Michael Herman was no stranger to high stakes. For years, he sat in the boardrooms of Fortune 500 companies, helping leaders solve complex challenges and map out bold futures. Strategy wasn’t just his profession; it was the lens through which he viewed the world. Then came the moment that shattered his trajectory: a diagnosis of multiple myeloma, an incurable cancer. In an instant, the man who built strategies for corporations was forced to create a strategy for his own survival. What began as a deeply personal fight soon transformed into something far greater: the birth of Cancer CAREs International, a movement that is now rewriting the story of cancer through prevention, education, and resilience.

Before multiple myeloma changed the course of his life, his world was defined by the high-stakes pace of corporate strategy. He thrived in the boardrooms of Fortune 500 companies, helping design growth strategies, solve complex challenges, and chart the futures of industry giants. Strategy was his language, his way of thinking, his identity. But then came the diagnosis: an incurable cancer that shattered his well-ordered path and forced him into a battle for survival. Overnight, the strategist who had once shaped the fortunes of corporations had to draft an entirely new plan, this time for his own life.

As treatments began, the disease reframed everything. Each infusion, each decision, each setback became a kind of strategy session, though with far higher stakes than any corporate negotiation. He began to notice how healthcare often reacted to crises instead of anticipating them. What if, he wondered, we treated prevention with the same rigor and foresight corporations applied to growth? That seed of an idea would become the foundation for his next chapter.

At first, he shared his story simply to connect with others walking the same path. But soon, something unexpected happened. Listeners weren’t just empathizing, they were recognizing a strategy for change. His personal journey began to transform into a blueprint, one that could reshape how people approached cancer altogether. From this realization, Cancer CAREs International Cancer Avoidance & Resiliency Education was born. It wasn’t just about survival anymore. It was about prevention, about resilience, about rewriting the cancer story before it began.

The first step was small but bold: opening up his own playbook and turning it outward. He brought together patients, doctors, educators, and students, sparking conversations around a radical question: what if we approached cancer with foresight and measurable goals, the way corporations approached long-term success? He admits he didn’t feel “ready,” but as he knew from his years in strategy, no great plan ever begins under perfect conditions. It begins with courage.

His background in the corporate world proved invaluable. Scenario planning, systems thinking, scalability weren’t just tools for business; they became the scaffolding for a global health initiative. The transition was eye-opening, though. He quickly learned that nonprofits required the same level of precision and accountability as Fortune 500 companies, only with fewer resources, which meant every move had to be sharper, every plan more disciplined.

The inspiration for CAREs didn’t just come from executives or experts, but from the quiet resilience of patients sitting beside him during treatments. Their strength became his teachers, reminding him that strategy wasn’t just about models and forecasts it was about human will. That lesson shaped CAREs into an organization built on two pillars: education as a preventive strategy, and resilience as the human strategy for enduring the fight.

Convincing others wasn’t easy at first. Many were comfortable with the existing framework: diagnose, treat, survive. Asking them to embrace prevention as a primary strategy was like pitching an untested business model to a skeptical boardroom. But he persisted, framing prevention not as an abstract ideal but as the most effective and strategic advantage we could have against cancer.

His participation in clinical trials deepened this conviction. To him, they felt less like treatments and more like innovation labs spaces where patients became part of research that could redefine the future. That experience reinforced his belief that advocacy must be rooted in both bold experimentation and data-driven strategy.

The true turning point came when CAREs stopped being his personal mission and started to become a collective one. When students began applying its lessons to their lives, when parents started reshaping conversations at home, and when entire communities from Barbados to Kenya to Egypt asked how they could bring CAREs into their own systems, he knew this had grown into a movement. The strategy that began with his survival had scaled into a global vision.

Looking back, he says his advice to anyone beginning their own journey, whether as a survivor, advocate, or entrepreneur, is simple: think like a strategist. Don’t wait for perfect conditions. Begin with the story you carry, the resources you have, and the fire that drives you. Surround yourself with allies, because no strategy succeeds alone. And above all, remember that resilience itself is a strategy, the most powerful one. The real victory isn’t just success. It’s staying in the fight, adjusting the plan, and refusing to stop until the future looks different than the past.