Hi Leaders,

I’ve told the story of founding Plum Analytics many times, but I rarely mention what happened three weeks after I started the company: my father was diagnosed with cancer.

We had started Plum Analytics based on what we thought our target customers wanted: better metrics for research evaluation.

We began with a market opportunity, a business plan, and a logical next step. But suddenly, my mission became much deeper.

It wasn’t just about building a product anymore.

It was about accelerating the research that could save lives like his.

That’s when my real personal why was born.

Most entrepreneurs start companies because they see market opportunities.

Three weeks in, I understood viscerally why better research measurement mattered.

That insight didn’t just shape our mission.

It also sharpened our product decisions, messaging, and culture.

It wasn’t about revenue potential.

It was about the belief that faster, more accurate research evaluation could accelerate breakthroughs that save lives.

That experience taught me something crucial:

Category creators don’t just build products people want.

They connect:

• what they personally need the world to have
• with what customers actually need.

But personal why isn’t just about what drives you to start, it’s about what sustains you when everything falls apart.

There’s more to my story, and it’s harder to tell.

Seven years after founding Plum Analytics, just as we were gaining serious traction in our new category, I suffered a traumatic brain injury that changed everything.

Suddenly, I couldn’t lead.

Couldn’t think straight.

Couldn’t trust my brain to do the simplest tasks.

I disappeared from the company I had poured everything into.

I had to step away.

It took me three long years to rebuild my brain, my confidence, and my understanding of who I was beyond my professional identity.

Those three years taught me something profound about personal why:

It’s not just what drives you forward, it’s what remains when everything else is stripped away.

When I couldn’t lead my team anymore…

When I couldn’t rely on my cognitive abilities…

When I had to start over completely…

One thing became crystal clear:

I’m deeply motivated by helping others avoid the pitfalls I faced as a leader.

Not just the business mistakes, but the human cost of leadership without self-awareness, sustainable systems, and authentic purpose.

That’s why I coach now.

Not because consulting is the best business model, but because I understand first-hand how hard leadership really is, and how much better it can be with the right approach.

Those three years of rebuilding gave shape to what I still had: experience, empathy, and a map I’d earned the hard way.

Here’s The Category Creator’s Playbook: a four-part framework for developing unshakeable conviction that aligns personal mission with market-defining innovation.

1. Connect Your Work to Personal Experience The insight: Your strongest convictions come from problems you’ve personally experienced or witnessed. My story: Watching my father navigate cancer treatment made research acceleration personal. My brain injury made leadership resilience personal. Both experiences were central to how I led during those times. Your opportunity: What personal experiences shape your perspective on the work you’re doing? What customer problems could you explore that connect to challenges you or people you care about have faced? The shift: From “I hit roadmap goals” to “I solve problems that I personally understand matter.”

2. Identify What You’d Build Even If No One Paid You The insight: Sustainable passion comes from intrinsic motivation, not external rewards. My story: Even during my brain injury recovery, when I couldn’t work professionally, I was obsessively thinking about what I had that I could share to help other leaders avoid my mistakes. Your opportunity: What aspects of your product work would you pursue even if it wasn’t your job? What improvements would you champion even if they didn’t advance your career? The shift: From “What will get me promoted?” to “What would I build even if everyone else said no?”

3. Articulate the Personal Stakes The insight: Leaders who create lasting impact aren’t just solving customer problems. They’re addressing something that personally matters to them. My story: Better research metrics weren’t just a market opportunity… they represented accelerating discoveries that could save lives like my father’s. Leadership coaching isn’t just consulting… it’s helping people avoid the isolation and burnout I experienced. Your opportunity: What’s personally at stake in your product work? Who suffers if this problem lingers another year? What changes if you solve it now? Why does that matter to you specifically? The shift: From “Users need this feature” to “The world needs this solution, and here’s why it’s personal for me.”

4. Tell the Stories Behind Your Conviction The insight: Personal conviction becomes organizational momentum when you can articulate it clearly to stakeholders who don’t share your experience. Practice this: Complete these sentences with specific, personal details: “I’m motivated to create transformational impact because…” “The problem I’m solving matters to me personally because…” “Even if this work gets difficult, I’ll persist because…” The shift: From “vague mission statements” to “inspiring others with the personal stories that drive your vision.”

Habits to Develop

To strengthen your conviction, build a simple cadence:

• Each week, set an intention around one problem you’re personally driven to solve, just as I did during my recovery.
  ​
• Each month, look at what energized you most recently, and choose which problems or projects you want to personally champion next.

Key Takeaways

✅ Breakthrough innovation requires personal conviction, not just professional ambition.

External motivation gets you started.

Internal conviction sustains you through resistance.

✅ Your strongest work connects to your personal experience.

The problems you’ve lived through or witnessed personally become your most compelling missions.

✅ Breakthrough innovation is personal.

If you’re building something the world needs but doesn’t understand yet, you need personal reasons to persist when others doubt.

Wrapping It Up: Develop Your Personal Why

This week, identify the personal experiences that drive your professional motivation.

The goal isn’t to manufacture artificial purpose.

It’s to recognize the authentic personal conviction that already exists and strengthen it.

When you connect your professional work to a personal mission, you don’t just ship features that matter to users.

You ship solutions that matter to you.

If you see untapped opportunities but struggle to navigate when your organization resists change, I help product leaders develop the internal foundation that turns bold ideas into market advantages.

I work with ambitious product leaders who want to create category-defining impact, not just incremental improvement.

Together, we develop the People, Passion, and Performance capabilities that turn visionary thinking into market-defining results.

If you’re done with safe bets but need to work within organizational reality, let’s talk.

I help product leaders develop category creator conviction and apply it strategically within existing constraints.

👉 Schedule a conversation here​

Next week, we’ll explore how to inspire peak performance in your team, because personal conviction is just the beginning.

Breakthrough innovation requires getting others to bring their best work to problems they don’t fully understand yet.

Until next time!

Andrea

P.S. - Sometimes our biggest setbacks reveal our deepest purpose. The work that feels most personal often creates the most meaningful impact.

Andrea Michalek - @ThatAndreaM ​Say hi 👋 on Twitter, Bluesky, or LinkedIn​ ☎️ Book a 1:1 call with me​

special offer 7 Days to Amplify Your Impact If you're ready for more, I created a course (delivered by email) about how to amplify your impact as a leader. Available free to Leadership Advantage subscribers, but only while I am building this community. ​Enroll for FREE today to start leading your way. Get the Course

P.P.S. If you enjoyed this newsletter, please forward it to someone you think might like it. Make sure to subscribe below ↓

Join Leadership Advantage