Stephanie Mearse: From homelessness to millionaire before 35.

In this powerful episode of The Vardan Ter-Antonyan Show, I sit down with Stephanie Mears — entrepreneur, speaker, and author of Women of Perfection, Perfectly Imperfect — to talk about perfectionism, trauma, authenticity, self-worth, and the hidden emotional cost of constantly trying to “have it all together.”

Stephanie opens up about:

Growing up through adversity and homelessness
Becoming a millionaire before 35
Why perfectionism is often a trauma response
How fear can be transformed into faith
The emotional exhaustion of living a curated life
Building authentic confidence and self-belief
Why embracing imperfection is the real path to fulfillment

This conversation goes far beyond business and success. It’s about identity, healing, resilience, and learning how to stop performing for the world and start living authentically.

If you’ve ever felt pressure to appear perfect — this episode is for you.

Vijay Bachus is a top consultant in the food and supplement industry with 35 years of experience in the Food and Dietary Supplement industries. Certified SQF Consultant. Subject Matter Expert in SQF, FSSC 22000,and BRCGS GFSI Certification Programs, Operations, GMP, Organic, Kosher, Non-GMO, and Gluten-Free Certification, S&OP, Production Management, Food Safety Management Systems, Food Science, Product Formulation, Supply Chain and Warehouse Operations. Strong regulatory compliance professional with a Bachelor of Science (BS) focused in Cellular and Molecular Biology from University of Colorado at Boulder.

Vijay has been on every level from operator to C-Suite and succeeded scaling companies like Charlotte's Web from $5M to $150M in a short period of time. He is the owner of Bachus Business Consulting (www.BachusGMP.com) where his services include helping his clients achieve the desired certification scheme. He specializes in cGMP , Organic, Kosher, and SQF certification consultation. He will perform a gap analysis at your facility and create a customized action plan to with project timelines in order to achieve certification by your required date. He saved top companies millions of dollars through supply chain improvements, implementation of highly accurate custom programmed inventory management systems, COGS analysis and optimization, customized employee training portals, cost accounting, manufacturing workflow improvements, creation of Quality Management Systems, and process optimization. He also owns PeakGMP (www.peakGMP.com)
His services there include the following:

Business Consulting
* Sales & Operations Planning Implementation
* Manufacturing Scaling
* Business Strategy Planning
* Market Penetration Analysis
* Capital Budgeting

Quality Management Systems
* QMS Consulting to 21 CFR 111 and 117
* GMP Certification Rapid Path Programs
* Standard Operating Procedures
* Environmental Monitoring Programs
* GMP Training to NSF Standards

Online or Onsite cGMP Training
* NSF and SQFI Based GMP Training
* Personalized Certificate of Attendance
* Online Live Zoom Training
* Onsite Training at Your Facility
* Specialized and Custom Training Programs
* Kajabi Training On Demand Coming Soon!

In the Episode 5 we are talking about the importance of diagnosing the company's lifecycle phase. We discuss the Build, Scale, Defend and Survive phases and how to correctly diagnose it. In fact about 80% of the companies are in multiple phases at the same time, so we talk about how to diagnose those and manage them appropriately. This is THE most important skill an executive must absolutely have, yet most inexperienced executives don't even know that these phases exist, because lifecycle phase thinking is not taught in the MBA program or written in books, it only comes with experience.

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🎯 TAGS

executive leadership, c suite, c suite leadership, business strategy, leadership podcast, why merit doesn't matter, career growth, executive mindset, leadership strategy, business leadership, corporate politics, decision making, executive career, how to become an executive, leadership development, organizational behavior, business operations, strategy execution, founders, entrepreneurs, vardan ter antonyan, vardan ter antonyan show, c suite bible, executive podcast.

Connect with Vardan:
www.vardanterantonyan.com
www.csuitebible.com
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https://www.linkedin.com/in/vardanterantonyan/