesn't feel aligned anymore, clarity creates confidence, confidence enables visibility, and visibility builds empires.

Ready to start mining your own story? Begin with simple story banking. Capture your experiences daily. Feed them into AI and experiment with how your authentic voice translates into different content formats. Get curious about the deeper psychographics of who you're really serving.

Your story matters. The world is waiting to hear it.

Want to hear the full conversation with Andrea? Listen to MW Podcast Episode 13: From Trauma to TED Talks: Andrea Merrill on Owning Your Story + Making Bank, where she shares even more about her story mining methodology and how speakers can turn every opportunity into business growth.

You can find Andrea on Instagram at @theandreamerrill or visit her website at andreamerrill.co.