From NY to PI: Alexis’ life journey

New York is a long way from Phillip Island.

For Alexis Guttridge it’s a distance of about 40 years, plus a lifetime packed with experiences.

Living in Sunderland Bay with her husband Jed for the past two years, Alexis is a life coach, running workshops on the island and teaching people online about the merits of meditation, how to gain increased focus, decrease stress levels, and make changes in the life they want to live.

It is, she says, a far cry from the days when she was leading a fast and furious life, surrounded by celebrities, working to excess, partying to even greater excess.

How does such a personal – and geographic - transformation happen?

Alexis explains she grew up in New York, studied communications outside Boston and at first worked in affiliate relations for CBS TV.

“I was 21 and hated the corporate life and a friend suggested there was an opening in a high-end restaurant in the Berkshires. I didn’t know anything about food, but I like to eat, and I fell in love with it from the beginning,” the 43-year-old says.

It launched a 15-year career. 

Career

Alexis initially worked in all levels - hosting, bar, service, inventory – before she rose through the ranks, working for several high-end restaurants, including general manager for US celebrity chef Tony Maws.

The peak of her career came at 29 when she gathered $US1.4 million in seed funding from investors to build her own fine dining restaurant, West Bridge, in Cambridge, which she ran for five years.

“It was French inspired in a loft space. We had celebrities to famous sports players and the elite from Harvard and MIT. We were on the cover of Food + Wine magazine and GQ.

“It was next level. But I was a bitch. I was the cool kid on the block and I was so proud but I was not happy. I had the weight of the world on me.

“From the outside I looked happy, loving and caring but I hadn’t laughed or cried in 15 years. I had no emotion. I was moving through the world. I had created this beast and it was eating me alive.

“I remember one night I tried not to drink and I couldn’t. The next day I called a psychiatrist.”

Alexis had therapy up to three times a week for months.

“She held a mirror up to me which was very confronting.”

Transformation

Alexis began meditation and then eight years ago she sold West Bridge and for six years she “wandered aimlessly”.

“I’ve not read the book but I did my version of Eat, Pray Love. I went to India, Vietnam and Bali, travelling sober.”

When an acquaintance suggested she travel to Australia, she came here for one week, in which time she logged on to Tinder.

“In the short time I was on it I had three guys ask me out and Jed was the third date. 

“We have one of those obnoxious love stories. He told his mother in the first week he was going to marry me.

“I’ve pretty much never left.”

Alexis moved to Australia seven years ago and Phillip Island in 2021: “I drove here to look at a house and I loved it. I couldn’t be happier”.

In those intervening years she studied mindfulness training, which she preferred because it had no spiritual aspect, as well as coaching for small business.

In September she is starting her regular 12-week clarity project, with weekly coaching calls, worksheets and access to a range of mindful tools.

Alexis says she dislikes the term “life coach”.

“But it is what I do and summarises it best.

“The workshops are short so it’s not about fixing your life, but if they get one a-ha moment it’s a win.

“The people who are best suited to the program is anyone at a cross-roads in a relationship, career, where they live, for instance. Anyone who has fear about taking the next step.”