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."

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