Thrivalist® Life Coach
Mindset ~ Behaviour ~ Personal Leadership
Coaching Teams & Individuals
Using A Combination of Science & Somatic
Working with you, at your pace to move from surviving to THRIVING!
Start Your Journey With Us
Collette Merritt
Business & Legal Administration Diploma
Inner Life Skills (ILS) Life Coach [Thrivalist Life & Leadership Coach]
Enneagram Enthusiast
Team Dynamics Facilitator
Workshop & Training Facilitator
Motivational Speaker
Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) Coach
Member of COMENSA
Bernadette Smith
Thrivalist Life & Leadership Coach
Virtual HR Business Partner
Team Dynamics Facilitator
Workshop & Training Facilitator
Neuro Linguistic Programming (NPL)
Inner Life Skills (ILS)
Coaching & Trauma Informed Coaching
Member of COMENSA
Countries Where We Have Trained
South Africa
Ireland
United Arab Emirates
United States of America
United Kingdom
Zimbabwe
Our Offerings
We Focus On Three Interconnected Pillars
Mindset, Behaviour, And Personal Leadership.
MINDSET
In Our Mindset Work We Are All About Creating And Choosing The Life You Want To Live, Focusing On Holistic Wellness And How This Can Be Balanced In The Workplace.
BEHAVIOUR
We Are P.A.S.S.I,O.N.A.T.E. About People Understanding What Motivates Their Behaviour And The Impact We Have On others. We Believe With Every Fiber Of our Being, That Working To Our Strengths And Truly Understanding Our Personal Growth Opportunities [Weaknesses] Is The Road To Success
PERSONAL
LEADERSHIP
We Are Deeply Intentional About Living A Life of Impact, Both At Home And in The Workplace, Because How We Show up Every Day, In Our Personal Leadership, Matters.
Meet our team
Collette Merritt
Collette Merritt, known as the Thrivalist Alchemist, is the founder of The Thrivalist Life Coach Practice. After a successful 20-plus year corporate career, she transitioned in 2017 to pursue her passion for empowering Teams & Individuals to thrive. As a qualified Inner Life Skills (ILS) Life Coach and Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) Coach, Collette combines science-based and somatic approaches to help clients unlock their potential and create lasting change.
Passionate about Personal Growth and Self-Awareness, Collette helps people understand the drivers behind their behaviour and strengthen their leadership, mindset, and workplace effectiveness. She facilitates programmes including Coaching4Clarity, Your Voice in the Workplace, Strength2Strength through Personal Leadership, Facilitating Difficult Conversations, and Essential Skills in the Workplace, to name a few.
Based in Cape Town, Collette is known for her practical, supportive, and non-judgmental coaching style, guiding Teams & Individuals from surviving to Thriving!
Bernadette Smith
Bernadette Smith, known as Thrivalist Bee, joined The Thrivalist Life Coach Practice in 2022, bringing over 40 years of professional experience, including 25 years in Corporate Human Resources, Training, Consulting, and Coaching.
Her career has spanned Africa and the Middle East, where she worked as a Learning & Development Advisor, helping individuals build leadership, supervisory, and interviewing skills. She has also led employee wellness initiatives, partnering with global organizations, NGOs, and businesses to implement integrated health and wellness strategies across diverse regions.
Bernadette holds qualifications in Training and Development, Occupationally Directed Education and Training Practice, Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), Inner Life Skills (ILS) Coaching, and Trauma-Informed Coaching.
Today, she specializes in Integrated Wellness, supporting Teams & Individuals to strengthen mindset, behaviour, and personal leadership. Based in Cape Town, Bernadette is passionate about helping Teams & Individuals move from surviving to Thriving!
Caral-Anne van der Westhuizen
Caral-Anne van der Westhuizen brings over 35 years of corporate business operations experience to Thrivalist Life Coach, as well as relationship management, process excellence, and event management, both locally and internationally. Throughout her career, she has built a reputation for fostering strong partnerships, creating efficient systems, and delivering practical solutions that support both people and organizational goals.
As Business Relationship Manager at Thrivalist Life Coach Practice, Caral-Anne plays a key role in enhancing and strengthening stakeholder relationships, client experience, and ensuring seamless engagement across the business. Her ability to balance strategic thinking with attention to detail enables her to create structure, clarity, and consistency in every interaction.
Known for her thoughtful, grounded, and people-centred approach, Caral-Anne excels at building trust and cultivating meaningful connections. She is passionate about creating environments where strong relationships and effective processes work together to support growth, collaboration, and long-term success.
Based in Cape Town, Caral-Anne is known for her practical, hands-on approach and her commitment to supporting the Thrivalist mission of helping indiviindividuals and teams move from surviving to thriving.
Testimonials
I found Bernadette always had a positive attitude in our sessions, she was empathetic and had great listening skills. It was therefore easy to share information with her.
She encouraged me to share and asked me to explain if she was not sure what I meant – this also helped me to understand problems better.
She did not pass judgement and remained objective and honest.
Bernadette has unquestionable integrity and I would highly recommend her to help put problems in perspective and to arrive at practical / workable solutions
As a new team that was growing quickly, we assumed roles that took us from being mainly operational to team leaders and strategic drivers of the team. As we are still small, we often find ourselves socially interacting with all team members but also wanting to assert ourselves as leaders.
Not having an HR background made it difficult to navigate certain situations without inserting your bias or logic.
This is when we sought assistance through this course: HR for non-HR managers. Our main objective was to get perspective into HR processes and operations and how to create an inclusive anti-bias environment. We learned a lot about remuneration and rewarding performance, how to communicate with non-performing staff members and what steps to take to turn that around.
Learning the mindset of someone who has fallen into certain categories allowed us to understand where they are but also how to get them onto the right path. One of the most important take home from the course was having a standard working and onboarding process from each department.
We appreciate the knowledge that was shared and have already implemented what was learned.
I have had the pleasure of working with
Bernadette for many years.
She has coached me through a number of challenges in the corporate world.
Bernadette has a natural talent for helping people achieve their goals.
Her style is supportive but also challenging and she gives constructive feedback to help you grow.
Bernadette genuinely cares about the people she works with and takes the time to understand their individual needs.
She is patient, approachable and has a knack for putting people at ease.
I would like to recommend Bernadette as a life coach.
I am really enjoying my sessions with her.
I wanted to work on my tolerance and patience levels, as well as learning to set goals and lessen procrastinating….all of which I am improving on.
Thank you Bernadette.
I found Bernadette always had a positive attitude in our sessions, she was empathetic and had great listening skills.
It was therefore easy to share information with her. She encouraged me to share and asked me to explain if she was not sure what I meant – this also helped me to understand problems better. She did not pass judgement and remained objective and honest.
Bernadette has unquestionable integrity and I would highly recommend her to help put problems in perspective and to arrive at practical/workable solutions
My only regret is not having been introduced to her earlier on in my life and trust me when I say I have done many forms of coaching and counselling hours.
Always a clear perspective, realistic goals on what you as an individual wish and will achieve, and reflection.
Her warmth, laughter and sincerity, has transformed my from the Worrier to a Warrior.
With gratitude and Thank You Always Lindy
After working with Bernadette, I am able to create a vision for myself and define my priorities to create a better life/work balance.
Through Bernadette’s supportive coaching style I was able to gain confidence and made a significant career move that was long overdue.
I am not sure that I would have made the move without Bernadette’s know-how, encouragement, support and guidance.
She is great in understanding the individual’s wants and needs.
I would highly recommend Bernadette to anyone.
I wanted to work on my tolerance and patience levels, as well as learning to set goals and lessen procrastinating….all of which I am improving on.
Thank you Bernadette.
She encouraged me to share and asked me to explain if she was not sure what I meant – this also helped me to understand problems better. She did not pass judgement and remained objective and honest.
Bernadette has unquestionable integrity and I would highly recommend her to help put problems in perspective and to arrive at practical/workable solutions
I would like to thank Bernadette for assisting and coaching me on how to approach interviews.
It’s been 23 years since I last had to go for an interview and so much has changed in the industry with numerous challenges.
Thank you for your time, warmth and patience to guide me in how to prepare, what to expect and how to sell yourself and then practice practice practice. When I apply for a position I know I have the experience for the specific job but to bring that across in the correct manner that is where I was lacking.
You helped me to structure my answer in the correct manner so that the interviewer sees I have confidence, I have the skills set and experience that they are looking for. Which is a very good feeling.
I am truly grateful. I would definitely recommend you to my friends.
Hi Collette,
I just wanted to Thank You so much for meeting with me this morning
[On Zoom]!
I found it so incredibly informative not only about my TEEN [who you
are working with] but also about me, hubby and our other child.
I chatted to my
TEEN this afternoon about what you had suggested for me and it just felt like
our journey to understand each other better and supporting each other has begun
and I am really excited about it.
Thank you for being so understanding and
supportive.
With the many changes which took place in 2020, I needed some external perspective on situations both in my personal life and navigating the new world we all found ourselves in last year.
I wanted to realign my thinking.
Collette‘s insightful knowledge and calming manner during our coaching sessions provided tools and changed perspectives to view outcomes differently.
She leans into looking at things from a positive place.
I didn’t have any expectations but after the first session the lights were already switching on. I figured out more than I thought I knew about myself with some comfortable prodding questions from Collette and uncomfortable answers from me.
There was no judgement and you really feel the passion and experience coming through. Collette – thank you for helping me on a journey that I didn’t want to take but so glad I did.
I am slowly moving back on the right path of my life with much more clarity and confidence than before.
So grateful for the Lord bringing us together and His perfect timing.
Thanks for all your help in helping me get unstuck/unblocked and forgiving my Dad.
THANK YOU Collette for the journey you have so safely guided and walked with me in growing a little further.
I had a recurrence of similar work experiences and while talking through the events and learning opportunities, she recognised the repeat elements. This was a big AHA moment for me and we discussed ways I could Identify, Amend and Grow from this experience that had returned for my development.
In a direct but non-threatening manner, Collette was able to walk me through the experience to recognise certain areas which needed to be re-framed, when dealing with different personality types in my business world. Collette is a true professional, articulate with a dash of humour on the side.
Highly Recommended.
He admitted that more of us need to do this.
I love them, and what’s great is so does my hubby, he doesn’t like self-help [stuff] so much.
Genuine and very approachable. Her insightful and full of passion approach for her profession in helping others promotes many light bulb moments.
We attended her workshop which was really insightful.
Thank you for a fantastic session Collette – we look forward to many more with you 👌🏻
The day I met Collette was the day my life changed!!
From the moment we interacted, her warmth, passion and vibrancy were palpable.
she gives very honest & objective perspective …
in a loving way!
I was fascinated by her colour analysis of all our personalities, and how she accurately pinpointed what I needed from my team in order to run my business.
Really highly recommended.
I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed our session this morning. I contacted Collette specifically in her capacity as an Enneagram coach. I have studied the Enneagram for over a year and yet still remained confused around which type I fell into (having taken tests with varying results).
The one-on-one coaching around the enneagram was such a fun and insightful process. I gained an understanding not only around my own type, but also started to see how the enneagram presented itself in my friends and family. I felt really comfortable with who I am by the time I left the session.
Thank you Collette for a truly amazing session!
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