What if the fix you find for yourself turns out to be the business?

Meredith Cook cleaned the baseboards before she left for the hospital. The birth plan was tidy, the yoga was done, and then everything went a different way. A C-section, a hospital ward that didn't feel like the right place to be, and a long stretch of feeling alone. A pediatrician told her that women find a fix for their child or themselves, tell everyone, and that's where million-dollar businesses are made. She didn't find her purple bow right then.

Meredith is the founder of Green Compass, a soil-to-shelf organic plant wellness company she built with her husband, Sterling, and sixth-generation North Carolina farmers. She was a stay-at-home mom with no business background. The company grew entirely by word of mouth, with no PR and no paid ads.

Serena and Sara talk with Meredith about the day her mom told "all of Charlotte" and the attorney at a farm event who said "My husband doesn't even know." She explains why her team asks "Is it Meredith approved?" and why she sends every supplier ingredient to a lab instead of taking anyone's word for it. She's also candid about what it took to hire a CEO and keep the mission seat, and about the moment she opened her laptop in a room full of consultants and mimed typing.

What you'll hear

The purple bow. A pediatrician's image for what happens when a woman finds her own fix, and what Meredith did with it.

"You don't take their word for it." Identity testing, and the certified ingredient that turned out to be a fruit powder.

The Vada moment. Why nobody talks about periods, and how that silence follows women for years.

Hiring a CEO. Why Meredith calls handing over the seat growth.

Faking it. The strategy meeting, the laptop, and a husband whispering across the table.

Burnout. Filling everyone else's tank from empty, and the question she left for our next guest.

Serena and Sara close the conversation with Meredith's answer to what fearless means: "I was able to do it scared."

If her story moved you, share it with a woman who needs to hear it. Subscribe to Fearless & Flawed wherever you listen.

You can love the stage and still worry that someone will realise you don't belong there. Aleksandra Plazinic knows that feeling, and she's written a book about it.

This week, Serena Reynolds and Sara Ferrer welcome Dr. Aleksandra Plazinic, communications coach, lecturer and author of From Fear to Fearless Female Speaker. She set out to write about public speaking and recognised her own imposter syndrome in the pages: the overpreparing, the proving and the question of whether she'd done enough to earn the room's approval.

If you've ever replayed a presentation in your head, cringed at your recorded voice or read too much into someone's expression, this conversation will feel familiar. Aleksandra explains why confidence starts before delivery, and why trying to please everyone can get in the way of sharing something useful.

You'll hear about:

• Moving from proving yourself to serving your audience.
• Owning your accomplishments instead of immediately chasing the next goal.
• Starting with your body when your mind is busy telling you everything that could go wrong.
• Finding an outfit that helps you feel confident, without losing yourself in the preparation.
• Giving yourself room to pause, think and sound like a human being.

Along the way, Serena and Sara share their own speaking insecurities, question the pressure women face over their appearance and discover that even an embarrassing childhood haircut has a place in this discussion.

Follow Fearless & Flawed for more honest conversations with women who own their imperfections. Explore more episodes and join the conversation at fearlessandflawed.com.

Sasha McDowell did not set out to become an entrepreneur. After her employer refused her request for part-time or hybrid work, she left the nonprofit management career she had trained for, started something on the side and assumed she would eventually return. Instead, that experiment became Epicycle Group, a leadership development firm helping senior leaders and teams navigate complex people challenges.

In this episode, Sasha joins Serena and Sara to talk about building a business when experienced owners cannot agree on pricing, services or the “correct” path forward. Rather than seeing that uncertainty as a disadvantage, she learned to treat it as permission to experiment.

Sasha also discusses why she will not guarantee a CEO an outcome, what knitting taught her about accepting mistakes, and how relationship goals changed the way she measures a successful year. The conversation explores entrepreneurship, leadership, perfectionism and the idea that legacy is built through daily decisions, not saved for the final chapter of a career.

Listen for a candid reminder that there may be no perfect formula, and that can be good news.

Find Sasha at epicyclegroup.com.