I BOTTLED MY MOTHER

Nassif, the founder of the Mrs. Meyer’s cleaning-product company, shares experiences from her life and business career.

The author was born in 1956 and grew up in a large family in Iowa. Her grandmother, Cecelia, sold goods door to door during the Great Depression, and her aunt, Sister Mary John, was a cloistered nun who lived by the Latin phrase “Ora et Labora” (“prayer and work”). Her mother, Thelma Meyer, worked hard to provide a good home for her family and succeeded in raising nine kids, all of whom graduated from college. Nassif started her own company in the late 1990s and named it after her mother as a tribute to her grit and her love for gardening (Mrs. Meyer’s products rely on plant-based cleaning solutions). Along the way, the author experienced financial ups and downs, failing twice to develop her idea into a successful firm. Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day, however, became a beloved brand whose identity was rooted in her own authentic experiences; the author describes the company’s marketing approach in detail, emphasizing the hand-crafted quality of their products, relative to the harsh chemical-based products sold by larger brands. In 2008, S.C. Johnson bought the company, which continued to grow. Nassif takes readers through the journey of her working life, up to the formation of her business venture. She worked as a babysitter and as a waitress during her teen years; she then earned a nursing degree from the University of Iowa and worked in intensive care units. Later, she worked in communications for Target. Nassif also writes of challenges she faced at home: Her daughter Calla was born with kidney cancer, and the family persevered through the crisis.

Alongside her personal story, Nassif offers advice that will be broadly applicable to readers in their home lives and in the workplace. She encourages people to trust their intuition, especially in situations where their safety might be at risk, and to practice difficult conversations in advance, both inside and outside the business world. Nassif also effectively tells of how she dealt with anxiety about public speaking, noting the importance of practicing deep breathing and other calming techniques. She asserts that energy and enthusiasm are central to the success of any entrepreneur, but also that people must always take time to assess their strengths and weaknesses as leaders. At the same time, she discourages entrepreneurs from worrying too much about other people’s opinions. The strengths of Nassif’s book are most evident in the most personal sections, and customers of the Mrs. Meyer’s brand will find her backstory to be particularly compelling. The closer this book gets to the self-help genre, though, the more it feels disjointed, and many of the author’s tips will be familiar to regular readers of business books; her specific advice in this realm offers little that differentiates the book from many similar titles. A leaner, more focused work might have concentrated throughout on the lessons that she imparts in the final chapters.

A thoughtful, if sometimes unevenly executed, account of an entrepreneur’s life and business philosophy.