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What if you could get more of what you want in life? But not through pushing, forcing, or pressure.
You can.
When it comes to money, time, and energy, no one’s gonna turn away more.
And Kate Northrup, Bestselling Author of Money: A Love Story and Do Less and host of Plenty, is here to help you expand your capacity to receive all of the best.
As a Money Empowerment OG who’s been at it for nearly 2 decades, Kate’s the abundance-oriented best friend you may not even know you’ve always needed.
Pull up a chair every week with top thought leaders, luminaries, and adventurers to learn how to have more abundance with ease.
Coming into a relationship with with full cup and and from a place of pure self love is actually like the way you're you're meant to go into relationship, not when you're having them try to full fill a a hole inside of you.
Kate Northrup:Totally. It's like the best
Miki Agrawal:is when both parties do the deep work, when they're both on their own like real self love journey, and then you come out of it and you're like, I love me, you love you. I'm me, you're you. Can we actually like co elevate together? Yeah. Let's fucking go.
Kate Northrup:Hi. Welcome to Plenty. Today, I have the pleasure of sharing beautiful conversation with you with someone I have known for a hundred million years. She and I met back in our twenties, like, kicking around New York City when she ran a vegan pizza restaurant. And she has gone on to found 2 9 figure companies and revolutionize several industries.
Kate Northrup:Mickey Agarwal is the best selling author of Do Cool Shit and Disrupt Her. She's the founder of Thinx period underwear. She is the one who invented period underwear and made it normalized across the industry. And she is also the founder of Tushy, which is an incredible bidet attachment for any toilet. And Mickey's newest project, I'm so excited about because it has to do with mushrooms that eat plastic.
Kate Northrup:So in this conversation, we dive deep into motherhood and how it changes our relationship with work. We dive into how she healed and put down her sword as a business owner and how she has stepped into what she calls soft power. So if you wanna play a bigger game in business, if you're afraid to disrupt things but you know you have big things to do, if you are wanting to learn new, softer, more feminine ways of leading while remaining fully in your power, this is the episode for you. Enjoy my friend, Nikki Agarwal. Welcome to Plenty.
Kate Northrup:I'm your host, Kate Northrup, and together, we are going on a journey to help you have an incredible relationship with money, time, and energy, and to have abundance on every possible level. Every week, we're gonna dive in with experts and insights to help you unlock a life of plenty. Let's go fill our cups. Please note that the opinions and perspectives of the guests on the Plenty podcast are not necessarily reflective of the opinions and perspectives of Kate Northrop or anyone who works within the Kate Northrup brand. Welcome.
Kate Northrup:I'm so happy you're here. Is such a joy. I wanna know, speaking of joy Yes. What is making you come alive these days?
Miki Agrawal:Wow. That's such an interesting question at this exact moment. This is why we're I feel like we're having this conversation for a reason.
Kate Northrup:A %.
Miki Agrawal:Because I was literally so yesterday, as you know, I went to Lindtwist's eightieth birthday twenty four hours in Mexico.
Kate Northrup:You saying that just, like, kind of gave me, like, a nice little rush. I just got a physical sensation.
Miki Agrawal:It was it was such a joy not only to celebrate this incredible magical woman, but also meet her seven best friends from different eras in her life starting from her sister. So eighties, women in their eighties, seventies, sixties mostly, and then my twin sister and I went kind of last minute. And it was so powerful just to see and witness. All of them had two to three marriages. They've all, like, been through so many different ups and downs, so now they're just, like, laissez faire.
Miki Agrawal:There's no care in the world. They have the Buddha's laugh about everything, and it's just, like, this magical cacophony of just laughter and just like, you know, making fun of each other. It was just like one of us Yeah. You know, but like in their eighties. And so Yeah.
Kate Northrup:One of us with a lot more wisdom.
Miki Agrawal:%, obviously. Yes. Yeah. So, like, you're on your fur you're on your first round right now.
Kate Northrup:You know, I'm out of
Miki Agrawal:a marriage recently. Oh, not a couple years now, but Yeah. Out of a couple of long like, relationships after, it's been sort of like, you know, a a recalibration. And I think, like, I'm in for the first time in my life, I've decided to just date myself just for a little bit. I've I've literally I realized I've gone from one partner after another for my entire adult life, and the most amount of time between is two weeks, or overlap, or there's like it was like Of course.
Miki Agrawal:You know what I mean? And so
Kate Northrup:kind of insane. That is pretty insane.
Miki Agrawal:And so I just was like, wow. Like, would meet someone right away, and I would just kind of fall right into it, and I just love being loved, I love loving, and I love giving it's just like such a thing, and so I just decided, I'm like, you know, I just need a beat. I don't need a lot of time, but just in this time, it's already it's been about a month.
Kate Northrup:Mhmm.
Miki Agrawal:As long as I've ever been not in partnerships. I've been just really dating myself. Like, I woke up this morning and played with my own hair, and I, like, crest my own cheeks, and I, like, you know, like, really just, like, massaged my own body and just really took care of myself. And one of the things I realized is that, like, I've had this such longing and such a yearning to be, like, taken care of. You know, as a woman in power, as a woman in business, I do all the taking care of in a lot of ways, financial, I have employees, the home, I'm a mother, I take care of my child.
Miki Agrawal:I'm like really, like, primary breadwinner, like, you know, just like always been that person. And so I've always been the taken care taken care of. And so there's just been, like, this longing to, like, feel, like, truly taken care of. And, you know, as different, you know, partners would come through, they would take care of me their own ways. But for me, it was like, I want you to just, like, you know, like, take care of me financially for a little bit.
Miki Agrawal:Like, I I don't need it. I never need it. I've I've built $2.09 figure companies. Like, I don't need it. It's an energetic thing.
Miki Agrawal:Or just not even just financial, but just like, it's an energetic. It's really energetic of like, I've got you. You know? And what I learned in that yearning of, like, the external yearning of, want you to take care of me, is that, like, I've really like, while I do bodywork, like, five like, four to five hours of bodywork every week, I really I work out. I eat really clean.
Miki Agrawal:I take my vitamins. I do take care of myself, but really emotionally taking care of myself, it's something that I just have overlooked. Yeah. You know? And just like because I'm just like, I'm I'm taking care of I'm just constantly on the go.
Miki Agrawal:Yeah. And so to really just savor my time with myself, like journal, sit on my altar, pray to goddess Kuan Yin, look at my trees, I call them my cheering squad, my trees outside my you know, and just, like, hang with me and nature and just, you know, so many downloads have been coming through, which has been so magical as well. Like, in this space, you know, you go from one guy to another, there's no space to integrate.
Kate Northrup:Yeah.
Miki Agrawal:There's no space to really be like, wait. Wait. Who am I today in this upgraded state? Like, where did I what have I learned? Have I grown?
Miki Agrawal:Like, what is the integration period? And when we're moving so quickly in business or
Kate Northrup:in the world, it's just there's such a hard time
Miki Agrawal:It's incredible. Hard time to integrate.
Kate Northrup:I'm so happy for you.
Miki Agrawal:So I've had these, like, deep revelations
Kate Northrup:Wow.
Miki Agrawal:Over the last this past month.
Kate Northrup:And what would you say, even just one month in, which, again, in the grand scheme of things isn't that much of your life, but given that it's double the amount of time Right. You've ever really been by yourself in your adult years, what's a revelation? What do you now know about yourself that you didn't know a month ago? Well, so first of all, just
Miki Agrawal:to give context, I'm a twin, identical twin. Right. And so I from inception, I was like in a pretzel. So I'm I'm like my place is like this. And so because of that, I've just been so used to be in partnership.
Miki Agrawal:It's just like my natural state of my twin or some I've just always had someone on my arm no matter what. And so it's really like hold myself. It's actually a really important inflection point. So I was like I shared the story a few times. I'm gonna share it again because it's so interesting.
Miki Agrawal:I I had this I I've been I I moved to a new place in Barton Creek, which you're welcome to come and check it out. It's amazing. It's just nestled by nature. Such
Kate Northrup:a beautiful area.
Miki Agrawal:Ugh. It's nestled in nature. Only it's only ten minutes from Yeah. Easy. Right?
Miki Agrawal:Yeah. Oh my god. So low. So it's, like, nestled two and a half acres. It's like a single story, you know, like Frank Lloyd Wright style overlook Spartan Creek.
Miki Agrawal:It's just, like, quiet and peaceful, and I just feel hugged. And finally, I'm, like, close enough because was living on on Lake Travis when I first moved here. It was really far. It was really far. And so I finally because I'm closed Yeah.
Miki Agrawal:I've now started hosting these, like, music nights and hangs and, like, I'm starting to community build again. It's just really create experiences just like hangs, which I used to do all the time in New York. And a couple of Sundays ago, I was just, you know, at my at this hang, I had a bunch of people over for music. And this guy, John Wineland, who's a friend of mine. Yeah.
Miki Agrawal:He had he had he had run a workshop for a 50 people. And then these these these two guys, these two friends of mine, Sky Justin, Mike were had attended his his his his thing. And they came to my house first to kind of hang with music night. And then and then this and then John shows up and and then he just collapses and just starts crying because he just experienced, like, 50 people's, like, deepest yearnings for love and connection, intimacy. And it's just like, it's just a lot to hold, you know?
Miki Agrawal:And so and then and then this guy Mike and Justin just just just held him as he cried and and massaged him and took care of him. And it was like, I was just sitting there, like, witnessing just these men just taking care of each other because they've done this kind of work. And, you know, I've been around men and men's work, like, a lot, but, like, there was, like, this beautiful taking care of, this beautiful devotion. And I just really, really was inspired to, like, wanna be devotional too for the first time. I mean, not for the first time, but, like, really just be devotional to the masculine in a lot of ways.
Miki Agrawal:You know, I feel like so then the next morning, I did breath work and in my in my altar, and I just realized in the breath work that that, wow, like my dad growing up, you know, was a strict Indian father, and he grew up with three three daughters. He had three daughters and a wife, so he was like the patriarch, you know, in a very old school patriarchal condition way of being. And there was a part of me that always felt quite defiant to, like, serve the masculine because I had to growing up, you know, and there's always this kind of fight between us around, like, power. And so I always kind of vowed to myself that maybe I would select people who would sort of devote to to me Yeah. Versus me necessarily devote to them because I was already doing so much taking care of being the financial and all this and all that.
Miki Agrawal:So I was like, so basically took on the pants role, you know? And I just had this, like, yearning to, like, be devotional. You know? And I was like, I just wanna be devotional. I wanna experience that, which is its own different form of love and expression.
Miki Agrawal:And it's something that I I genuinely am now curious about. And so now I'm, like, entering this dojo with a couple of friends to practice being in service, in devotional service. So, like, hosting a dinner. I haven't done it yet, but I'm about to. Hosting a dinner where I'm going to just serve and just be, like, fully devotional or maybe a kimono and just be in this devotional space.
Miki Agrawal:So that's really, like, one of the revelations for me. I'm like, wow. Like, I wanna bend the knee and just devote. Because for me to receive the care that I want, I actually have to be the one to do it first Mhmm. Both for myself and for the other.
Kate Northrup:A %. Yeah. And you may already know this, but the parts of our brain, the part of our brain that lights up when we are receiving also lights up when we're giving.
Miki Agrawal:Of course.
Kate Northrup:It's the
Miki Agrawal:same way. A %. But there's
Kate Northrup:Because there is no separation, actually.
Miki Agrawal:A %. A %. And yet there's a thing where it's like, have this story that I just give so much, which I do. I've give to the world. I give to my team.
Miki Agrawal:I give to my to my son. I give to my friends. I give so much already, and I'm always like I often, like, am the, again, the energetic financier, you know, in that way for my relationships. And so it's always been like a really yeah. I guess there's a part of me that is conditioned as well by the patriarchy to, like, the man needs to you know?
Kate Northrup:I think that it is so interesting Yeah. And fun Yeah. To play on that edge and instead of being, like, when you're in this place of really wanting to feel held. Yeah. Wanting, like like that longing that you are meeting that need within yourself to then just
Miki Agrawal:Do it. Play Yes.
Kate Northrup:With like what would it feel like just in a container that you've made The same. The rules that you you know, there's there's zero obligation, like Right. You're full in choosing Yeah. You're in the full yes, and you get to stop anytime you want Yeah. To just play in like, what would it be like to be in this devotion
Miki Agrawal:Right.
Kate Northrup:To the masculine in in men Within myself but certainly within yourself and then certainly also even within friends, you know, it's interesting. I was I was talking about my friend Liz. She's like very
Miki Agrawal:much here even though she's not here.
Kate Northrup:And, oh my god, I totally just lost my train of thought. Wait. Wait. Wait. Where did it go?
Kate Northrup:Anyway, it'll come back to us.
Miki Agrawal:Friend Liz.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. Yeah.
Miki Agrawal:What were we talking about?
Kate Northrup:I know. Do. That happens to all the time.
Miki Agrawal:My brain. I know.
Kate Northrup:So many channels. Exactly. Right. We're out there. There's so many channels.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. I'll come back. Yeah. But I do wanna ask you I do wanna ask you about your current thoughts Yeah. Given this conversation Yeah.
Kate Northrup:On marriage as an institute. As an institution.
Miki Agrawal:Yeah. Yeah. It's institute. It's institute to to correct.
Kate Northrup:Institute of marriage. Yeah. The institution. Yeah. Just like, what do you think these days?
Kate Northrup:What are you thinking about in this period of time where you're dating yourself? Yeah. Do you have a desire to be married ever in the future? And just sort of like, especially having just flown back from spending this time with these incredible seven women
Miki Agrawal:Yeah.
Kate Northrup:In their eighties.
Miki Agrawal:We've been married two, three times. Yeah. Like, what do you think? I mean, it was interesting because I had the same exact conversation with these Crohn's, these incredible women, these magical women. And one of them said, you know, I got married again for the third time because I didn't want like, you know, it's what's so beautiful about all these women is, like, when you get married again, you inherit their children, and then they become and then you inherit the next guy's children.
Miki Agrawal:And there's, like, see, it's they're just a gaggle of, like, family members that they've now inherited, and it's just fun. Yeah. And they said they were, like, you know, when when you wanna be taken seriously by the children, instead of being like, this is my new girlfriend versus my wife, you know, has a different level of like oomph to it. And so I was like, wow, that's interesting. That's very interesting.
Miki Agrawal:Very interesting.
Kate Northrup:It's something I would never I would thought. Right. Why would you? Right.
Miki Agrawal:Yeah. So like, you know, I I definitely would consider getting married again if there was the right the right configuration. If I was really being met and it wasn't like I ended up being, you know, like, again, like, a power dynamic structure that felt that didn't feel like I can really drop into my feminine. Like, I really wanna be in a in a dynamic where I'm really able to just rest and just be in my feminine. Like, I'm already, like, deeply in my masculine when I not masculine, but, like, more masculine as in, like, just the go getterness doing
Kate Northrup:in the world. Making visible results happen.
Miki Agrawal:That's right. And it's like, you know, what's interesting about that is that I have created a new framework called the soft power framework, which I'm starting a new, mastermind actually called this yeah. Called the new paradigm mastermind. Love that. And I make it I'd love to send you the details for it to share with with this crew, but, this mastermind is really around know, I've built 2 9 figure businesses.
Miki Agrawal:I've done it with a sword in my hand on on a horse charging forward a hundred miles an hour with epic, epic generals and coconspirators to really make it happen. And I really believe like, so I sat on the board of Conscious Capitalism for for four years with John Mackie, the founder of Whole Foods, and a bunch of epic conscious entrepreneurs. And one of the things that is interesting and important about conscious capitalism and just to kind of explain what it is, it's that instead of it being a shareholder model, it's just the shareholders who win, it's a stakeholder model where every stakeholder wins. And it turns out that when the share which shareholders is one of the stakeholders. So it's shareholders, customers, its suppliers, its employees, and it's the environment.
Miki Agrawal:If every single stakeholder in the ecosystem wins, it turns out that a conscious business outperforms a pure shareholder led business by a factor of 10.5 to one over a fifteen year period. And so it conjures up by 10 times, like, we should all just create businesses that were rising tides raise all boats, and yet, which was focused so myopically on the shareholder value and on just increasing your own equity versus actually when everyone wins, you're 10 x you're doing 10 times better. And so, what I believe is you you you you tack on the soft power framework, which I've created on top of the conscious capitalism framework, I think you can a hundred x. I think that's an another 10 x of positivity because it's irradiating from the inside out. So, like, soft power is a framework around it's an energetic framework.
Miki Agrawal:And, you know, like, as entrepreneurs, we're so, like, factual, and this is the way it is. But I've learned over the years being have Buddhist, Hindu, and also being in the spiritual community and also just, you know, really, really understanding the energetics. And, you know, people have been studying energy for the beginning of since the beginning of time, and there's some people who don't believe in energetics and some people who do, energy does heal. It's a powerful powerful force for good, for healing, for for creativity, for downloads, for magic, for invention. And and it's just it's a it's a it's an energetic radiating from the inside out, but it comes from this soft gentle place inside of ourselves.
Miki Agrawal:And it's a soft power framework that starts with yourself into two person dynamic and then into within company and community and then the planet. And there's this, like, remembering and radiating from the inside out. So it's a it's a framework which I'm gonna be teaching, which is so exciting because there is very, very tactical things around it. But my my point of saying that is that, like, there is the masculine piece around building companies, but I believe that if you actually can build it from your soft power, you can even do it 10 times better. So
Kate Northrup:I'm so excited.
Miki Agrawal:I'm I'm in the practice and the discovery of that right now. Well It's still hard because it's when things are stressful and things are hard, you tend to go back to the old way. Tend back
Kate Northrup:to the old way. All the evidence that
Miki Agrawal:it works.
Kate Northrup:But, you know, I think you and I have been playing very, very different business games. Right? Because I'm in the personal branding space, and I just sort of make money talking about whatever I want,
Miki Agrawal:And here Which is great. So good. So great.
Kate Northrup:It's very, you know, freedom oriented. However, and and so I have found, and of course I don't know exactly like what you're describing in the ways that you're describing it, but it feels deeply resonant with the way I have operated in business Yeah. Really since my first daughter was born, which changed everything for me, and I wanna circle back on that for you around motherhood and and work, but I'm excited to have this conversation led by you and and, you know, others as well, but someone like you who is playing a very large, like, quote unquote, very official Mhmm. Game. Yeah.
Kate Northrup:Right? Yeah. Sitting in these rooms at these particular tables, making physical products that revolutionize complete industries and complete ways of being, you know, as a huge fan of things, huge fan of Tushy, like, I'm so excited about your next company hero. So anyway, all of that will get there. But I'm just I'm excited for even that conversation, you know, because I sat down with my new literary agents, and they're kind of like mucky muck New York, you know, like Yeah.
Kate Northrup:Big deal people. And I showed up at that meeting, and I just was like, ugh, eff it. I'm just gonna, like, he asked me at the top of the meeting, what well, like, what what gets you up in the morning? Like, why do you
Miki Agrawal:do this? Why do you
Kate Northrup:do this? And something came over me, and I was just the most honest that I've ever been in any kind of official meeting, and I think, well, again, I don't know all the details of what you're talking about with the soft power framework from how you're describing it Yeah. It was that just, like, full on channel trust. I'm gonna be the most authentically me. I'm not gonna perform in this moment.
Kate Northrup:Right. I'm gonna tell the truth of, like, what actually is true, you And I said, I am I serve the goddess. I am here on behalf of the female body, and, like, I I happen to teach about money, but, like, ultimately, I'm really here to get people plugged into source Amazing. Through being present in their in their bodies. And it was so cool because in that moment, there is what you're talking about soft power.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. There's a magnetism. Yeah. And I could he I could feel like that in that moment, the lean in, even though we're talking, you know, twenty years of official Hoozy, like very business y. It was like, oh, okay.
Kate Northrup:You know? And that was cool. So I'm curious, since this framework has started bubbling up in you,
Miki Agrawal:can
Kate Northrup:you tell me a story of when you've used it at a big table?
Miki Agrawal:Yeah. Yeah. Well, mean, the first part about it is actually just how it creates inspiration at all, and so it's the listening. And I think, you know, creating HERO, my next company, I'd love to share with you Yes. What it's what we're creating Please do.
Miki Agrawal:We launch email.
Kate Northrup:The reason I even reached out to you is because I think Emily Fletcher had like posted the video you'd put out about it Yeah.
Miki Agrawal:Like just the
Kate Northrup:I I don't know what you would call Yes. The teaser thing. And I watched it, and I was like, I mean, you you and I have known each other a long time.
Miki Agrawal:I would
Kate Northrup:have always had you on, but there was just this moment of like, oh, let like now. Yeah. That's a conversation I want to be part of spreading. So anyway, I'm very enthusiastic, but please tell us.
Miki Agrawal:Well, as a mother, you have how old are your kids?
Kate Northrup:Six and nine, but we're we're we're thinking about adding a third to the mix. Amazing. So it's actually like very timely with your product.
Miki Agrawal:Amazing. I know.
Kate Northrup:I don't know. Like the door is closing, and I'm like, let's just throw a third one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Miki Agrawal:I'm in there. I'm there.
Kate Northrup:I'm not.
Miki Agrawal:I know. Babies are so They're the best.
Kate Northrup:And I sort of I didn't, like, enjoy the early stages with my girls in the way that I wish I had had the capacity to It's beautiful. Yeah. Amazing.
Miki Agrawal:I love that.
Kate Northrup:You know what I mean?
Miki Agrawal:I'm with you a %. I my sister and I were probably gonna just, you know, harvest, this summer just as a final, so we can maybe have a gaggle in our fifties. That's incredible. We'll just, like, have other people, like we'll carry one, and we'll have other people carry
Kate Northrup:some interesting longevity data Yeah. About people having children older, which I'm loving. I'm feeling it thought you make it very bolstering. Yeah. Yeah.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. About like living longer when you have babies when you're older.
Miki Agrawal:A %. I'm like, that's cool. That's really cool.
Kate Northrup:Because it does feel like they take years off your life, but apparently not.
Miki Agrawal:I know. Know. If you have help, you're good. Okay. Yeah.
Kate Northrup:So back to hero.
Miki Agrawal:Well, so, you know, I don't know if you know, like, some of these crazy stats, but, like, when your when your babies were in diapers, like, each baby takes an average of 6,000 diapers in their lifetime, you know. That's 12,000 diapers, and and each diaper takes between four and five hundred years to break down in a landfill. And that's like a real thing, and the very first disposable diaper is still in the landfill somewhere today. Every every single year, the amount of diapers that end up in a landfill can circle the earth 33 times. And so the it's just this accumulation.
Miki Agrawal:It's the number one household plastic waste item, number three waste item in a landfill. It's causing this leaching of microplastic. It's just terrible.
Kate Northrup:Terrible.
Miki Agrawal:And, you know, let's be honest, cloth diapers, we key doesn't work. It's just terrible. They you know, and then I had a fantasy
Kate Northrup:Yeah. That I would be a cloth diaper mom, and then I became a mom, and I was like, this shit is hard AF. I can't Right. Do that also.
Miki Agrawal:Right. And then eco diapers actually suck when it comes to performance. They really do. They just suck. The bamboo diapers are terrible.
Miki Agrawal:Terrible. They
Kate Northrup:just fall apart and you're
Miki Agrawal:just And then the baby pees for one second, the diaper rash.
Kate Northrup:You're just also like To change the diaper pee all over you always, like, why even wear one? Then just be one of those moms who does the you know, the people who do the thing with the no diapers. And I'm like, okay. That's amazing. Yeah.
Kate Northrup:But that's also a full time job.
Miki Agrawal:That's like a mom just, like, looking at their babies all the time. And I can't you know? So it's like the cue. You're like, okay. Does it you know?
Miki Agrawal:No. No. Yeah. Yeah. No.
Miki Agrawal:It's like you simba over the toilet. You're like, okay. I can't.
Kate Northrup:So do, like, god bless anybody who does that.
Miki Agrawal:I bow. Totally. But, like, it it's it's a really small small group. Yeah. And so, like, there really has been a deep, deep need for a high performing diaper, a diaper that actually works and actually does break down and turn into nature and is is good for the planet.
Miki Agrawal:There really hasn't been one that's both ever. And so I was having this thought in my head one morning. So I read I I basically watched Bill Gates' documentary about sanitation because Tushy is all about sanitation, and we've you know, Tushy has funded, you know, the build out of clean toilets for over 60,000 families in India. You know, we've we have funded reforestry and reselling projects all over South America.
Kate Northrup:And just for those who don't know, Tushy is the most incredible attachment A bidet. Existing toilet that's a bidet, so easy to use. We are obsessed at our
Miki Agrawal:house. Amazing.
Kate Northrup:It's the greatest. And the kids love it. Oh my god. The giggling is hysterical.
Miki Agrawal:Yes. They just like And they're clean.
Kate Northrup:And everyone's clean.
Miki Agrawal:Yes.
Kate Northrup:The best.
Miki Agrawal:It's the modern bidet that washes your butt clean after you poop. Huge fan. Thank you. And it and literally, we've yeah. We've sold, like, several million of them, and it's doing really we're changing it's it is changing culture because it's the obvious, again, thing.
Miki Agrawal:It's like wiping with dry paper with trees. It doesn't make any sense. Like, are we? Are we savages? Like, what are we doing?
Kate Northrup:I and I know, like, there's many other countries where it's not like, it's bidets are are common, but they're not just, like they're still not everywhere.
Miki Agrawal:Yeah. In in America, it's under 10%, so we're still there's still a long road ahead to really get it to to bidet ubiquity, but that's where we're going for it with, with at in in America for for Tushy. But I was watching this documentary that Bill Gates did because, I was really interested in I'm interested in sanitation crisis. You know, 3,000,000,000 people still don't have access to clean san clean toilets and have an unsafe you know, are unsafe when they're going to the bathroom, and it really, really affects villages, communities, especially women. And so in watching this documentary, one of things that actually stood out was that he would take a bag of books to nature once a quarter or half twice a year and just lock himself up in a cabin and just read and just think and just be.
Miki Agrawal:Yeah. So, you know, it's just his time to think.
Kate Northrup:Right. Think weeks.
Miki Agrawal:Think yeah. And I think it was seven years ago, I start I decided to just take Friday thinking days where I don't take calls or meetings on Fridays, and they're my thinking days where I just sit and just look out the window. It's not a day off. It's really a day to, like, for creativity, for downloads, for ideas to come through. It's the energy.
Miki Agrawal:It's like opening up the energetic field to allow for things to come through. And so on a particular thinking day when I was like, god, diapers, like, this is fucked up.
Kate Northrup:How did diapers even come into your
Miki Agrawal:Because my son with Kira was two years old.
Kate Northrup:Got it. Yeah.
Miki Agrawal:And I in the diaper world. World. Yeah. And I was just like taking a giant bag of heavy trash to the to the trash Every day. Other day.
Miki Agrawal:Right. Yeah. Every other day, like, if two kids like, it's
Kate Northrup:just insane. It's insane. I only had two in diapers for six weeks, but still.
Miki Agrawal:Yeah. Still. But since yeah. I mean, it was just insane. He was going hero was going through so many every day.
Miki Agrawal:It was insane. So so on this thinking day, I was like, wait a minute. Breast milk is liquid gold, and therefore baby poop must be fertilizer gold. And right now, we're wrapping this baby poop fertilizer in plastic and throwing in the trash, and we're using, like, pig poop and cow poop to eat eat our to fertilize our food, and we're not using our own mother's breast milk lead baby juju potential energy for good. Billions of pounds end up in landfills.
Miki Agrawal:What what so I had this, like, download moment. And in that moment, I was like, wait a minute. The baby poop the baby poops into the diaper, what if the baby poop can fertilize something to grow in the diaper and eat the diaper? And I was like, what could eat plastics? And then in that moment, my son hero comes running into my room.
Miki Agrawal:He's two years old, can't read. He starts saying, pacha, pacha, pacha mama, which means mother earth. And I'm like, okay. He points to a book in my nightstand in my bedroom, and there's a book in my nightstand called Pacha's Pajamas about this young girl who grows up in a polluted world, and in her dreams, she and the animals in the forest save the planet. And it's this girl this is a book for this for teen for adolescents, and I don't even know how it end up in my bedroom.
Miki Agrawal:It was given to me by this woman at a conference, and it ends up in your bookshelf downstairs,
Kate Northrup:two door two store do you know what
Miki Agrawal:I mean? I do. But somehow, it ended
Kate Northrup:Well, unpacking your suitcase and then you're in the bedroom.
Miki Agrawal:And then my nanny no. No. My somewhere to clean it somewhat, it ended up in my nightstand in my bedroom. When you were in your bedroom, you have
Kate Northrup:like three books that you're kind
Miki Agrawal:of going through and it's one of the books. And my son could at two, couldn't read, and he says, pacha pacha pacha mama. And I pick up this book called Pacha's Pajamas, I start reading it. By page three, he's running away because he's two. Yeah.
Miki Agrawal:But it's my thinking, guys, so I keep reading. And on page 31, it says there's certain types of plastic that can be broken die by fungi. Right. And plastic there's certain types of fungi that can break down plastic. And I was like, woah.
Miki Agrawal:Like, I was just like it was think about that. I was like, what could break down plastic? My two year old son, Hero, comes into my room, points to a book called Pacha about Pacha Mama, the mother earth gives us the answer through the child.
Kate Northrup:Time.
Miki Agrawal:So good. And and and if we weren't energetically open the field, we would have missed it. Yeah. And so I I just was like, wow. This is this is that soft power moment.
Miki Agrawal:This was a soft power moment where I was like, could have been in the hamster wheel, but I was sitting in reception, a receptivity Yes. In the contemplation of, and the universe just delivered me the answer. And that is what led us to start this company, Hero Technologies, which is over the last four and a half years, we have looked at thousands and thousands of strains of fungi that can break down plastics. Because it turns out that hundreds well, billions of years ago, fungi came to the earth. First being on earth that actually could take down rocks and turn it into soil.
Miki Agrawal:And it it so then trees over then from billions of years to, like, hundreds of millions of years, trees would then die, but there was nothing that can actually turn the trees back into soil, and the fungi were still learning how to do that. Mhmm. And so these trees would then get super, super scrunched up under the rock, and that's what actually gives us oil. So the oil that we all use is actually from dead trees, dead animals from billions of years ago. That's actually where where oil oil comes from.
Miki Agrawal:But then over the over for billions to a hundred millions of years, mushrooms, fungi have been learning, evolving to learn how to then break down trees, the hardwoods called lignin, the hardest hard parts of the trees, and turn them back into soil, into nature so that it can be reused and just the circle of life can continue. And it turns out that the carbon backbone of trees are very similar to the carbon backbone of plastic. Really? Yes. And so we can I know?
Miki Agrawal:Right? So we can actually harness these plastic eating fungi these fungi Tree eating. Tree eating fungi that can break down these trees and harness it to break down plastics too. And so we've brought in the top scientists, top micro remediation PhDs, micro degradation PhDs, like biology PhDs, the top diaper engineer from Procter and Gamble. From decade, he built Pampers Pure.
Miki Agrawal:Like, we have, like, the top of the pops. Taro, my cofounder and CEO, is the founder of Four Sigmatic.
Kate Northrup:Okay.
Miki Agrawal:He built Yeah. Mushroom coffee. He brought functional mushrooms to America. He's a thirteenth generation mushroom farmer. He literally, like, made mushrooms cool in America in the realm of coffee, mushroom coffee Yeah.
Miki Agrawal:Adaptogens, and it's now a billion dollar industry, and he really led that. And he's our cofounder and CEO. And, like, we literally built the dream team we called the Ocean's Eleven, like, of plastic eating fungi Cool. To really serve this important important challenge where 91% of plastic is not getting recycled. It's ending up in our landfills, in in oceans, in our water systems, and leaching into our brains, bodies, and reproductive organs.
Miki Agrawal:We're now ingesting, you know, credit cards of plastic every month. It's just absurd. And so it's time that there's a little engine that could that can solve for this. And so we want to target the very hardest, biggest problem, which is baby diapers. So our ultimate goal is to be the global supplier of plastic eating fungi so we can actually supply every plastic because we need plastic.
Miki Agrawal:Let's be honest. We're vilifying something that we need. It without plastic, we wouldn't have medical. We wouldn't have car transportation. We wouldn't have so many of the things that we just, you know, take for granted every single day.
Miki Agrawal:There's celebrities that we have. It's just that the end of life is the problem. Yes. We we haven't figured out how to dispose them. Yes.
Miki Agrawal:We can, of course, minimize, you know, single use. Like, that's a real we can be less lazy. I mean, there are certain things that can be better, but things like diapers, there's poop in it. There really isn't a real solution. Right.
Miki Agrawal:So can we harness fungi to break down these plastics of these diapers? And the answer is yes. We've done it in our lab. We've now taken it out into the real world, and it's like we're seeing true decomposition degradation, and we're officially launching in April with our hero diapers that come so the diapers come with these little packets that you just add as you're changing the baby. You drop a little packet in the diaper, and then you throw it the trash like normal.
Miki Agrawal:Great. It's one little extra step, but first, you want the moms to get comfortable first of they're edible mushrooms. Yeah. They're safer than the diaper itself. Yeah.
Miki Agrawal:The toxicity of the diaper, Our diaper, by the way, is made with, like, the best, the first diaper that has unbleached cotton backsheet. It's got an unbleached inner core, so the parts that are touching the baby is unbleached. There's no wetness indicator. You know where you're like the wetness indicator that tells you if the baby's pee? That's called that's made with bromothymal blue.
Miki Agrawal:It's toxic. You should never use a diaper that has one of those wetness because it's convenient for you. Just look. It takes a second.
Kate Northrup:A %.
Miki Agrawal:You can pretty much stress pee. On it.
Kate Northrup:It's a it's a texture thing.
Miki Agrawal:It's a It's a texture thing, and it's a
Kate Northrup:marketing tactic.
Miki Agrawal:Basically basically, these big diaper companies have want because when your baby poops, like, a piece of drop, and it turns to to blue, then you have to change it in advance when you don't need to. No. You just don't need to. And so they did that so they can make more changes.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. How can we
Miki Agrawal:have more diaper changes, and they're not thinking about nature and the planet?
Kate Northrup:Well, they're not conscious capitalism.
Miki Agrawal:Right. Well, so what we're trying to do is not necessarily vilify the plastic manufacturers. We wanna ultimately supply them with our fungi and say like, hey.
Kate Northrup:Percent. Like, if it if they're gonna go keep doing that, which we like, let's having a business model that doesn't vilify Right. Is very soft power. Right.
Miki Agrawal:I imagine. That's also soft power. We're there's no villains here. Yeah. We're all learning and growing together like a mycelial network.
Miki Agrawal:We're all serving and supporting each other. Yeah. Let us be your end of life provider. Right? And so we'll start by having our hero diapers.
Miki Agrawal:They're the best performing diapers on the market. Like, I can tell you that. There are people choose that over coterie, like, on a blind test, and we've had hundreds of moms choose that over over the existing diapers that exist from a pure performance perspective. Then you tack on High performance diaper. It's a high per people care.
Miki Agrawal:Moms get that's No.
Kate Northrup:Because that is a quality of life issue.
Miki Agrawal:It is. And honestly, if if if it's not working, the mom won't care if it's sustainable or not. Like, I'm exhausted. Part.
Kate Northrup:There's a small group of moms that will sacrifice, but that is a very small.
Miki Agrawal:It's a very small. But what if there's no compromise? What if you have you're the best performing diaper that you just add a little mushroom packet to, and we we, like, eat these mushrooms. That's how that's how, like, healthy they are. They're they're safer the class
Kate Northrup:gets it after the kid has gone to the bathroom
Miki Agrawal:As you top? You're changing the diaper, you just drop it in the and then you close it, and you throw it in the trash. Great. That's the first iteration.
Kate Northrup:Yeah.
Miki Agrawal:We're then gonna put it inside the diaper once the parents feel safe and Yeah. Yeah. Once, you know, people just there's just there's we're still early days. Right.
Kate Northrup:Because people yeah. Whatever.
Miki Agrawal:There might be a little like, is this gonna but it's like Yeah. It's safer than the diaper itself. They don't understand that yet because we've just so lost touch with nature.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. Oh my god. We've just so
Miki Agrawal:lost touch.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. You know? The number of like when I because I'm raising girls in a city right now, which is like
Miki Agrawal:I know we're such city monsters.
Kate Northrup:What I expected. I I grew up in a small town in Maine, like I'd lived like in the gully in the forest, like, making mud pies. That was my that was my childhood. So the fact that I'm raising my kids in a condo right now, just I'm like, what's even happening?
Miki Agrawal:What is it? Sorry.
Kate Northrup:It's wild being such a I'm like an Earth mama. Yeah. And it's really interesting to hear their friends on the playground or the other moms talking about like how they need to be so careful about like, don't touch that. That's dirty.
Miki Agrawal:Right.
Kate Northrup:Oh, don't like all the things, like, that they're terrified that, like, their kid is gonna get some disease from picking up a feather
Miki Agrawal:I know.
Kate Northrup:In the park. I'm like, no. No. No.
Miki Agrawal:Like Yeah. You've lost
Kate Northrup:needs that. Like like, you know, eat the earth.
Miki Agrawal:I know.
Kate Northrup:Totally. Anyway, like, put some put some mushrooms in your vag.
Miki Agrawal:Like Exactly. Good idea. Exactly. And they're adapted. They're safer.
Miki Agrawal:Like I said, we're so they're friendly. We're called the heros friendly fungi. You know? And, you know, it's just again, it's a relearning. Each Exciting.
Miki Agrawal:Yeah. And each box is gonna come with a little storybook that the mom can read to the kid that will grow up with the kid Wow. Over the next three years. Every month, you'll get our our subscription's called the hero's journey. And so you'll be on, like, the hero's journey with us, which is really cool.
Kate Northrup:So fun. Yeah. Okay. I wanna know so you say you started this four and a half years ago Yeah. And you're now launching in April.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. When this comes out, it's it's probably May, so you're out.
Miki Agrawal:Yeah. We're
Kate Northrup:out. This is available. Go get your diapers.
Miki Agrawal:Get them.
Kate Northrup:How have you personally handled the patience of, like, having the big vision, knowing what's possible, and then melding that with three d reality of, like, how long it takes to get things done.
Miki Agrawal:That also is a soft power
Kate Northrup:frame Yeah.
Miki Agrawal:Framework. It's like nothing happens overnight. It's not the shareholder next quarter. It's a long term view of collaborating with nature. It's a co creation.
Miki Agrawal:It's a collaboration, and it requires so much time for me to just understand how the fungal kingdom works. Like, I'm still, like, just a blip of understanding. Like, all the things we talked about, that's that's all information I I learned over these over these last four years, and I'm still, like, a deep early days student of this work. And so co creating, collaborating with nature is a long term vision. And it yeah.
Miki Agrawal:Like, that is that's soft power. What's beautiful about nature is that it's it hugs you. It's soft, but it's also fierce, and it is unforgiving when it needs to be. And so it has seasons and it's most of the time it's in a hugging state, but they have storms. She has, you know, all the different parts and they're all welcome.
Miki Agrawal:You know? And so I think in the same context, like, to really think about the soft power framework, one of them is, like, seasonality, like seasons. Like, we we operate in seasons and we forgot. Even us as women, we have four very distinct parts of our cycle. We don't even we push through, like, luteal phase, our, you know, all the different phases.
Miki Agrawal:We have the the menstrual phase, you know, the the follicular phase, you know, and all the phases of our menstrual cycle ask for different parts of us to come out, and we often push through, you know, the different versions of us because we're not really tuned attuned to the cycles of our own systems. And so how can if not we're not even attuned to our own systems can be attuned to nature's natural cycles. Nature is not saying reap when it's winter. No. Nature is saying Rest.
Miki Agrawal:Rest. You know? Recalibrate. Recalibrate. And nature is saying when it's summer and it's like everything is harvesting, like, that's when you harvest.
Miki Agrawal:And when I think about my business Tushy, for example, you know, we harvest in our fourth quarter because it's like a very, you know, giftable, you know, bidets. It's a gift that keeps on keeps on giving, and we do 40% of our business in our fourth quarter.
Kate Northrup:So interesting. What a great gift idea.
Miki Agrawal:It's the best gift idea.
Kate Northrup:I love that.
Miki Agrawal:Yeah. Because it's really it's a gift that keeps on giving. And so people just love giving tushy. It's the right price points, like a hundred bucks
Kate Northrup:Yeah.
Miki Agrawal:Price points. Just the right and it's truly,
Kate Northrup:like, it's it's game changing. Clean, but for the holidays.
Miki Agrawal:And every time you think about me, you'll you'll every time you take a shit, you'll think about me, you're walking
Kate Northrup:out me. Yeah. Funny because in my second book, Do Us, I really do a lot of cyclical, like, you just described is the framework for that book. It's really about making more by doing less.
Miki Agrawal:I can't believe it. My my I wrote an album, and my opening single's called Do Less Be More. I will send it to you. You have to play it.
Kate Northrup:To hear it.
Miki Agrawal:It's called Do Less Be More, and it's like I wrote a seven an eight song album during my divorce.
Kate Northrup:Oh, I can't wait to can't wait to listen.
Miki Agrawal:And my the song the song that it was a favorite song Most People Must Be Well,
Kate Northrup:on our team meeting today, we just had a team meeting, we just onboarded two new team members, so it was like all our little squares like the Brady Bunch. Yeah. And we suddenly were like, we need a team song, so maybe that's it. That needs to Oh. Maybe it's the
Miki Agrawal:team I'm excited. A it's a dance
Kate Northrup:is like working for us. It's a dance song. Okay. I'm so excited. Gonna listen right
Miki Agrawal:after this.
Kate Northrup:But anyway, in now I'm off track. Wait. You had said oh my god. I got so excited. Yay.
Kate Northrup:My brain shut down. You had said about oh my god. I've lost
Miki Agrawal:We're we're
Kate Northrup:so about You were talking about the seasons.
Miki Agrawal:Oh, yeah. Seasons. Right. And so we just just Something. I know.
Miki Agrawal:We were just talking about how in the in the soft power framework, there's such a seasonality to everything.
Kate Northrup:There
Miki Agrawal:is. To our bodies, to nature. You know, you're like
Kate Northrup:There's something else. Start, but it'll it'll come back or it won't and it doesn't matter.
Miki Agrawal:Yeah. Does matter.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. I'm like such a golden retriever with you.
Miki Agrawal:I know. I know.
Kate Northrup:It's like, oh, I know. Like really excited about what you're up to and all of the connections between it. Okay. So
Miki Agrawal:Do less. Is your book about do less Yeah. But there was something. Yeah. Yeah.
Kate Northrup:So I would love to know how did motherhood Yeah. Change your relationship with working?
Miki Agrawal:Oh my god. It was it's a completely different thing because the one thing I learned is about having a child is you actually can't do two things at once. You just can't. You can't be on the phone while your kid's like, mama, mama. Like, it's you both suck.
Miki Agrawal:Like, they're both both experiences for both parties %. Doesn't work. So you actually have to be like, I'm putting my phone down and I'm with my kid. And anytime I try, it's just frustrating for everyone. And so ROI diminishes dramatically.
Miki Agrawal:It does. And so, like and it's a constant remembering because it because, you know, when you're with your kid and the phone rings, you
Kate Northrup:kind of it's also ball,
Miki Agrawal:and then you're like, it's the friend, and you're like, I can't. I have to stay present. And so there's a lot more I've learned about just being present. I'm still learning and growing. There's still moments where you're like, shit, I forgot to, you know, but like for the most part, when it's hero time, it's hero time, especially now since we do week on week off.
Kate Northrup:Okay.
Miki Agrawal:Yeah. So it's week on week off. I really cherish our time together. Even when it's Andrew's time, I still, I do, like, go to his house to see Hero all the time. So, like, we have a good good relationship enough that I could do that.
Kate Northrup:Is there anything that you would wanna pass along to folks who are, working out their co parenting agreements that's really supported you too?
Miki Agrawal:Yeah. I think if the kid is under five doing it's like a the it's the, two to three structure for for for like time. Because like in the beginning, you don't want to be away from your kid for more than a couple of days, especially as a mom. But after like seven, you know, six or seven
Kate Northrup:And your kid's now how old?
Miki Agrawal:He's seven.
Kate Northrup:He's seven. So he was a he's a twenty eighteen baby?
Miki Agrawal:Twenty
Kate Northrup:seventeen. 20 17. Okay. Because my Ruby is gonna be seven in April. Okay.
Kate Northrup:So okay. So he's
Miki Agrawal:like He's
Kate Northrup:turning eight. Six months.
Miki Agrawal:Okay. He's turning eight in in July.
Kate Northrup:Okay. So he's, like, a year, nine months older than that.
Miki Agrawal:Yeah. It's so crazy the time goes by so fast. It's so crazy. It's insane.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. It didn't when they were little. I know. For real. Dragged, and now it's going fast.
Miki Agrawal:Yeah. Yeah. It's like it's like what they say. It's like long days, short years. Yeah.
Miki Agrawal:So
Kate Northrup:02/23.
Miki Agrawal:Yeah. 02/23. When they're and then week on week off because
Kate Northrup:they need they they need to know
Miki Agrawal:where they are. You know? He needs to know where they need to know where they are. They're like, am I here? Am I there?
Miki Agrawal:Because if it's too, like, where am I again today? Yeah. It becomes disorienting. So I think, like you know, and I think the most important thing is is to have a a good like, a really solid relationship with the part with the ex partner and an ex partner's new new new partner. You know?
Miki Agrawal:And I think, like, one of the things I'm very, very proud of myself for doing is, like, when Andrew and I first got divorced and he was, like, you know, having his first, you know, two months long Yeah. Summering with his new partner, I like, we did one month each. It was our first month. You know, I get one month, you get one month for the summer. And I was like, I'm gonna spend the whole month of his month wherever he is because I'm just gonna show up every day.
Miki Agrawal:And so for his month, I I we were there in Costa Rica, so
Kate Northrup:I like, okay. I'll go
Miki Agrawal:to Costa Rica Costa Rica. So I so I so I checked in at the Bodhi Tree Resort
Kate Northrup:Yeah.
Miki Agrawal:For a month for thirty days, and they were staying like a few minutes away. And Andrew and I were not in a good place at the time. We were not we were we were we were, like, you know, coming off divorced battle of, like, who gets what and just, you know, just that. And and and even with all that, we we kind of landed the plane pretty good. But it was it was still just contentious a little bit.
Miki Agrawal:And I knew that if I spent one month in Costa Rica showing up at the beach every single day for three to four hours where they were gonna be, kind of like the third wheel ex wife chick, you know, being like, me again, you know, playing with hero in the ocean every day and just letting it all go in the ocean, I knew that those thirty days would pay dividends for the rest of our lives. And every day, I showed up for three to four hours on the beach, like Hi. Kind of like the chick, the ex wife chick. And I became friends with Andrew's new partner and, you know, I mean, she and I were close from day one, actually. She's we call her best case scenario.
Miki Agrawal:She's truly amazing.
Kate Northrup:What a dream.
Miki Agrawal:Yeah. And they're pregnant now, and I'm so excited, and it's beautiful. Wow. It's amazing.
Kate Northrup:But They've got the diaper solution all over the place.
Miki Agrawal:Yeah. Yeah. No discounts, but I'm just kidding. Yeah. No.
Miki Agrawal:No. So
Kate Northrup:so yeah. So I mean,
Miki Agrawal:you know, we I've I'm very, very again, by so by first week, you know, we were there's still, like, what are you doing here energy. And then by, you know, the second week, you know, when I was playing with with Hero, he'd be like, I can come play with you guys. And I was like, great. You know? And so then we would slowly start to mend, and then by the fourth week, we're all like Kumbaya hugging.
Miki Agrawal:And so, you know, like I said, I I'm very proud of, like, the just the just the swallowing of, the ickness and the awkwardness of the moment to just move through that time to get to the other side of just, like, we just washed it all in the ocean. It's like, you know, we had a great beginning, middle, and end, it ended. Like, I want something deeper and like, ugh, like more intimate for me. You want what you want, like beautiful. Totally.
Miki Agrawal:Like, there's no wrong. Right. Which is why, like, dating myself right now is quite lovely. I'm just like, this is I'm like, looking at my mirror, I'm like, wow. Have beautiful eyes.
Miki Agrawal:Like, you know, like, complimenting myself. Like, for the really, like, you know, just honoring myself, it just really feels good. It's not from an egoic place. It's from a place of true self love, and it's like there's a very big difference. There's a
Kate Northrup:very big difference.
Miki Agrawal:Yeah. It's actually, like, coming coming into a relationship with with full cup and and from a place of pure self love is actually like the way you're meant to go into relationship, not when you're having them try to fill a hole inside of you. Totally.
Kate Northrup:It's like the best is
Miki Agrawal:when both parties do the deep work, when they're both on their own, like, real self love journey, and then you come out of it and you're like, I love me, you love you, I'm me, you're you, can we actually, like, co elevate together? Yeah. Let's fucking go. Yeah. You know?
Kate Northrup:Something that I've witnessed in you, I don't know you well. Right? So just like from afar. Yeah. Right?
Kate Northrup:From afar, and in reading your book Disrupt Her Yeah. And and just the way you described your childhood Yeah. And the kind of more patriarchal structure of your family. And in this conversation we're having right now, I'm witnessing this beautiful opening of, like, putting down the sword, as you said, getting off the horse Yeah. And and not needing a fight to be a primary.
Kate Northrup:Right. You know, a primary, and and of course, like, don't know you well enough to know Yeah. Whether that was or or or not, but, you know, so we've got I did you sell things? Yeah. Yeah.
Kate Northrup:So you've we we had selling things and and, you know, starting Tushy and divorce and, you know, some publicity things and
Miki Agrawal:the The album. Oh, yeah. The the takedown.
Kate Northrup:Right. There was that in Throw a takedown while I'm pregnant while I'm pregnant. Just while pregnant and just like, you know, life has sort of like sanded some corners.
Miki Agrawal:Yeah. I call it I've I've been rounded by the ocean.
Kate Northrup:You've been
Miki Agrawal:rounded by
Kate Northrup:the ocean. You're a beautiful river stone. Yeah. Or, you know, rounded by the river. Yeah.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. So I wanna know if, you know and and again, like, Disrupt Her came out in 2019, so a lot of water water under the bridge since then, six years since its publication date, but, know, of course, gotta write the book, like, well before it comes out. Yeah. Who even knows when you wrote this?
Miki Agrawal:Totally. Was I wrote it the first two I wrote it the first two months
Kate Northrup:of Hero's birth. When Hero was born, I
Miki Agrawal:wrote the book the first two months of his birth. Because I went through the take down So
Kate Northrup:I'm sorry. So you were two months postpartum?
Miki Agrawal:No. No. I was the for the the first like, literally, he
Kate Northrup:I gave birth and then you wrote a book. I wrote a book for two
Miki Agrawal:Wow. While it was the first two
Kate Northrup:months Postpartum.
Miki Agrawal:And recovering from c section. That's wild.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. Was that just like a timing thing?
Miki Agrawal:It was that it was because deadline? No. It was because I had gone through the takedown Yeah. While I was pregnant. Attempted takedown because I I won in the courts and everything, and it was all, like, thrown out and everything.
Miki Agrawal:But, like oh, I'm hungry. Like, my tummy's growling. So I I so it was like a a whole, like, it was like a real, like, I was hold I was really protective of my baby inside my belly, and so I had so much I wanted to say about feminism, patriarchy, people using feminism and patriarchy for self gain, like the world of power dynamics, like all this stuff, emotional capacity, like how when we go through something really painful, it's actually a beautiful experience because your emotional capacity increases. Like, all this of what does love actually mean and look like, all this stuff was, like, swirling inside of me while I was hormonal and pregnant, but still very protective of the media saying crazy things about me, just being so cruel and unfair, and just, like, no fact checking, no asking me what actually happened.
Kate Northrup:Right. You you don't have any control
Miki Agrawal:over your area of And because my board at the time forced me to to have to to not talk, I couldn't actually even defend myself. It was like a whole because my equity was on the line. It was just like a whole
Kate Northrup:It is really the ultimate surrender.
Miki Agrawal:Thing. So I have I was just like, it was the ultimate surrender. I just was like, okay. Yeah. There's this universe is giving me a deep gift right now.
Miki Agrawal:In this moment, it's very, very hard hard to see it, but I know there's a gift in there, and ultimately, it was the expansion of my emotional capacity. Like, did become a softer human because I had to soften in that process while giving birth. And I think I had so much I wanted to say, but I my tongue was cut off during that period of time by my powers that be at the time was really it was the whole thing was so, like, a game of power money. Like, it was like, ugh. Anyways and so then and, know, I wasn't perfect either.
Miki Agrawal:I was, like, you know, a tough, like, boss. I didn't do those things, but I also was, you know, like, again, like, we were all trying to build a company. We made mistakes, but it wasn't like those kinds of mistakes. It was different kinds of mistakes, but whatever.
Kate Northrup:You're like, at least take me down for what I
Miki Agrawal:asked you. Take me down for, like, being a bitch sometimes, but, like, not necessarily,
Kate Northrup:like Like, hi. Welcome to being human.
Miki Agrawal:I know. It's like we're we all have bad days. Totally. Fuck you. Yeah.
Miki Agrawal:Anyways. And one of the things in the hot soft power framework is, like, going from pedestal to path. Like, people put you in a pedestal when you're a leader, people put in a pedestal when you're, like, in the world, people put you and it's like and it's just like versus I'm on a path of growth just like you. I'm on a path of making mistakes and coming back from it just like you. There's no pedestaling of any kind that we do because you're only you're only a putting yourself down by actually pedestaling someone else.
Miki Agrawal:And then when you're looking for someone else to fail, that's another way of putting yourself down versus just like we're all on a path of growth. We're all figuring this out. We're all hormonal at times. We're all under slept at times. We're all going through shit at times, and we're not gonna be perfect all the time and or ever, you know, and that's all okay.
Miki Agrawal:You know? So and so why I wrote the book this first, because I just the baby was born, and I was like, oh, my baby's healthy. It's born. Like, I had a C section. I was holding so much, but once the baby was out, I just needed to get all the things I wanted to say out of my body, and that's what this book Disruptor is about.
Miki Agrawal:This book is literally, like, from the heart of, like, the experience of the takedown of the patriarchy of the feminism of the what people wanna say about me, like, putting people like, the chirping, the complaining, the like, just the talking shit energy, like, just the swirl. I just needed to get it out of my body, and that was, like, the most cathartic thing I could do. Kind of like when I got know, ended my marriage Yeah. I wrote my book my album
Kate Northrup:Your album.
Miki Agrawal:You know, because by What's
Kate Northrup:the album called?
Miki Agrawal:It's called it's called, It All Exists.
Kate Northrup:It All Exists.
Miki Agrawal:By the moniker Soul Gate. So my friend Happy and I, you know, she you know, we collaborate together on actually making the music. I wrote all the words because it was from my, like it was from the yearning and from the heart and from the stuff, but it's check out It All Exists by Soul Gaze.
Kate Northrup:Okay.
Miki Agrawal:And there's two versions of the album. There's the dance album, which I do all the spoken word for, and then there's the acoustic album, which Happy does all the singing, and, but I wrote all the lyrics. And so it's sort of like this I call it kind of like a a love op opera. Like, it really kind of walks you through the kind of like the the whole it all exists. Like, love exists in so many forms.
Miki Agrawal:It's all beautiful. There's there's nothing wrong with it. It's all beautiful. So so it's sort of like this disruptor was that cathartic, like, I had to get it out moment After a baby, right after my baby
Kate Northrup:was born. Right after your baby. Yeah. And then this cathartic creation after your divorce. Yeah.
Kate Northrup:So you may already know this, but I just wanna, like, pin for listeners that when we create, when we are in an act of creativity, whether it's writing lyrics for an album, writing a book, making soup, cutting out snowflakes on a cardboard, you know, like on a construction paper with a paper. Like, whatever. When we are in the act of creation, it actually is metabolizing stress. Yeah. It actually is rewiring our nervous system.
Kate Northrup:It actually is alchemizing the emotions. Like, that is a profoundly healing act, and it changes our physiology.
Miki Agrawal:Yeah.
Kate Northrup:And I think some of what I'm witnessing emerge with with you, with this soft power movement, and and and what you're stepping into is such evidence Yeah. Of taking experience and metabolizing it through art, and it's really critical.
Miki Agrawal:Thank you. And creation. I mean, ultimately, like, after I stepped down from things and and and then and then, you know, really took the reins for Tushy, and with Justin, my now co founder and CEO of Tushy is amazing. And our team is amazing. Our Tushy team's amazing.
Miki Agrawal:It was just putting my heart into something new was also really amazing and it was its own redemption in a lot of ways. Right? It's like, you know, people are like, you know, it's like, oh, she's like got lucky or like with things or like right timing and right people love to bring people down of just saying like, right time, right place, like all the things. But then, like, you know, and then and then I couldn't defend myself. Was cut cut my my tongue was cut off, and so I put my head down and created, made made made wrote the book and built TUSHY.
Miki Agrawal:TUSHY's, you know, done over, you know, few hundred million in revenue, like we've raised only 4,000,000, like we're it's really cool.
Kate Northrup:It's really cool. Yeah. And just the way, like, I just I'm just, like, excited by the way you've revolutionized the things that come out of human bodies. Okay. So as we wrap up here Yeah.
Kate Northrup:I would just love to know one thing that between when you wrote this in 2017 Yeah. And now that you would add as like a piece of wisdom well earned, and then where people can find all the things.
Miki Agrawal:Yeah. I think I I I have an the next book is gonna
Kate Northrup:be called Soft Power.
Miki Agrawal:Of course.
Kate Northrup:It is Naturally. We'll have you back on when it comes out.
Miki Agrawal:For sure. Yeah. And it's it's gonna be this it's I'm on the journey right now of, like again, it's like when we know what's worked in the past and we, like, kind of, like, get back on the horse with the sword, and then you're like, no. No. No.
Miki Agrawal:I don't want It's it is it's a it's a true rewiring and it's a practice. It's a daily practice. I just started working with a coach again. I I had my I had my somatic therapist every twice a month as well, but then I just started working with my coach again every week to really do like, to work on the left hand path, to really focus on, you know, freedom of self and, like, what what am I holding on to and, like, what can I let go of, like, all the time? And, you know, I think it's creating this new company, this new project, this new communing with nature.
Miki Agrawal:It's gonna be a very different experience than the first two, and that's what I'm excited about. It's not the what. Like, of course, we're gonna be able to build something. We we know kind of a lot of the steps on how to create something and build something, but it's the energetics around it. It's like the how we're doing it that I'm just in the yearning and in the in the curiosity of like how it's going to go down because I do find myself when I'm stressed, like, you know, being back in this old old way, and I'm just like, no.
Miki Agrawal:No. No. No. I have to go back to my altar, sit on my altar, pray, work with my coach, go work with somatic therapist, just sit and pray, talk to the trees, like, sit and breathe. Like, it's a it's a it's a real practice.
Miki Agrawal:It's a real rewiring, and and I'm excited. Like, you know, Harvard Business School did a case study on things Amazing.
Kate Northrup:Which is huge. That is huge.
Miki Agrawal:And as a company, you know, disrupting the industry, etcetera, and I'm so proud of that. I'm excited about the potential of Harvard Business Review doing a case study on soft power on leading from the soft part of us, not the hard part of us, and how that can make 10 times, hundred times more difference if you tack on conscious capitalism on top of that. So that's my that's my quest.
Kate Northrup:That's a good
Miki Agrawal:one. And so I think it's about the softening, the remembering, it's the forgiving and continuing again, getting back, trying again and again and again, and that's this journey. It's not like there's nothing that's absolute. It's not like, well, I've I've arrived. You know?
Miki Agrawal:I've done the thing. I'm now going from disruptor to soft power. I'm good. You know? It's a it's a real daily moment to moment practice.
Miki Agrawal:I love
Kate Northrup:Amazing. Okay. So where should people come to find you? Where can they get their diapers? Yes.
Kate Northrup:Where can they get their Hello Tushy? Their Tushy with hellotushy.com. I know that one.
Miki Agrawal:Yeah. And books and everything.
Kate Northrup:Where? Okay. Where should they go?
Miki Agrawal:Well, first, just at Mickey Aggarwal on Instagram. That's I I mostly just do Instagram. And then hero it's hero@hir0technologies is our current, but when we launch, it's gonna be herodiapers.com. Okay.
Kate Northrup:Great. So it's it's launched now. It's launched. It's Herodiapers.com.
Miki Agrawal:H I r 0 h I r, pronounced hero, not hiro, hero. And herodiapers.com, Tushy literally will change change your life forever.
Kate Northrup:It will change your life.
Miki Agrawal:It will change your life forever.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. It will.
Miki Agrawal:Hello Tushy.com. Don't go to Tushy.com. It's a very graphic anal porn site. Go to hello
Kate Northrup:How exciting.
Miki Agrawal:Tushy.com. That Yeah. That was always interesting. Investors would be like, oh god. Not.
Miki Agrawal:You don't want that cookie falling. No. Basically. Yeah. No.
Miki Agrawal:So hello tushy.com. And then and then the book Disrupt Her, Do Cool Shit. Good. And then my album, go to Spotify. It's on Spotify.
Miki Agrawal:It's on all the
Kate Northrup:Okay.
Miki Agrawal:Great. Different things. It all exists by Soul Gaze. Check it out. It really is from my heart, and you'll you'll feel it.
Miki Agrawal:And I think when you read Disruptive, you'll you'll now now you have context as to, like, all the shit I went through, and then it was, like, truly just, like, the coming back story is in there is in that book. What did you get out of it real quick?
Kate Northrup:Oh, my gosh. Well, I just I I love like, first of all, I love the art, the graphics I do all of I didn't know. Was like, this book is so beautiful. Thank you. Like, first of all.
Kate Northrup:And I have personally, like, one of my things is undoing my good girl patterning. So for me, it's so much permission, like, you are a living example of, just freaking do the thing, you know? And and like, yeah, of course, you're gonna have feelings about it. You're gonna, you know, push people's buttons, like whatever. And like, we don't change culture without pushing the boundary, without the disruption, without getting out there and being willing to make people uncomfortable.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. You know? And so for me, it's like very permissive. Mhmm. So I appreciate that.
Miki Agrawal:I love that.
Kate Northrup:And I appreciate you.
Miki Agrawal:I appreciate you.
Kate Northrup:Thanks for being so open. Thanks for telling all your stories, and thanks for being you.
Miki Agrawal:You too. You look great. You look good. Skin looks great.
Kate Northrup:Wow. Well, thanks.
Miki Agrawal:I mean, really. It's amazing.
Kate Northrup:So does yours. Thank you. A couple months ago, I was at the Miraval Spa and Resort in Austin, Texas with a group of women I'm in a peer led mastermind with. So we are all multi 7 figure business owners, and we gathered together to mastermind, to do hot seats, to sit in the hot tub, to get massages, to do, you know, aerial hammock meditation yoga. And it was incredible.
Kate Northrup:From the staff, to the food, to the services, to the offerings, Miraval was absolutely a wonderful place to host this retreat. So if you're needing some r and r, if you need a reset, if you wanna get together with girlfriends, or just find a place or a partner and find a place to reset, Tap into your deepest truth, calm your nervous system so you can hear your intuition, and really take a beautiful break, a beautiful powerful break, check out Miraval Spa and Resort in Austin, Texas.
Miki Agrawal:Hi.