She Bottled Her Mother: What a Mom of Nine Can Teach You About Creativity

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Monica Nassif is home cleanliness royalty. Her brand, Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day is one of the most popular natural cleaning products, known for its garden fresh scents.  Hers is a story about entrepreneurship and big business, and major success, yes (her brand had a major exit), but she also have a heartwarming background story.  Her mother, Thelma Meyer, was the inspiration behind her brand.

In the excerpt below, taken from her new book I Bottled My Mother, The Mrs. Meyer’s Story: Grit, Grime & Growing a Business, Nassif reflects on the woman behind the brand — and the unexpected philosophy that shaped both of them. It turns out the secret ingredient wasn’t a scent or a formula. It was busy hands.

Monica Nassif

Founder and Former CEO, Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day

Author, I Bottled My Mother, The Mrs. Meyer’s Story: Grit, Grime & Growing a Business

This is an excerpt with permission from I Bottled My Mother, The Mrs. Meyer’s Story: Grit, Grime & Growing a Business by Monica Nassif. All rights reserved.

Creativity lives in your hands.

Mrs. Thelma Meyer is a real person with a real passion for keeping things tidy. She’s the inspiration behind Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day—household cleaners that work like the dickens and smell fragrant and fresh. And Thelma is my mother. That’s why I founded the brand many moons ago, and she served as our inspiration. With her love of gardening, frugality, and neighborly approach to life, my mother was the perfect fit for our brand ambitions.

As a mother of nine children, my mother was a maker. A doer. She taught all of us how to work with our hands. Homemade cinnamon rolls, pie dough with lard, toffee, chiffon birthday cakes, Frankenstein bikes, quilts, homecoming dresses, dining room curtains, cleaning rags, gardening, swaddling a baby, and more.

One powerful way to build your creative muscle is by working with your hands. “My work was right in front of me,” recalled my mother. “I didn’t have time to plan, draw sketches, or write down what we were going to do. There was no time. I am too busy. Not only with the job of running the house but also keeping all the kids busy. With sewing, cooking, yard work, reading, sports, piano lessons, playing outside. I rarely allowed you kids to watch television, or as I call it, the ‘Idiot Box.’ This way, you could play and dream.”

My mother was not a scientist, yet she operated a living laboratory guiding nine children to keep our hands busy from morning until night. “Idle hands are the work of the devil,” was her common refrain. She was not about to allow the devil in the Meyer house. “A quiet moment was rare,” continued my mother. “Yet when I was working with my hands, especially doing embroidery or sewing, my mind would wander, and I would have a few seconds of quiet in the eye of the storm.”

Don’t simply take my mother’s advice on the benefits of working with your hands. Take it from experts in neuroscience. Kelly Lambert, professor of behavioral neuroscience at the University of Richmond in Virginia, stated in an academic study: “When you look at the brain’s real estate—how it’s divided up, and where its resources are invested—people who engage in a wide range of hands-on activities—such as knitting, gardening and coloring—show that each of these activities is associated with cognitive and emotional benefits, including improvements in memory and attention, as well as reductions in anxiety and depression symptoms.” In short, working with your hands is good for your brain and your body.

The children of the Depression Era (1929-1939), such as my mother, are sadly leaving us and taking their culinary skills, handiwork talents, parenting wisdom and work ethic to the grave. I always told my two daughters that if there’s a zombie apocalypse, make sure we are by my mother’s side. She will know how to forage for food, catch a fish, find clean water, skin a rabbit, build a fire, create a shelter out of sticks, and find the North Star.

1. Source: Markham Heid. “Working With Your Hands Is Good for Your Brain,” New York Times, March 28, 2024.