Andrea Michalek
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thatandream.com
Andrea Michalek
@thatandream.com
🎯 I am a: serial entrepreneur, mom, leadership coach, indie builder and diy-er.

🔥 passions: product management, women in tech, startups, AI, leadership

🚀 my path: developer → CTO → startup CEO → exit → VP PM → brain injury → consultant/coach
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This year, I've been working on a new book about Breakthrough Leadership.

I've decided to share more as it progresses to get feedback as I write.

Time to #buildinpublic !!!
Stop "shoulding" yourself this holiday season.

My word for 2026: Adventure.

What's yours?
December 22, 2025 at 12:59 PM
Three questions for the end of year:

→ What to START doing?
→ What to KEEP doing?
→ What to STOP doing?

Be brutally honest.
December 21, 2025 at 1:00 PM
Your permission slip to NOT do everything between now and January 1st.

It's ok for it to be business not as usual.
December 20, 2025 at 1:00 PM
Up and to the right is a simplification of what success looks like, but it never plays out that cleanly in reality.

I learned, very early on, that the path to your ultimate goal is often the "silly path."

It has missteps, turnarounds, and in hindsight, was the harder way to go.
December 15, 2025 at 12:58 PM
My book didn't start with an outline.
It started with fear.
A talk I over-prepared for. And one drawing I couldn't stop thinking about.

When I ask other authors if I should write a book, they usually say, "Don't do it."
December 14, 2025 at 12:57 PM
I thought being the “glue” made me indispensable.
Turns out, it made me the bottleneck.

A thread for burned-out tech leads stuck in the Context Keeper Trap 🧵
November 29, 2025 at 3:28 PM
I'm rebuilding my technical leaders advantage course directly on my website, rather than hosting it separately.

Every time I need to set up secret keys for authentication in APIs I feel like I am practicing dark magic.

Is that just me?

#buildinpublic
November 29, 2025 at 3:28 AM
Technical leaders: want to start 2026 with a breakthrough plan?

Course + live workshop with me on Dec 10.

Black Friday pricing ends Saturday midnight.

beyondincremental.com/offers/blac...
November 28, 2025 at 2:09 PM
Go Beyond Incremental in 2026.

Enrollment is now open for my course + live workshop designed for product and engineering leaders who want to break out of reactive mode and lead with clarity.

Details below.👇
November 24, 2025 at 1:03 PM
Stop drifting into another year.

If you’re a technical product leader ready to lead 2026 with clarity, confidence, and momentum:

This is your reset.

Black Friday access now open.
🕓 Ends Nov 29
🔗 beyondincremental.com/offers/blac...
November 22, 2025 at 3:06 PM
The biggest leadership breakthroughs rarely come from adding more tactics.
They come from seeing the blind spot you’ve ignored for years, and finally naming it.

Take the 5-minute breakthrough leadership assessment, and see where you rank: beyondincremental.com/assessment
November 15, 2025 at 3:13 AM
The Beyond Incremental framework helps leaders bring together:

✨ People: how you multiply impact
⚙️ Performance: how you turn clarity into results
🔥 Passion: why your work truly matters

When these three align, the impossible starts to look inevitable.
November 8, 2025 at 7:56 PM
🚀 Big news: BeyondIncremental.com is live.

What started as a 48-hour build turned into a two-week evolution: a real-world test of the Breakthrough Leadership Framework.

It’s not just a website. It’s a living lab for how leaders create momentum.
November 8, 2025 at 7:50 PM
Do you leave "co-authored by Claude" or your AI tool of choice in your commit messages in git?

I'm not.

It seems like it might invite IP issues that I don't need.

Are others doing the same?

#buildinpublic #vibecoding
November 3, 2025 at 10:45 PM
Entrepreneurs are not afraid to hustle.

There is nothing more fun than seeing a group of potential customers and figuring out how you can serve them.

Does that make me an outlier or an adrenaline junkie?
October 24, 2025 at 12:50 AM
The higher you rise, the less data you have to make a decision.

Being willing to take calculated risks is key.

Even if the details are fuzzy, knowing with precision, how you will evaluate a bet is what can help detail-oriented people find their path through uncertainty.
October 18, 2025 at 8:57 PM
My daughter picked only a few pumpkins.
Still, her wagon was almost too heavy to pull.

That moment says everything about leadership.

This week’s newsletter: The Pumpkin Problem.
Why focus isn’t the fix, and what actually is.

leadershipadvantage.xyz/posts/when-...
October 18, 2025 at 2:46 PM
Anchoring any technological advance with the human side of leadership is the recipe for making change.

Far too many companies have AI as a must-do priority without considering how it positively impacts their customer AND how to serve customers better.

AI should not simply be a checkbox to get done
October 12, 2025 at 3:28 AM
The worst career moves I've seen (and made) all follow the same pattern:

Chasing the bigger title or salary while ignoring what it actually costs.

Money looks like freedom.
It often buys the opposite.
October 11, 2025 at 5:13 PM
Inner Circle starts Oct 1.

A small group of leaders will learn how to fuel grit and strategy with joy so their teams do not just deliver, they love the climb.

Only a couple seats left.
If you have been on the fence, this is your moment.

DM me to join.
September 30, 2025 at 12:03 PM
I learned poker before I was 10.

Sitting next to my dad, uncles around the table, watching them bet, bluff, fold.

It looked like luck. It wasn’t.

Poker is discipline.

It’s knowing when to play small, when to fold fast, and when to raise big on a strong hand.

I learned:
September 27, 2025 at 12:00 PM
The Execution Trap: When Activity Masquerades as Progress

You lock teams into rigid, long-term plans that collapse the moment the market shifts.

You chase the "perfect launch" instead of shipping small, learning fast, and adapting.

A 🧵 (1/4):
September 26, 2025 at 12:03 PM
46% of workers sit through 3+ meetings a day.
That is 11+ hours a week lost.
It kills energy. It kills joy.

In Inner Circle I show leaders how to reclaim that time with PACE: async updates, focused meetings, more joy.

We start Oct 1. Seats almost gone. Reply if you want in.
September 25, 2025 at 8:13 PM