Today we’d like to introduce you to Meridith Alexander.
Hi Meridith, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
For almost two decades, I had been a single mom and entrepreneur, running my own successful performing arts booking agency. In 2016, not even a year after my youngest child had graduated from Yale, I got the call that I think most parents fear– my daughter Schuyler (pronounced Sky-ler) had been struck by a boulder while on a fellowship in South America. It was unlikely that she would survive. As you can imagine, I dropped everything and flew down to Colombia to be at her side. Within a few days, we were able to fly her back to Miami where after months in the ICU, she miraculously survived the “unsurvivable”. However, surviving does not mean that she was back to “normal”. She had sustained such a severe traumatic brain injury that she had no sense of balance. She had no peripheral or long distant vision. She had difficulty speaking and even her thought process had changed. She began a new phase of life where she was physically disabled and I began a new phase of my own life where I became her 24/7 primary caregiver. I should also mention that the four months that I had spent in the ICU with Schuyler had all but destroyed my business — and the necessity of being at Schuyler’s side made it almost impossible to be able to rebuild it. It was a scary time — however, it led me toward the career that I love so much today and to the joint project that Schuyler and I developed this past year. You see, way back when I was at Georgetown University, I had become fascinated with the thought leaders and philosophers who put so much focus on our inner game. Some people these days call it mindset, but to me, it went so much deeper. It focused on how some people face insurmountable obstacles and emerge as bigger bolder versions of themselves while others face much smaller challenges and still get crushed. When that boulder came plummeting into our life, I felt like I had zero control over the circumstances. What I could control was how I dealt with them. My approach and insights got a lot of attention so that led to people who were facing their own version of change and disruption to ask me to coach them. Within a couple of years, I had helped hundreds of clients who came to me stuck and feeling like they have tried everything. I’d helped those people completely transform their lives to secure promotions, launch new businesses, change careers, negotiate tens of thousands more in their salaries and learn how to consistently show up as the most optimal version of themselves. It was a career that I not only loved but one that I’m proud to say has also made a huge impact on so many people’s lives.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It definitely wasn’t what I would call a smooth road. I was of course trying to build this new business while being my daughter’s 24/7 caregiver. At the beginning of our journey, it was literally dangerous to leave her alone. We had to worry about her falling out of her wheelchair. She couldn’t do anything on her own. I even had to help her lift her food to her mouth. I definitely felt like there was not enough of me to go around. I also had some of my own self-image issues to overcome. I was terrified of public speaking so it took me years before I actually began to fall in love with it. As I look back on it, it was probably the people who shared the impact that our story and my insights had on them who helped me change the way I felt about speaking. I also at first doubted my ability to coach others. I definitely knew a lot about optimal performance, the impact of language and the inner game in general thanks to the decades of study that I had dedicated to the topic. I never fully appreciated how life changing these strategies can be until I worked with a client who was in leadership in one of the global banks. Here was this person who was phenomenally accomplished professionally and yet my coaching still catapulted her forward professionally and personally. She was so emphatic in her praise that I began to understand what a missing piece these strategies could be for so many people. These days, the challenges have changed. Thankfully, Schuyler has progressed so much physically. She is still in a wheelchair but she can now feed herself and use the restroom on her own when she’s here at home. This year, she became the first traumatic brain survivor to be crowned Ms. Wheelchair Florida. Because she needed help with many of those responsibilities, it became even more challenging to find time to do everything. However, it led us to discover our potential as a dynamic duo. We’ve launched the popular children’s book series My Friend the Boulder — which now has 10 books in the series (with more coming). We go in costume and read these stories live for schools, hospitals and even fundraisers. We’re finding sponsors who are aligned with our mission to inspire one million children (both able bodied and disabled) by February 19th, 2027, which will be exactly 11 years after the boulder. Between this project and my coaching and speaking, my time is definitely more than spoken for, but I can honestly say that I love what I do and I wake up looking forward to the day ahead. When we encounter challenges, these often become clues that lead us toward the next big aha in our story.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
One of my clients once said, “Meridith, your job title may say executive coach, but I think that you’re really in the business of helping people — and even entire teams — come even more alive.” That’s probably my favorite (and most humbling) description of what I do.
It’s ironic because I confess that I never thought that a boulder landing on my daughter would lead me to a life where both my daughter and I are able to impact thousands of lives worldwide. I am CEO of GRIT Mindset Academy and I have now helped thousands of clients makeover their lives both personally and professionally in a way that prior to this approach they believed to be impossible.
I’m known for helping people perform at their highest level when the pressure is on — coaching leaders, teams, and changemakers to strengthen their inner game so they can navigate crisis, change, and uncertainty with clarity, courage, and momentum. The result? Breakthroughs that once felt impossible become inevitable.
My clients have grabbed promotions including C-suite positions (even one woman who fulfilled a life dream to become the CEO of a top advertising agency). They have shifted to entirely new careers, launched new business, reinvented themselves and most importantly discovered just how possible it is to live a life that speaks to both your purpose and your passion.
My work has been featured in global media such as NBC, Fox, Prevention Magazine. I’ve had my strategies published more than 40 times by Forbes’ Coaches Council. I was dubbed one of Creative Click’s Top Women in Business (2019) and Influence Digest Media’s Top 15 Coaches in Tampa (2022), so I’m proud to be known for my expertise in helping people and entire teams thrive beyond times of change, disruption and unpredictability. I’m also known for my uncanny ability to transform professionals into interview “ninjas” and communication “rizzers”.
I of course love delivering keynotes to teams that are in high stress scenarios and I also absolutely love coaching people one on one; however, one of my favorite things is seeing the growth in entire teams when I have the opportunity to teach my EPIC YOU BLUEPRINT (Empowered, Purpose-driven, Innovative and Collaborative) framework to the leaders of a team.
Interestingly, my coaching and speaking actually led to the project that I just launched this past summer with my daughter. You see, one thing that I noticed even with my highest achievers is that without fail, the places where they get in their own way can always be traced back to beliefs that they adopted when they were children.
Schuyler and I thought, “what if we could be given more empowering beliefs beginning when we are children?” That’s how our MY FRIEND THE BOULDER children book series and live readings were born. And yes, in the past 4 months, we’ve already published 10 books that help children see their differences as sources of strength. Whether it’s scars, wheelchairs, or challenges they face, we teach them to embrace their uniqueness and celebrate the magic inside.
Perhaps most importantly, I launched this business at the incredibly young age of 58 years while serving as a 24/7 caregiver. This should remind people that you’re never too old to lean into your next chapter and step boldly into new possibilities.
What sort of changes are you expecting over the next 5-10 years?
As we move into the future, I think that our ability to thrive in the midst of change and disruption will become more and more essential. We’ve seen how well it works (or doesn’t work) to rely on our environment or circumstances to make us happy. I feel like most of us have this false sense of control that makes us believe that if we can just control the world around us, our emotions will respond in a way that makes us feel good. And then comes the boulder that seems to shatter everything. I believe that both personally and professionally, it’s going to become more and more essential for people to learn how to stop believing that we are destined to be our own worst enemy. If we want to thrive in a world of constant change and unpredictability where we have to stay agile, we’re going to have to focus on our own inner game with the same commitment and intensity that we often focus on our physical fitness and health. If all we can do is react, react, react to what’s going on around us, it won’t be long before we feel stuck and then find it almost impossible to get out of that rut. I see the next chapter in this industry training people to appreciate that happiness and success require more than the latest hacks and leadership techniques. People are going to have to learn how to play their own inner game to win. As the billboard famously said, “the real battle is fought within.”
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.gritmindsetacademy.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/meridithalexander/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/meridith.grit.alexander
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meridith-alexander-skylimit/
- Youtube: @UnleashTheEpicYou
- Other: https://www.meridithalexander.com
Image Credits
KK Photography
