Note: We use AI transcription so there may be some inaccuracies
Danielle Cobo: Imagine for a moment being a single mother juggling the demands of running your own business when life takes an unexpected and heart wrenching turn. You receive a call that no parent should ever have to endure. Your daughter, Skyler, while on an adventurous journey in Colombia during a fellowship in Peru, was struck by a massive boulder that fell from a staggering 30 feet above.
The impact left her with devastating injuries. Crushing her skull, lungs, shoulder blades, fracturing her spine, right thigh, and left ankle. Overnight, our guest's life transformed as she became the primary caregiver for her daughter, who is now bound to a wheelchair and unable to fend for herself. But here's the remarkable part.
Instead of succumbing to despair, our guest turned this harrowing experience into a powerful catalyst for change. Her unwavering grit and resilience helped her support her daughter and to create the grit mindset Academy. This Academy has helped countless individuals seeking to master a winning mindset and play at their highest level.
In this episode, you'll learn from the creator of the grit mindset Academy and bestselling author, Meredith Alexander on how to tap into the mindset. Of the top 1%. Thank you so much for joining today.
Meridith Alexander: I'm excited to be here. Thanks for having me.
Danielle Cobo: Well, take us back to that day when you received this call. I can only imagine what that must have felt like.
Take us back to that day. Sure.
Meridith Alexander: Yeah. You know, it's interesting. Days like that, at least for me, often start out, just like any normal day, right? It was a beautiful February day here in Florida, and it was part of my busy season for the company that I had at that point. And so I was just hammering the calls, and all of a sudden around 11 a.
m., I started getting... inexplicably exhausted. I started uncontrollably yawning. started getting puffy. Until finally, I had to go take a nap, which is crazy in the middle of a busy season. To be doing that, I thought I was going to take a little 15 minute catnap. Three hours later, my eyes pop open.
It's 3 p. m. I did not hear my alarm and I shot downstairs thinking, oh my gosh, I've got to walk the dogs and then get back on the phones. And the phone rang and I could tell in the first inhale from the young woman who was calling, who was friends with my Skyler, that, something terrible had happened.
And so in that moment, My life completely transformed and it would never be the same. So that really triggered at first, almost feeling like two people, right? There was one version that was actually experiencing this. And there was another version of myself watching me. Experience this and wondering, all the horrible emotions that you can possibly imagine, Danielle, I mean, everything from anger and rage, of course, but also that self doubt of feeling like, oh, my gosh, mean, and this is a terrible thought.
But when you're a single mom, you think, oh, my God, how much is this going to cost? Am I going to be able to give my daughter what she needs? So, One thing led to another, and just hours later, my other daughter had joined me, my son was going to stay stateside. We raced to Tampa airport to hop on a flight, and we were turned away.
Because we were too close to departure
Danielle Cobo: turned away, would imagine the helplessness feeling to be in that moment.
Meridith Alexander: Absolutely, absolutely. And, more rage, of course, but we got back in the car and we drove to Miami, and my other daughter and I were on a plane to Columbia, where I did not speak the language, the only thing I knew about Columbia were the horrible things I'd seen in Hollywood movies.
but this amazing kind of global family began to come together for us, and it actually came together from connections that Skylar had had all over the world, connections on Facebook, because the only thing I knew to do was to reach out and say, Oh my gosh, this terrible thing has happened to my daughter.
does anyone have experience with this kind of thing? Can anyone help? And so I started meeting people and people started stepping in and it was the most amazing feeling of, okay, we're all in on this. And so that was really when things began to change for me when was on that plane. Because what I realized was that far all the worst feeling was not being able to really help my daughter, the feeling of being powerless.
And so it was really where I had to go back to, ironically, a question that I'd had all my life, that was how to choose to live. And how do we do it in a way that's epic, And how do the people who face these overwhelming challenges, some of them emerge as these bigger, bolder versions of themselves.
So I'd studied everything from energy and law of attraction to Aikido to NLP, all of these things. And so as I sat in the darkness saying, I either am going to let this boulder transform me into the second victim, or I'm going to find a way to take my power back. And so for me, it was saying, I may not be able to control the outer game, but I sure as heck can play a mean inner game.
So game on. And that's when I really started understanding. Not just how important our inner game is, but non negotiable and that in the middle of a crisis is not the time to say, Oh my gosh, I need to learn play meaner inner game, That mental toughness is something that all of these horrible experiences, these anti mentors in our life, they help.
nurture within us, I think. And then it's what we're going to focus on in those moments and what we're going to have those moments inspire us to choose to do.
Danielle Cobo: I like what you said about, I'm going to choose to not be the second victim. Yes. Because there's already been one victim of the boulder.
Yes. And you can choose to either be that second victim or not. from what you're saying, I'm going to take this power and I am not going to be the second victim. I am going to find a way to get through this. And to help Skylar and to help yourself and to find a way to move forward and focus on what you can control, which is hard to do because a lot of us, a lot of people probably are thinking like, but how, right?
Because that's a very challenging situation. Your life has completely flipped upside down this as a parent, you want your kids to thrive. You envision your kids growing up and accomplishing all these great things and. to see their life completely flip overnight and to not be able to feel helpless in that moment of not being able to change the outcome.
Meridith Alexander: Absolutely. and yet here's for me, how that all worked was three questions that I always ask that I've learned to ask in any sort of obstacle, moment, whenever any kind of boulder hits. We all have different kinds of boulders, some of them just happen to be literal boulders.
But for me, so there are three questions, there were one, what can I control? I could not control the boulder, but I had spent decades working on how to control my inner game. So I could either emerge from this experience as the mother, living the rest of my life as the mother of a child who'd been killed by a boulder, at an early age, if that was what was destined to happen, or I could emerge as the mother of a child who in just 22 years had made an incredible impact on this planet.
And if I was going to keep that memory of her, the essence, everything that she had already contributed to my life that no one could take away from me unless I buried it. This was the legacy. This was who I realized I had to show up being. So what could I control? I could control my inner game. What could I believe?
I had to, to your point, get to the place where my priority Was helping my daughter. That meant I had to show up in my power, whatever that could look like. If there was an epic version of me, I had to find it and I had to get there quickly. So I had to find the thoughts that could get me there. And here was the most powerful question of them all.
It's what might I be assuming that is not necessarily true. And in this case, I me. Was tempted to assume that just because medical precedent indicated that her injuries were not survivable, that that is the only variation of truth. So this is where I had to go back to asking different questions for my mind so my mind could believe this.
And the very first question, Danielle, was, Has there ever been? Anyone who faced something that everyone else said was impossible, who overcame that and ended up doing the impossible? Well, that was a laughable question, because as you know, I was flying through the air on a plane, Clearly, at some point, that was believed to be impossible.
So my mind could go, Mm hmm. That's true. And so then I took it one step further. Have there ever been documented cases of medical miracles where people are not supposed to be able to survive where they do survive? And again, the answer, well, yeah, Hollywood is filled with them. So what I did. Is to balance that commitment to help my daughter in any way that I could to balance that with the school of hard knocks training that had inadvertently pushed me.
To learn how to play a more powerful inner game. So I began asking these questions, and I was able to inch my way from total despair, to a little bit of hope, and then from that hope to, uh, hmm, maybe? And then a little bit of belief, but even belief has cracks in it. So I had to keep going and Ultimately, I was able to get to that place that just felt like this powerful knowing that we were going to be fine, whatever life, destiny, God, whatever would define that word fine for us going forward.
And the moment that I was able to relax into that, it was as if it felt as if life was conforming. To that vision and that is when this whole string of Impossibilities became the miracles that were showing up in our
Danielle Cobo: life now. That's a fine balance when Sometimes these challenges that we face in life.
Let's talk about maybe a health Diagnosis where you're being told is a terminal type cancer and that fine balance between there are miracles, but then there's also the sometimes where it's the acceptance and knowing that that is a terminal cancer. And that can be sometimes a fine balance that can be difficult for some people as well.
Meridith Alexander: Absolutely. Absolutely. And, you know, one thing that I always want to, make clear when I'm sharing this story is that there was medical team that worked, that truly worked magic on Skylar. My big takeaway was that when we tap into that, what I call that epic version of ourselves, we also unleash a different kind of magic that allows us to even find power through the worst case scenario, I was prepared for Skylar not to make it.
Of course, that's not what I wanted, but that kind of keys into the formula that this kind of boulder revealed to me of what I call the Epic Three. And so that top when we are able to show up as that epic version of ourselves, that top 1 percent possibility of ourselves, I have found that it's when we learn to really master three things.
One is our focus. What are we choosing to focus on and what are we making that focus mean? Number two is our language, not only how we communicate with each other, but how we communicate within. Are we believing that it's natural for us to be our own worst enemy? Or, do we energize that part of us that is our greatest champion, the soulmate, that we sometimes spend our entire lives searching for?
And then the third element. Is the imagination, which for most people typically only shows up in the form of fear and self doubt. But that's the ability to envision possibilities that do not yet exist. And so when we can learn that, like focus, yes, a lot of people would say, feels hard. Most people, I have found, And think about it, most people think they're focusing on one thing, but they're actually focusing on the other.
So when I say, a year from now, I want to have my own business. A year from now, I don't want to be working with all these toxic people. I want to be making six figures. It may sound to me like I'm talking about what I want, but my energy, that inner frequency, is focused on the lack of the presence of what I want.
So if I'm focused on the lack of the presence of what I want, what is expanding? the lack of the presence of what I want. So that's why it's like a mental gym, that we have to learn how to have the discipline to not let our thoughts think us. We have to become the sovereign of our own thinking.
In order to achieve that mastery and when we achieve that mastery, even in these moments when we get these horrible health diagnosis or something happens, you know, a boulder that's been on the side of a mountain for a million years. Frickin falls on your daughter. You find a way to bring life, aliveness into that moment.
Does that
Danielle Cobo: make sense? Yeah, so talk about, you said something where somebody says, I want to be In a new job in a year. I want to be out of this toxic at work environment. I want to start a new business within a year. And it sounds like you're saying that they're focusing on the lacking of something.
So what is a way that somebody can reframe that sentence to focus and visualize and imagine what that future could look like?
Meridith Alexander: Great question. So that is a checklist of what is missing. So the more you focus on the checklist, the more you dwell in it, obsess about it, the more stuck you're going to feel, so the less Able to see the real opportunities and to assess yourself to show up with energy that you need in order to make that change happen.
So therefore, what you need to trigger within yourself is that energy, that energizing. So rather than focusing on the details of this thing, I need to be in place so I can react. in a way that feels good. Focus on the emotions themselves. So, for example, here's the contrast. A year from now, a year from now, I am freaking gonna be waking up on fire.
A year from now, I intend to have a job that is challenging in the best sort of way yet exhilarating. I am going to be surrounded by a team where I can really contribute. I can learn. I can grow. I've got And, oh, by the way, My freaking bank account is going to be rocking at the same time, right?
you can feel the energy. and that goes back to that third element, the ability to envision slash imagination. We have what I call flabby thinking syndrome. We just let our thoughts go wherever they Want and it's almost as we believe this is inevitable. Well, it is if you don't train it and if you don't validate and spend time focusing deliberately on the things you want
Danielle Cobo: it to focus on.
Danielle Cobo: you're focusing on the who you want to be and how you want to feel versus specifically what the goal is. The goal is a part of what you want to achieve. But it's the feeling that you're going to have when you achieve that goal that becomes the motivation.
Meridith Alexander: Yes. And.
Let me share with you my feeling about goals. personally, I'm such a language person, you know, that's number two there. We say so many things that set us up for moving backwards and goals has become one of them. To me, we have one goal and one goal only, and that is to be taking our last breath whenever that happens, saying.
This was so freaking awesome. I hope I get the chance to do this again. Everything else along the way is a target, an opportunity, objective, because that allows us to flow. The moment We say goal, we have so many associations, hidden stories around that word, that it's like we throw ourselves like the kids in the backseat.
Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? And then we wake up the next morning and we go, Ugh, I'm not there yet. Okay, already a failure today. I can't live, I can't be happy until I achieve this goal.
Danielle Cobo: so what is some way that you would reframe that if, someone says, I have a goal?
Meridith Alexander: Well, my next objective, what I'm really excited to pursue right now, my next target is this. I even say what I'm playing with right now is this, Because what I... Love to communicate to my mind is that it is going to hit mission accomplished of getting me feeling fully alive with things that please me.
I do not want to communicate to my mind that I am going to only react. And come alive by things that make me pissed off or displease me because what is it going to give me more of? And so here's another thing. We'll play with language for a moment since you kind of hinted at that
Danielle Cobo: a little bit. I like to play with language a little bit.
I'm a big believer in neuro linguistics. Okay.
Meridith Alexander: I love it. I love it. So when we say this is going to be hard, or this is hard, or my biggest challenge is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, It feels like they're invisible stories around challenge. I mean, most of us challenge in that context is not this like happy, like, yeah, I love a challenge.
This is like to dream the impossible dream, right? I mean, this heavy. But then we take it and we add big S. Well, can you have something that's big S if you only have one? No. And then of course you add my to it. So now it becomes part of who you are. However, The most powerful word in that sentence is one we pay zero attention to, and it is that little tiny word, is, because we never use the present tense unless we are believing we're telling the truth.
The present tense is reserved for fact, therefore it becomes programming code. The foundation of the rest of the castle. So, next obvious question is, wait a minute! But it is true. And that goes to the three questions that we asked before. What can I control? Okay, what can my mind believe? Well, my mind certainly believes that this is true.
What am I assuming that is not necessarily true? I'm assuming that this is the only variation of truth. Is this not also something that my mind can believe? My biggest opportunity right now is to figure out what that next step is so I can go out there and freaking live it. Or, my biggest commitment right now is to find my confidence so I can get out there, get that new job, and start doing the things that I know that I deserve to be doing right now.
And that your mind can believe that, but when we're assuming that Biggest challenge is the only truth. We get stuck there.
Danielle Cobo: Yeah, we get stuck and focusing on what we can control Yes, and being mindful of the stories that we tell ourselves being mindful of the assumptions that we make because if we start to make assumptions We start to close in on the possibilities at hand, but when we start to think about is it this way or are there possible other ways, then we start to think creatively about different ways to approach challenges and trials and tribulations within our life.
And focusing on what's within our control, not what's not in our control. Focusing on all the different ways that we can approach a particular situation. There's not just one way anytime that we are faced with a challenge.
Meridith Alexander: Exactly. Exactly. And what I love about that also is that it opens the door to the potential of when you're really stuck to be able to say, okay, wait a minute, has anyone else out there ever probably felt just as stuck as I am right now in this scenario who has gone on to do freaking amazing things?
Well, what can your mind believe? Yeah, your mind could believe that. And as you ask yourself significant questions that take your mind on a different adventure, your excitement level is going to go up, your expectation is going to shift. And when you're expecting the best, do you think you have access to making better choices and better decisions?
Absolutely.
Danielle Cobo: I'm glad that you mentioned this. Think about the other people that have possibly experienced this particular challenge. There is a motivational video that I have saved my phone. I'll include it in the show notes for today's episode, but there is this video that I watch. And anytime that I'm feeling like I'm facing a hardship or a challenge in life, I click on this video and I watch it because every time I watch it, It's a, combination of all these different people, everybody from J. K. Rowling to Oprah to Denzel Washington, Will Smith, all of these different people who have achieved high, high accomplishments. And they talk about their failures and what they did to achieve where they are today. And so I love this video.
I save it on my phone. I've watched it before going in interviews previously when I was in corporate world. I watched it anytime I've just kind of felt like I've hit a wall. I'll include it in the show notes today because it is one you definitely want to save.
Meridith Alexander: I love that. And that is, again, that's part of creating what I like to call your personal empowerment system, and we really all should do that.
It's like a Karen feeding. So rather than get obsessed with what are the negative triggers, I have to avoid them. What are the positive triggers for yourself? And exactly. I have some of my clients, like, pick out a frickin theme song for themselves, same thing, before they go into an important meeting, you know, hey, all of a sudden, even my, clients who are like, quote unquote, geeks, it's like, okay, let's watch that scene in James Bond where Q really makes James Bond, James Bond, let's face it,
Danielle Cobo: you Yeah, I love stories of people. Clearly, it's one of the reasons why I started the podcast, but I love watching movies and documentaries where people have overcome adversity. They've come out stronger. I'm always just so inspired by them. And that's one of the reasons why I love hearing these stories. I love watching them because it just goes to show you the possibilities of what is out there when we focus on what's in our control.
When we have that resilience to bounce back from setbacks, when we focus in on what our passions are and we meet it with perseverance and that's what grit is. That is what unstoppable grit is, is we continue to move forward despite all the challenges that we have and we focus in on what's possible. So you have published this book.
Tell our listeners about
Meridith Alexander: your book. Sure. So hot off the presses, 100 days of epic. And this really is a combination of blood, sweat, tears, and some of the kind of naivete tacks coming together in here from clients who have said What if I invested three months? Could I really move the needle in three months?
And so this is literally 100 days of small insights, strategies, action steps that's even gamified if you want it to be. You can collect points, but to really help you learn the how and a lot of stuff that what we just talked about. How do you master Your focus and what are different ways that it can impact your confidence, your self esteem, all of these things that you don't realize that either focusing on the present or the lack actually empowers you to do or disempowers you from doing.
again, it's language going into it. How can you avoid? Sabotaging yourself from the start. How can you start changing that with your language? How can use your language actually as turbocharged for yourself? And then, of course, that ability to envision. So it's all here in 100 days of epic, it's fun to go through and play with.
And, yeah, if you're looking for that epic version of yourself, this is like the step by step manual of how to really create that momentum.
Danielle Cobo: My inner child inside of me who played sports all growing up saying, I get to earn points towards something. This is,
Meridith Alexander: well, that isn't deliberate because it's the dopamine effect.
It is. It's a dopamine feedback loop. Yes. And so that keeps us really engaged. And so I thought, why can't we do it with a book? especially a book personal development. I mean, you can see from the rubber chickens behind me that I don't think that. Becoming those bigger, bolder versions of ourselves should be quote unquote hard or painful or miserable.
I think it's, energizing and it is that quote of what the world needs now are people who have come fully alive.
Danielle Cobo: absolutely. Well, thank you so much for joining today, Meredith, and sharing your ways of being epic. and thank you for sharing your story of your, daughter Skylar and where she's at today.
Actually do share with us a little bit about where Skylar is at today. what is she accomplishing today?
Meridith Alexander: So Skyler continues to break through the possibilities. she's gotten to the point where she has a lot more independence than she had before, meaning she can actually get herself to the restroom.
She can eat on her own. And we're even working with her being able to, walk with a walker. She still has someone holding her while she's doing that. But yeah, definitely follow us on social media and you can cheer her on. She loves that. you'll see us on TikTok. You'll see, there's the Sky is the Limit page, which is S C H U Y is the limit page.
And you can see this girl post just about every single day showing How she's rocking it. And to your point, if you need motivation of grit, it's definitely there.
Danielle Cobo: and that definitely sounds like that daily motivation is to be inspired by somebody who's overcome this boulder and is living a epic life.
Meridith Alexander: For sure. For sure. And. I have a little gift for your audience since while we were talking about language short and sweet as a bonus, we're going to give you a link of where you can download 10 phrases that we almost don't know. all say without thinking about them, not realizing that they throw us backwards and how to shift them, how to change it around.
So, that is bit. ly forward slash epic words. And we'll have that. And the show notes will
Danielle Cobo: include that in the show notes. I'll be definitely downloading that one today. Well, thank you so much for joining. And for those of you that are listening, thank you for tuning in. if this episode resonated with you and you believe that somebody could benefit from living an Epic life, please share this episode with your friends, your families, your colleagues.
And write a review, share with us what you found to resonate with you in each of these episodes, why you love the podcast and also see you next week and in between be unstoppable.