Meet Meredith Benedict

Self-Advocacy Coach: Reclaim Your Agency

What I Bring As a Coach

Aha Moments

From a young age, I was captivated by the silent language of human behavior, endlessly curious about the emotions people carried, the thoughts that stirred within them, and the choices they made. This life-long curiosity - furthered by hundreds of hours of training in behavioral psychology, group dynamics and interpersonal communication - has manifested in an ability to see what others sometimes cannot.

My clients say I’m full of ‘golden nuggets’ of truth, insights that land deeply, sometimes surfacing months after we’ve met. By illuminating the unconscious patterns that have quietly shaped people and relationships for years — even decades — I help reveal something powerful: the possibility of change, growth, and purposeful action.

Empowerment

I believe real growth happens when we recognize just how much agency we have. This belief is at the heart of my coaching. I'm not here to give advice; my role is to create a space where you can uncover the answers already within you. When I offer insights or frameworks, I do so with one guiding principle: you have the freedom to take what resonates and leave the rest. What excites me most is a world filled with 'I want tos' instead of 'I have tos.' A world where people see their lives as rich with possibility rather than bound by limitation and where they trust themselves to know what they truly want.

Clarity

One of my greatest comforts is turning chaos into clarity, whether that means wrangling messy processes or weaving scattered thoughts into organized spreadsheets. Yes, you read that right — spreadsheets.

Surprisingly, this ties deeply into coaching. Personal and professional growth can feel messy, overwhelming, and untethered. When we’re processing a challenge, our thoughts rarely arrive in neat, digestible sentences. More often, they spill out in fragments, tangled and unclear. As your partner-in-growth, I find profound meaning in helping you bring order to that inner complexity — transforming scattered ideas into clear insights, like building a metaphorical spreadsheet of your thoughts.

I also bring structure to the coaching journey itself, using frameworks and guideposts to help you see where you are, how far you've come, and what steps will move you forward. Because when things feel clearer, growth feels possible and even the messiest path starts to make sense.

Tangible Results

Many of my clients are busy, time-constrained individuals who want coaching to deliver clear, tangible results. As an action-oriented person who worked in very fast-paced environments (for those familiar with the DiSC model, I score high in the D quadrant), I understand this drive for productivity and I’m committed to helping clients set and achieve meaningful goals.

Yet I’ve also learned that growth isn’t just about moving fast — it's about pausing to reflect. For many, coaching is one of the rare moments they get to slow down, step back, and thoughtfully consider their choices. That’s why I strive to create a balance, blending purposeful action with intentional reflection. This approach builds not only momentum, but also clarity and conviction — the kind that fuels lasting progress, not just the next quick win.

Credentials

Nearly 20-year career leading product and marketing teams in Fortune 30 high-tech, high-growth companies
Experience leading large organizational changes, including launching equity-focused interventions for a 1,000+ person organization
Coached C-suite and VP-level executives with their internal and external communications as a marketing leader at Meta
MBA from UC Berkeley, Haas School of Business
2,000+ hours of 1:1 coaching
700+ hours of coach training
400+ clients
Professional Certified Coach (PCC) with the premier global body for coaches, the International Coaching Federation
Trained in Co-Active Training Institute coaching methods
Certified in 360-degree feedback tools

I help clients illuminate what they’re longing for professionally and face honestly what has held them back from self-advocacy.

So many of us lose faith in our own agency, burying our hopes and ambitions beneath fear and doubt. By embracing these dreams again, we can build a clearer path from where we are to where we want to be.

I enjoy working with clients who are ready to take bold steps .

Change stirs resistance, both within and around us. I guide clients through gradual, intentional steps that honor their internal fears while building courage. Together, we'll also develop strategies to navigate external pushback, using negotiation techniques that turn potential resistance into support.

I bring structure to a sometimes nebulous topic.

Venturing into new territory without a guidebook can leave you feeling lost. I partner with clients to create a clear roadmap, with guideposts that track your progress and keep you steady. We'll leverage a Self-Advocacy toolkit that I've developed through research and extensive training to help you find solid ground.

The Self-Advocacy Toolkit Includes:

Emotional intelligence frameworks
Scripts for asking for what you want
Negotiation tips
Resilience techniques for getting through uncomfortable interpersonal moments
Self-awareness exercises, including 360 reviews and building a vocabulary of feelings and needs
Concepts from nonviolent communication, Internal Family Systems, exposure theory and somatic experiencing