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Andrea Merrill | Boutique Speaker Messaging & Marketing Firm

@theandreamerrill

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STORY MINER
Turn everyday moments into stories people remember you for.
Former behavior + trauma therapist |$80M+ client rev↓ Let me Mine Your Moment

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Our next guest speaker on October 2nd for Speaker Société is … one of the most caring women I’ve ever met. The one and only @theandreamerrill 🎤

Female founders using your voice on stages, podcasts, or social media videos. Have you joined yet? Speaker Société is a social Societe for women using their voices! We learn, we practice, and we refer each other for speaking gigs. Join to be included on our monthly meetings, be listed in the speaker directory, and be a part of our community chat and parties. We’re rising together as speakers! Join at speakersociete.com today.

✨✨✨

A little about Andrea. She is known as the Story Miner. She helps speakers turn everyday moments into stories people remember. As a former behavior and trauma therapist, she understands people and what allows an audience to resonate. And as my own speaking coach, she is a wordsmith with a natural talent at bringing any speech to life!

✨✨✨

Excited for our next meeting! Join us and the founding members as we build this beautiful community from the ground up together. ♥️ taken in Phoenix, Arizona by @theandreamerrill

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18 hours ago

You can give a GREAT talk and still be completely forgettable three days later.

That might sting a little.

But applause doesn’t automatically mean your message worked.

A standing ovation doesn’t automatically build authority.

And getting invited onto a stage doesn’t mean that stage is going to create the next opportunity.

The real question is: what happens AFTER you leave the room?

Does someone repeat your idea to someone else?

Does an audience member remember you, not just your story?

Does the right person walk up afterward and say,
“We need you in our organization.”

Does someone look you up because they need to know more?

Does your talk lead to another stage, a client, an introduction, a partnership, a conversation?

Because THAT is what I want for the people I work with.

I don’t want you to have a story people clap for and forget.

I want your story connected to a message people can carry with them.

A perspective that becomes associated with your name.

Something people know you for.

A good talk shouldn’t end with applause.

It should leave a trail.

And October is a pretty damn good time to look at the trail you’re leaving.

There are three months left in this year.

Instead of asking:

“What should I speak about?”

Ask:

What do I want to be known for?

What do I want someone repeating three days after they hear me speak?

What stories can only I tell?

What could those stories build for me if I actually knew how to use them?

Because your story isn’t just something you tell.

It’s something you build from.

Your keynote.
Your thought leadership.
Your authority.
Your content.
Your opportunities.
Your business.

So I’m curious…

If someone heard you speak tomorrow, what’s the ONE thing you’d want them repeating about you three days later?

Tell me in the comments. I want to know.

#KeynoteSpeaker #PublicSpeaking #SpeakerStrategy #StorytellingForBusiness #ThoughtLeadership by @theandreamerrill

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19 hours ago

The story you’re most proud of might not be the story people remember.

And I know that sounds backwards.

Because when we think about telling our story, we usually go straight to the things that prove we’re credible.

The company we built.

The award we won.

The milestone we reached.

The years of experience.

The success.

And those things matter.

They should be celebrated.

But here’s what I’ve noticed after Story Mining with experts:

The moment people want to lead with is usually the moment they’ve already made sense of.

They know how it ends.

They know the result.

They know the achievement.

But they forget there was a version of them who didn’t know how it would turn out.

That version of them is where the story lives.

The moment they questioned everything.

The decision they almost didn’t make.

The belief they had to let go of.

The thing they learned the hard way.

Because people don’t connect with the finished product.

They connect with the human being who was becoming.

I can tell you that I built a successful company.
But the question I’m more interested in is:

What did building that company require me to become?

What did I have to unlearn?

What did I have to believe differently?

What did I have to walk through before I could lead someone else through it?

Because your audience doesn’t need another highlight reel.

They need a doorway into their own story.

They need the moment where they think:

“Wait… I’ve felt that too.”

“That’s exactly where I am right now.”

“I’ve never looked at it that way before.”

That’s where trust is built.

Not when people see how impressive you are.

When they see themselves in the journey that made you who you are.

And this is why I’m always listening for the sentence people almost skip.

The moment they say:

“Honestly, that’s probably not important.”

Because that’s usually where the real story begins.

So I’m curious:

What part of your story have you dismissed because you thought it was too ordinary, too small, or too obvious?

That might be the piece someone else has been waiting to hear.

#KeynoteSpeaker #PublicSpeaking #SpeakerStrategy #StorytellingForBusiness #ThoughtLeadership by @theandreamerrill

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2 days ago

Sometimes your message is hiding inside something you’ve been doing your entire life.

Andrea had spent years being the person people could count on.

The caregiver.
The fixer.
The negotiator.
The one who showed up.
The one who could carry it.

But she didn’t come into Story Mining saying, “This is my message.”

She came in with moments.

Stories that, on the surface, looked like they belonged to completely different chapters of her life.

But when we started pulling them apart, I could see the same pattern repeating underneath them.

And this is what I’m listening for when I Story Mine.

Not just, “What happened to you?”

I’m listening for:

What role did you keep playing?
What did that role teach you to believe?
Where did that belief show up again?
And what do you understand now that you couldn’t have understood then?

Because a story tells me what happened.

A pattern tells me what the story means.

And THAT is where your message lives.

For Andrea, the pattern was being the person everyone could count on.

And then she said something I haven’t stopped thinking about:

“I still believe in the open door. But now I know the door has a frame.”

There it was.

Not a clever tagline we manufactured.

A belief she had earned through years of living it.

You can love deeply and have boundaries.
You can be generous without carrying everyone.
You can be the person who shows up and still let someone show up for you.

This is why I don’t believe your signature message needs to be invented.

It needs to be uncovered.

You’ve probably already lived the stories.

You’re just too close to them to see the pattern connecting them.

So I’m curious:

What role have you played your entire life?

The fixer?
The peacekeeper?
The achiever?
The caretaker?
The rebel?
The one who always figures it out?

Because that role might be telling us a hell of a lot more about your message than you realize.

#KeynoteSpeaker #PublicSpeaking #SpeakerStrategy #StorytellingForBusiness #ThoughtLeadership by @theandreamerrill

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3 days ago

The story you keep skipping might be the one that explains EVERYTHING.

And I think this is one of the hardest things to see in your own life.

Because we assume significance should FEEL significant.

It should be the biggest thing that happened.

The hardest season.

The massive win.

The dramatic turning point.

But when I’m Story Mining with someone, those aren’t always the moments I stop at.

Sometimes it’s the sentence they almost didn’t say.

The five seconds before they made a decision.

The weird childhood memory they laugh off because, “I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”

THAT’S when I usually say:

“Wait. Go back.”

Because you’ve lived with your own experiences for so long that some of the most important ones have become completely normal to you.

You stopped noticing them.

Not because they weren’t important.

Because they became familiar.

And familiar is dangerous when you’re trying to find your own story.

You start judging your life by what still feels dramatic to YOU instead of asking what actually shaped the way you think, lead, love, work, choose, and show up today.

Those are two very different things.

The moment that changed you might not be the moment you’ve been telling everyone about for ten years.

It might be the one you keep leaving out.

The one you think is too small.

Too random.

Too normal.

Too “nothing” to matter.

And sometimes?

That’s the whole freaking story.

So I want you to think about this:

What part of your story do you always skip because you assume it doesn’t matter?

Tell me in the comments. I have a feeling there’s more hiding inside it than you think.

#KeynoteSpeaker #PublicSpeaking #SpeakerStrategy #StorytellingForBusiness #ThoughtLeadership by @theandreamerrill

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4 days ago

She already knew every story I pulled out of her.
She just didn’t know they were the SAME story.
Yesterday, I Story Mined a woman live in front of a room.
She told me about surviving a train accident as a child.
About watching her mother immediately go care for someone else.
About growing up surrounded by foster siblings.
About becoming the person everyone relied on.
About decades of serving others.
About a marriage where she kept understanding, negotiating, and giving another chance.
About losing the career she had built her identity around.
She knew every single one of those moments.
But she had never seen the thread connecting all of them.
Until we mined it.
The little girl who learned:
“When something breaks, you don’t stop. You take care of someone else.”
became the woman who spent her life caring for everyone.
The caregiver.
The negotiator.
The leader.
The woman who struggled to ask for what SHE needed.
Same woman.
Same pattern.
Same story.
At one point she said:
“I’ve been trying to figure out how to stitch it all together. And that was it.”
THIS is why I Story Mine.
Not because you need a more dramatic story.
Not because you need to create a perfect speaker story.
You already lived the material.
The problem is you’re standing too close to it to see what it means.
You remember the events separately.
The childhood moment.
The relationship.
The career.
The thing you almost never mention because you don’t think it matters.
I’m listening for the pattern underneath all of it.
Because once we find that pattern, we can turn it into a message people remember.
A keynote.
A TEDx.
A book.
A body of work.
Your story probably isn’t missing.
You just haven’t mined it yet.
If you’re thinking, “I have pieces like that too, but I have no idea how they connect…”
That’s exactly the work I do.
I have 3 spots open for Mine the Moment.
Two hours together to uncover the pattern you can’t see from inside your own life and turn it into a message you can actually use.
Not another story sitting in your Notes app.
A message you can take to the stage.

Comment MINE or DM me MINE and I’ll send you the details.

#KeynoteSpeaker #PublicSpeaking #SpeakerStrategy #StorytellingForBusiness by @theandreamerrill

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7 days ago

I can tell when a speaker memorized their keynote instead of believing it.

And so can the audience.

You can hit every word.

Nail every pause.

Stand exactly where you practiced standing.

Remember the story, the transition, the punchline, the CTA.

And still lose the room.

Because while you’re standing there thinking…

What comes next?
Did I miss a line?
Where am I supposed to move?
Shit. What was that transition?

…you’re not actually WITH them anymore.

You’re in your head trying to perform the keynote correctly.

And people can feel that.

This is why I don’t want my clients memorizing 40 minutes of words.

I want them to know their talk so deeply they can remember it.

There’s a difference.

Before I write a keynote, we mine the stories.

We find the moments that changed something.

The belief that came from them.

The pattern that kept showing up.

The reason THIS story belongs in THIS talk.

So when you step onstage, you’re not trying to remember what I wrote on page seven.

You know where you are because you lived it.

You know what comes next because you understand why it matters.

You can pause without panicking.

You can react to the room.

You can forget a sentence and keep going because the sentence was never the point.

The message was.

That’s presence.

Not perfect posture.

Not perfectly placed hands.

Not sounding like you practiced the same 45 minutes 87 times in your kitchen.

It’s standing in front of a room knowing:

I know this story.
I know why I’m telling it.
And I know what I need you to understand when I’m done.

Your audience isn’t sitting there with your script checking whether you got it right.

They’re deciding whether they believe you.

So stop trying to give them a perfect performance.

Give them something you actually believe.

You’re not memorizing.

You’re remembering.

#KeynoteSpeaker #PublicSpeaking #SpeakerStrategy #StorytellingForBusiness #ThoughtLeadership by @theandreamerrill

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8 days ago

You have a story. You’ve told it a hundred times.

So why does it still feel like you don’t have a talk?

You know what happened. You know what you went through. But when someone asks what you speak about, you give them your job title, a broad topic, or the entire plot of your life.

And none of those tell an audience why they should listen.

That’s the piece we’re finding tomorrow.

Inside MINE THE MOMENT, I’m going to Story Mine with people LIVE. You’ll hear the questions I ask, watch me catch the details they almost skip, and see how I pull a clear message from a story that felt like a pile of disconnected experiences.

Last time, one speaker came in with years of experiences he could have talked about. The line we uncovered was: “Your past doesn’t get a vote on your present decisions.”

THAT gives someone a talk to build. It gives an audience something to carry home.

And even if you’re watching from the audience, you can work through the questions with your own story. You might finally see why the part you keep leaving out is the part people need to hear.

So if you’re sitting on a story but can’t figure out:

What’s actually worth telling?
How does it connect to the work I do now?
What do I want people to think, feel, or DO after they hear it?

Come. Let’s dig into it.

MINE THE MOMENT: A Live Story Mining Masterclass

📅 September 24
⏰ 4 PM MST
💻 Live on Zoom
✨ Free

Grab your free spot through the link in my bio.

You don’t need to show up with a perfect story. That’s kind of the whole point.

#TheStoryIsYou #StoryMining #MineTheMoment #Storytelling #KeynoteSpeaker by @theandreamerrill

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9 days ago

The harder you try to LOOK confident onstage, the less confident you usually look.

Yep. I said it.

Big gestures.
Perfect posture.
Every word memorized.
The “power pose.”
The speaker voice.

And meanwhile, the audience can FEEL you thinking:

“Am I doing this right?”
“What comes next?”
“Do I look confident?”

That isn’t presence.

That’s performance.

Stage presence isn’t about being louder, taking up more space, or memorizing your keynote so perfectly you sound like you swallowed a teleprompter.

It’s about being so connected to what you’re saying that you stop monitoring yourself while you’re saying it.

You breathe.

You let the silence sit.

You trust yourself enough to be IN the message instead of performing it.

And this is why I care so much about how a keynote is built.

When you understand the architecture underneath your talk, you have something stronger than a memorized script.

The stories.
The moments.
The beliefs.
The message.
The reason each piece exists.

You know where you’re going.

You’re not memorizing words.

You’re remembering moments.

You’re not reciting a keynote.

You’re communicating something you KNOW.

And ironically?

That’s usually when you finally look confident.

Because your audience doesn’t need a perfectly polished speaker.

They need to believe you.

So if you’re rehearsing right now, try this:

Put the script down.

Don’t practice the words.

Practice the MESSAGE.

Tell one section like you’re sitting across from one person who desperately needs to hear it.

Mess up a sentence.
Pause too long.
Say it differently.

And keep going.

Because the goal was never to prove you memorized your keynote.

The goal was to make someone FEEL it.

What scares you more onstage?

Forgetting the words…

or trusting yourself without them? #KeynoteSpeaker #PublicSpeaking #SpeakerStrategy #StorytellingForBusiness #ThoughtLeadership by @theandreamerrill

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10 days ago

Your biggest story might be your WORST keynote story.

Yep. I said it.

Because somewhere along the way, speakers started believing that if they want to be unforgettable on stage, they need to tell the biggest thing that ever happened to them.

The trauma.
The rock bottom.
The massive failure.
The million-dollar win.
The dramatic reinvention.

And sometimes that IS the story.

But sometimes?

It’s just the loudest one.

When I’m Story Mining with someone, I’m not listening for the story that sounds the most impressive.

I’m listening for the moment they almost skip.

The random conversation.

The decision they made without realizing it would change everything.

The thing they casually say and immediately follow with:

“But that’s probably not important.”

THAT is usually when I stop them.

“Wait. Go back.”

Because the stories we dismiss as insignificant are often the ones that explain why we think the way we think.

And that’s what I’m looking for.

Not drama.

PATTERNS.

Because the story is not the message.

The meaning you pulled from it is.

And when we find the right moment, suddenly we can see:

Why you believe what you believe.

Why you do your work differently.

Why you teach what you teach.

Why your methodology exists.

Why YOU are the person to deliver this message.

That’s Story Mining.

And your next keynote, book, framework, offer, or signature message might not require you to create something new.

It might require you to finally see what has been sitting inside your own story this entire time.

So I want you to think about this:

What story have you never told because you thought it wasn’t important enough?

THAT is the story I’d want to hear.

And on September 24, I’m doing this LIVE.

Mine the Moment is a free Story Mining masterclass where you’ll get to watch me pull the message out of the moments people almost overlooked.

📅 September 24
⏰ 4:00 PM MST
💻 Live on Zoom
✨ Free

Bring the story you think is “nothing.”

I have a feeling it might not be nothing at all.

Link in bio.

#TheStoryIsYou #StoryMining #MineTheMoment #Storytelling #KeynoteSpeaker by @theandreamerrill

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11 days ago

The story that makes you unforgettable might be the one you keep saying:

“That doesn’t really matter.”

I hear some version of this ALL the time when I’m Story Mining someone.

They’ll tell me about the big things first.

The career change.
The loss.
The divorce.
The business they built.
The award.
The rock-bottom moment.
The comeback.

Because those are the stories they assume I’m looking for.

And then somewhere in the conversation, almost like a throwaway, they’ll say:

“Oh, this probably isn’t relevant, but…”

THAT is usually when I start paying closer attention.

Because sometimes the story isn’t the massive thing that happened to you.

Sometimes it’s the tiny moment that changed what you believed.

The comment you never forgot.

The decision you made without realizing it would change everything.

The experience you barely mention because it feels normal to you now.

That’s the problem with finding your own story.

You’re too close to it.

You know how everything turned out.

You’ve repeated certain stories so many times they’ve become your “official” story.

And you’ve dismissed other moments because they don’t feel dramatic enough to matter.

But I’m not listening for drama.

I’m listening for patterns.

Because the right story doesn’t just tell me what happened to you.

It explains why you see something other people don’t.

Why you believe what you believe.

Why you teach what you teach.

Why your work exists in the first place.

THAT is where your message starts getting interesting.

That’s where your lived experience connects to your expertise.

And that’s why I call it Story Mining.

I’m not helping you tell more stories.

I’m finding the moments you’ve been sitting on for years without realizing there was a message buried inside them.

So here’s the question:

What part of your story have you decided is too ordinary to matter?

Because I’d probably start there.

Join me for:

MINE THE MOMENT
A Live Story Mining Masterclass

📅 September 24
⏰ 4 PM MST
💻 Live on Zoom
✨ Free

Come with the story you almost didn’t tell.

That might be the one worth mining.

Register through the link in my bio.

#TheStoryIsYou #StoryMining #MineTheMoment #Storytelling by @theandreamerrill

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14 days ago

You can have a brilliant keynote…

and still lose the room in the first 60 seconds.

Because before your audience cares about your framework, your stories, your research, or the point you spent months perfecting…

they have to decide they care enough to keep listening.

And this is where I see SO many speakers waste valuable time.

They open with:

Their credentials.
Their company.
How long they’ve been doing this.
What they’re going to talk about.

They think they’re establishing credibility.

But your audience is still trying to answer one question:

“Why should I care?”

And here’s where I think speakers get credibility wrong.

You don’t only build credibility by showing people what you know.

You build it by showing them how well you understand them.

Can you name something they’ve experienced but haven’t had language for?

Can you make them recognize themselves in your story?

Can you introduce a question they suddenly NEED answered?

That’s what your opening needs to do.

It creates recognition.

But your last 60 seconds matter just as much.

Because you can spend 30–45 minutes changing how someone thinks…

and then completely waste that momentum with:

“Thank you.”

Your closing needs to answer:

What happens because I heard this?

What do I see differently?

What can I no longer unsee?

What am I questioning now?

What am I going to DO with what you just gave me?

Your opening creates recognition.

The body builds meaning.

Your closing creates movement.

And yes, EVERYTHING in between matters too.

Your stories.
Your structure.
Your ideas.
Your transitions.
Your teaching.
Your throughline.

But if you’re working on your keynote today, try this:

Read ONLY your first 60 seconds.

Then read ONLY your last 60 seconds.

Does the beginning give me a reason to care?

Does the ending give me a reason to change?

If not, I’d start there.

#KeynoteSpeaker #PublicSpeaking #SpeakerStrategy #StorytellingForBusiness #ThoughtLeadership by @theandreamerrill

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15 days ago