Meredith Elliott Powell shares how she transformed personal trauma—growing up with addiction, a public divorce at 34—into purposeful action. She outlines practical frameworks like the control-versus-uncontrollable list and the MVP model, plus daily habits like meditation and I AM affirmations to rewrite your self-story and build momentum through micro-goals.
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Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our 9th episode of Fearless. And today, we've got an awesome guest, Meredith Elliott Powell, who's got just an incredible story about how she's had to face fear and anxiety and worry and stress and how she got over it, got past it. And that's what this show is all about. What's getting in your way? And fear is a very strong obstacle to moving forward. So, this is a production of Fuel. And Meredith and I are both Fuel instructors, performance instructors. We both have AI bots now. So, you can actually interact with us 24/7 all over the world. And our bots are loaded with our body of work. So, in my case, almost 40 years of the books I've written, the articles, hundreds of articles, hundreds of videos, interviews, things like that. So, the bots are an opportunity for you to talk to us and learn from us even when we're not available, so to speak, in person. So, Meredith's got a bot. She's got a course with Fuel called Thriving on Uncertainty. Really? What? Uncertainty? How do you thrive on that? So, we're going to talk a lot about that. And I invite you to open up your chat, and if you've got a question for Meredith or myself, put it in there, and we'll do what we can to address that and leave you with some very important and helpful takeaways and tips by the end of the show. So with that, Meredith is a Hall of Fame keynote speaker, bestselling author, as I mentioned, a Fuel instructor, a master in strategy and change and growth. So Pay attention, all right, to what Meredith has to say. Meredith, welcome, and tell us just a little bit more about your story.
Yeah, you know, I love the fact that you really talked about the fact that fear is an obstacle because I think that sums up my story so well. As you said, I'm a Hall of Fame speaker, business consultant. I've not been at this as long as you have, but I've been lucky enough to travel the world to get to share my message. But boy, it did not start out That way. Like most people, I've got a story. I figure pretty much everybody's got a story. And fear was what I spent most of my life— the first 36 years of my life— is exactly what was holding me back. And I think it's why I'm so committed to the work that I do today.
Yeah, so I know your story, but Share a little bit more about your impetus for getting started in this business. What was the tipping point? Where was it where you just said, you know, I need to shift from secrets and being entrapped, so to speak, to open and free? And what was the shift?
Yeah, you know, I wish that I had made that shift all on my own, but like most people who get into the work that we do, we have an story which kind of forced us to make a shift that allows us to turn around and help other people. But for the first 36 years of my life, I have— my family is really riddled with alcohol and drug addiction. By the time I was 36 years old, 6 male members of my family, including both my brothers, my father, and my first husband, had all died of addiction. And my life was full of everything that goes through that. I know there's a lot of people listening to us that have dealt with addiction. There's abuse, there's anger. There's just, you know, scarcity and the fact that you're always trying to pay the bills and make up for things. There's secrets and there's lies and all those types of things. And I spent my whole life hiding, my whole life in fear. I was so afraid people would find out, so afraid people would know, so afraid something was going to happen. In my life, somebody was always dead, in jail, or in some level of trouble. But when I was about 34 years old. My husband had— he was 6'3. He was down to 140 pounds. I couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten any food. He was drinking himself to death. And I didn't know what to do. I was so afraid he was going to die under my watch. So I had to call the police. And the police came to my house. They forcibly removed him. Big long story. But at that point, all my secrets were revealed. The whole— it was in the paper. It was on the television. Everybody knew. And I've got to tell you, I went from being so afraid to being so relieved. I had kind of been stripped naked, put in the middle of the street. All my neighbors knew my dirty laundry, but the relief that it was. And so it was a really long-winded story to say I had gone from hiding to just going, this is me, this is who I am. This is my life. It's all out in the open. It changed everything to me because the moment that fear disappeared from my mindset, all the energy that had been going into trying to keep people from knowing went into propelling my life forward.
Yeah, well, you know, I think disruption, it, you know, it scares people, but disruption is just what we need often to break free. And it's often with pain and suffering that people let go. And I know that's a theme of yours, letting go. It's something I teach. It's, you know, one of my Fuel courses is Beyond Doubt. The 4 steps to inner peace are let be, let go, let see, and let flow. So, be aware, be present, take inventory of your feelings, things like that. And anything negative— and I love your example of put what you can control and what you can't control into 2 piles. and focus on what you can control because the other pile, comment on that. So, let be, let go. And when you do that, the let's see is you see everything differently. You no longer have all this distraction. And then I call it flow. You get into flow, let flow.
Yeah.
What is that all about? It's like when you talk about that relentless vision, how important it is to be very clear on your vision. And when you get aligned with that, Things just happen, things, you know, that you're not expecting. The whitewater rafting example you give in your course.
Yeah.
So, give me some comments on the letting go and the vision. And for the audience, just how important is it to have that clear vision and get rid of the distractions and get over that fear and learn to see disruption as opportunity and uncertainty as opportunity? Talk about that a little bit.
Yeah, you know, I really love what you're talking about here because this whole idea of letting go, it sounds so simple and it is simple, but it is not easy, right? I mean, for me to let go of the addicts in my life when everybody in society was telling me it was my job to save them, you know, it's— we get a lot of societal messages to try to tell us to control things that we cannot control. So one of the interesting things that I found from doing the research I did is that when you are moving from fear, whether it's as extreme as my example, your life examples, or it's just you're afraid of your boss at work, something simple like that. You're literally moving from the side of your brain that shuts down creativity, innovation, and engagement. And those are the skills you're gonna need to deal with disruption and uncertainty. So I have this exercise that I do with myself and I do with my clients. I'm kind of going through a rough patch right now, and I just did this this morning. I write down everything I'm worried about. Even, I don't judge it either. Like, even if I'm worried about the fact that I won't be able to pay the mortgage, which is crazy because I don't even have a mortgage, but you just put it down, everything that you're worried about, and you divide it into 2 piles. What you're worried about, and I mean what you can control and what you can't control. And you'll find that what you can't control is only 3 to 5 things in life, you know? And you focus your time and your energy there. That's how you— That's how you, in my opinion, let go. But I'm curious, what are your strategies? Like, what comes out in your course for letting go? What can we do beyond that?
Yeah. Well, great question and thank you. I start with MVP. And it's not sports' most valuable player, but it's mission, vision, and principles. So, I believe it's very important for anybody to have a clear mission statement. We think of those things as a business thing, but I'll give Walt Disney as an example. And this really inspired me many years ago. Walt Disney's personal mission statement was to use my imagination to bring happiness to millions. So, that's so simple, but he's got a gift. We all have gifts. And I believe a person's mission in life is to give away their gift. And when you do that, you feel great.
Yeah.
And you don't worry a whole lot. So, whatever your gift happens to be, and we all have different, you know, special gifts that we're blessed with. In Walt's case, it was his imagination, his creativity. You know, they even use the term at Disney, Imagineers.
Yeah.
So, they had, you know, Imagineers, but he also combined it with vision because he said to make millions of people happy. So, like in my case, My, my vision is 100 million people. All right. That I will inspire and help to live healthier, happier, more peaceful and prosperous lives. That's essentially my mission. And so it's gotta start with something to, to aim at. And then that, that has to be an important why. So I always say the what and the why are critical and the how will show up. Like, I started my practice 38 years ago. I didn't know how to do it.
Right.
I, you know, I was like, I just gotta get on the road and, and pivot along the way. and learn as I go. And, you know, you and I have both talked about how important it is to surround yourself with brilliant people, brilliant minds. And that's why I'm such a big fan of Fuel because it's, you have easy access to people who've been there and done it and are willing to help. So, the MVP and then the principles, what are your constants in times of change, which is always, you know, we're always changing, the uncertainty? What are the, you know, things that you can hold on to to give you strength So, these are, you know, fundamental in business. You know, these are things like one of Disney's is fanatic about detail. We will always be fanatical about detail because it matters. You know, every moment of truth, what they call magic moments at Disney, they're critical touching points, connections with customers, with people that visit parks or watch the films. So, you know, to me, Meredith, it's been critically important for me to do just what you teach, which is that clear vision, relentless vision.
Yeah.
And I also use the metaphor of a GPS system. You know, if you know where you're going and you take a wrong turn or you get— you run into a traffic jam or something like that, it will reroute you.
Right.
It will just like— you still have a distraction. So, the other thing I'll say, like you have your 2 piles of can control and can't control, I use the terms activity and productivity. So, people are always telling me, I'm so busy, I don't have time, I'm overwhelmed. And if you do the root cause analysis, it's because you're doing a bunch of stupid stuff you don't need to be doing. It's not productive. So, the difference is if it's productive, it's if it's moving you toward that vision. So, it could be something like your physical health. If you want to be physically healthy and fit, okay, and your vision, you know, 5 years out is that I'm essentially the same great shape I'm in now or whatever, or I'm going to be in better shape. Okay, then do things that are going to help you get there.
That's right.
You know, if your vision is to, I want to continue to exercise my brain and learn and grow, then read good things to read, you know, and turn off the TV and the news and, you know, all the negativity, that kind of thing. You said something interesting about how people should Should it on you, so to speak? You should take care of your husband.
Right.
You should. You shouldn't. I mean, I get real tired of the shoulds and the shouldn'ts because it's none of their business.
Right.
Right. You know, it's none of your business. I'm going to do the right thing. And that's not always going to make everybody happy. That's leadership, right?
Sure. Absolutely. In fact, I think in leadership, it's more important to be respected than it is to be liked. If you're respected, you can be liked. If you're liked first, it's harder to be respected. And I think that's really important. But it's hard. It's difficult in life because society, the way that we're talking about letting go and the way that we're talking about operating not from a place of fear is not what society tells us day in and day out. And so, that's why that relentless vision is so important. That's why going back and saying, what do I really want? Where do I really want to go? And are the actions that I'm taking leading me there? And you almost have to be your own self-evaluator, right? I mean, you've got to say, am I spending my time and my energy on the actions and the strategies that are moving me where I want to go?
Yep, exactly. And if I'm doing things that are not moving me in the direction I want to go, I need to be aware. So awareness is a key factor in all of this, right? Emotional intelligence and You know, one of the things I teach and suggest to people is if you're not living a life of joy and peace, you're not thinking correctly.
Right.
And then people go, what do you mean I'm not thinking correctly? Have you watched the news? I mean, have you seen the disasters going on around the world? Guess what? You can't control that.
Right.
So if you're attaching your joy and your inner peace and your happiness to something you have no control over, you're going to live in perpetual fear forever.
Right.
Oh, by the way, the world's been at war 98% of the time since humans arrived here.
Right.
So, if you're waiting for the wars to end, yeah, good luck with that.
Yeah, not going to happen.
Right. So, what I mean by right thinking, it's actually a Buddhist term and a Taoist term, but right thinking is right-mindedness. is addressing the opportunity. You like the word opportunity in times of uncertainty. You know, when fear comes from projection. And so if I'm projecting and something's going to go wrong, it's going to trigger fear in me. It's going to trigger the stress hormones, you know, the cortisol. It's going to trigger the amygdala in the brain. It's going to trigger the adrenaline. And the body's going to say, well, yeah, you're scared. You should be. And guess what? You're watching a scary movie on TV that's complete fiction, but your body is responding like, you know, you're scared because the mind is thinking there's something wrong. But that's an assumption, right?
Yes.
Because we don't know. And so if we're assuming things are going to go wrong, I'm going to fail my test or not get the job or get fired or get up on stage and say something stupid or trip going up the stairs. If you got those images in your mind, You know, your body is going to respond and you're going to look like you're terrified. I happened to be a quarterback, a competitive quarterback growing up, and I learned that when you approach the line of scrimmage, you know, you have a plan and a play called and it's part of a game plan and a strategy and all that stuff. But the truth is, Meredith, you know, that ball is snapped, it's chaos, right?
Yes.
It's uncertainty. So, you really don't know what's going to happen. I could get sacked. I could get hurt. Or we could score a touchdown. So when you walk up to that line of scrimmage, what are you thinking? And I use that as a metaphor when you get up in the morning to anybody. What are you thinking? Are you excited about the day? Because you can't really be enthusiastic about something and afraid at the same time, right?
You cannot.
So why don't you be enthusiastic? And if you're not, change your mind. You know, change your— challenge your assumptions.
Yeah.
Challenge those assumptions you're making. Yeah.
And I think you've got to work at that, right? Like, it's, um, it's— if you— one of the things that I think is so interesting about moving from a place of fear, and you alluded to this earlier when you talked about principles, I find that when people are moving from a place of fear, me included, I'm out of alignment with my values. And probably one of the most fascinating things that I learned from the research that I did is that organizations, individuals that thrive in an uncertain marketplace are people that know who they are, what they value, and what they— who they want to be in the world. And they stay aligned to that. And they're not fearful that people will judge them for being some way. I mean, look at my life when I was so afraid that people would find out I had so many addicts in my life and my life was such a disaster. I lied. Lying is out of character for me. But when I was outed and I no longer had to function in fear, though, that went away. And my life post everybody knowing my dirty laundry— and some people judged me, it wasn't easy— versus pre was so much better. So fear, it erodes so much with us. It not only takes your energy, but it It forces you into behaving in a way that isn't in alignment with who you are. And when you function in a way that isn't in alignment with who you are, you'll never be at peace. You'll never experience joy.
Yeah. You know, it triggers something in my mind. I don't know if you're familiar with the name Alex Honnold.
Yeah.
And I don't know if you saw the Netflix where he Not only did he climb El Capitan without ropes, with nothing, but he just climbed at age 40 the Taipei 101, one of the tallest buildings in the world.
Yes, I did see that.
But it's mind-blowing, first of all. But he boiled it down to 3 things. And essentially, he was not afraid because he was eager, he was enthusiastic, and he was so excited to do it. He couldn't be afraid. Now, he was cautious and aware, and you don't want to just climb a building without preparation. So, he basically said there's 3 critical aspects here, and it's preparation, and then it's presence, and then it's belief. So, if you stop and you think about, you know, you're about to do something, maybe get up and give a speech, you're probably not afraid at all of getting up and giving a speech in front of 1,000 people because you're well prepared.
Right.
Okay? When you're up there, you're present. Your mind's not wandering around about, you know, whatever. You're very focused and you believe in yourself and you believe you're going to do a good job. And so, when I heard Alex say that, I was like, wow, because he prepares well, meticulously. I mean, he prepares for years before he climbs a skyscraper. You know, it's not like, you know, yeah, I think I can handle this. So, you know, Talk a little bit about how you've prepared yourself to accomplish the amazing things you've accomplished and what you've had to let go of and how you did it.
Yeah. So, I think that, you know, I think the first— I love this whole idea of preparation. And I think that preparation isn't even something we do for one event. It's the way we approach life. And what I mean by that is certainly I have the things that I do when I'm preparing to do a keynote for client or things that I do when I'm preparing to write a book. But then there's the way that I just prepare to approach my life. And that is I wake up every morning and the very first thing I do is meditate. And then I read my Relentless Vision. So I condition and I prepare my mind to find the positive at some point in life. Another way that I prepare is sometimes one of my principles, I'll use your language, is that sometime before 10 o'clock, In the morning, I have to get 30 minutes of exercise. And the reason it's 30 minutes before 10 is because if I do 30 minutes in the morning, I know I will do another 30 minutes at some point during the day. So to, you know, basically to, to, to, you know, to get my hour in. So the other is that, um, our children are off and grown now, but, you know, another one was, um, I have a principle that I prepare for the day to do something nice for my husband. Every single day of my life, I'm conscious of it. But I prepare because the result I want is a happy marriage. And so I think it—I think preparation even goes beyond an event. We think about preparing, but my challenge to people is: Are you preparing your life? Like you say what you want, and then are you laying the foundation so that is what happens to you? I mean, so many people say, "I wish I were healthy." So many people say, "I wish I were financially." I wish I were successful. Well, then it goes back to this idea. What are you doing to condition every day for that to happen? Because not every day I have a happy marriage. Not every day I am healthy. Not every day I am successful. But I still do the principles every day to lay the foundation for that.
Yeah, you know, and I love, Meredith, what you said about meditation. I mean, I've been meditating every morning for, for, you know, 30-plus years, using a variety of different meditations. In fact, I just led one on Mindset Matters. last week, or actually it was earlier this week, and it's an I Am meditation. And you were just using those words, I Am. And I always listen carefully to people, whatever they're talking about, what follows their I Ams. And you know as well as anybody that you hear these days a lot, I am so stressed. I am, you know, I'm lost. I'm confused. I'm conflicted. I'm worried. Those are all frequencies, energy frequencies that are measurable, and like frequencies attract like frequencies. Misery loves company. So, to anyone listening, be aware of your I ams. And so, when you go into a meditation and you really want to change your story because your I ams are telling you a lot about your story and who you think you are, and there are ways to shift from I am afraid to I'm excited. And the way I do that is, and I just led on Mindset Matters people through 20, not 1 or 2, 20 I Ams. So, things like, I am helpful. I am grateful. I am loving. I am kind. I'm generous. Okay. I mean, you can go on. And then what I have people do is think of evidence. I'll say, prove it. So I am generous. Think about the last 48 hours. What did you do in terms of generosity? And it doesn't have to be giving somebody money. You know, it could be opening the door for them. You know, I'm—
Yeah.
I'm helpful. And when you start to retell your story, I've got Rene Godefroy coming on next Friday for Fearless. And, you know, he, he grew up without water and, and in, in Haiti. And now you know what Renee's doing. So, it'd be a great story. But once you start to change your story, your I AMs from fear-based, I'm doubtful, I'm conflicted, I'm too old, I'm too young, I don't have enough degrees.
Yeah.
Whatever people are thinking that, you know, to I am on my way. It gets back to that relentless vision. And even something as simple as, you know, people will go to the gym and get on a treadmill and in their mind they're thinking, I'm fat. I'm 20 pounds overweight.
That's right.
And as long as you're thinking, I'm 20 pounds overweight, you're going to keep being 20 pounds overweight because you're programmed. So, if instead a shift would be, I'm on my way to a target weight of 120 or whatever that target is. So, I'm not fat because at the end of the day, I'm still 20 pounds overweight or whatever it might be, but I am moving forward. In a positive way. So, we just shifted from something negative in the mind to something positive. I'm on my way. And so, whether it's meditating on, I'm enriching my mind, I'm grounding myself, I'm starting the day grounded. If there's one takeaway I think that's so important for people, it's check your story.
Right? Yeah, very much so. Yes.
And you clearly are a wonderful example of rewriting your story. And look where it's gotten you. So what would be one or two just real nuggets you can draw from your course? And by the way, I urge everybody to take a look at Thriving in Uncertainty from Meredith on Fuel and interact with her AI bot, which is pretty cool. But what would you suggest, Meredith, to people who are really struggling with something? Could be somebody with addictions, could be the loss of a job, can't pay my mortgage, things like that. Where do they start?
Yeah, so I think the most important place to start is to understand that this is a journey. Like, do not judge. You don't go from 0 to 60. You don't go from, being fearful and afraid of everything that uncertainty gives to all of a sudden moving from a place of grace and gratefulness. This is a step and it's a process. So begin with that relentless vision. If you got in my desk drawer right now, you would see— I want you to write these 5 words down. I want you to write down your relationships, your health, your finances, your career, and your spirituality. No particular order, doesn't matter to me. What's one area of progress you'd like to make in every— when we come back this time next year, you want to be, you know, out of debt. You want to be, you know, you want to be one step closer to finding the person. And then every day set an action around those places. What that'll do, it'll give your brain something to focus on. And I think the antithesis of fear is action. I think when we start to move, When we start to do something, we have less room to be afraid. So I'd start with that vision and I'd start with action and I wouldn't— I would gauge myself and reward myself based on progress, not based on absolutely achieving the vision.
Yeah, no, and I know you use the word momentum too a lot.
Yes.
And what you just described, I think immediately of momentum. And if I can break my big goals down to what I call micro goals, daily goals, So today, I'm going to meditate for 30 minutes and then I'm going to work out for 30 minutes before 10 o'clock. Those are very specific, very clear. I call them micro goals. So, at the end of the day, you could say, yep, check, check, check, check. Whereas if your goals are, you know, big enough, $10 million, yeah, you go to sleep every night going, well, I failed.
I failed.
So, just, yeah, break them down. So, I think to summarize this, if I get it right, is let's be really clear on where we want to go, where we are going. What's that vision look like? Let's be real clear on why it's important. Why does this matter? And I always say this too, Meredith, is that the why has to go beyond the ego, but beyond the self.
Sure.
You don't do this, you don't write a book. I don't think you write a book to make millions of dollars and live in a big house with a fancy car. You write the book because it's a way to give.
Right.
You're giving, not getting. And so, the why has to be, I think, more about giving, not getting. Let's go back to Walt Disney. To use my imagination to make millions of people happy is giving, right? And so, the more we give. So, I think that's critical. So, you get that clear vision and it's super important to mankind or humankind, the world, if you will, in some way. And then, you just open up to the how. And part of the how is surrounding yourself with bright people who can help you collaborating. I know you love that term collaboration in your course and trust that it's going to work out and you are going to make mistakes. But I look back on my career and Some of the mistakes I've made were the greatest learning events. It's where you gain wisdom from experience. And a lot of times, it's the experience of a mistake or something troubling or disruptive that, wow, the lights kind of go on. And then break it right down to micro goals, things you can do every day to get that momentum and traction and the positive energy flowing, if you will. So, Abba, any closing comments, Meredith? And how do people—
Yeah, well, they can find me on Fuel for sure. Get in there, play around with my bot. You can reach me at my website valuespeaker.com, just the words valuespeaker.com. I tend to hang out on LinkedIn more than any other social media platform, and I'm a big believer build your network, it will change your life. So, if you reach out and connect with me, I will connect with you. And my closing thought is, I promise you, do the steps, do the strategies, uncertainty can become your greatest competitive advantage.
Amen. Thank you, Meredith, so much.
Thank you.
And, uh, to our audience, um, if you, if you got value out of this, and I certainly hope you did, I did, uh, myself, uh, share it. You know, this is streamed live on YouTube, and, uh, we, we encourage you to share this with family, friends, teammates, um, people in your organization, whoever, um, because what Meredith and I really intend to do is, is bring more peace and help and prosperity and fearlessness to the world. So, with that, we will say goodbye. Next week, tune in for Renee Godefroy. It's an amazing story.
Thank you.
And then I have some other awesome guests in April. We've got Mark Tabat, who lost everything in the Palisades fire, a highly successful entrepreneur. We have Gary Garfield, who is the Former retired president, CEO, and chairman of Bridgestone Americas, who was told just before he took that job that he had to have open-heart surgery. And how did he handle all of that? And then we have Deborah Poneman, a world-famous author, speaker, and the founder of Yes to Success, coming on at the end of the month. So, we got some super cool guests coming on with great tips. So, tune in and please share this. And Meredith, again, thank you. See ya. Bye.
