What's The Big Idea: Miki Agrawal - The Importance of Disruptive Thinking (for business success and personal growth)

“From the point you graduate college to the point you die, you only have 21,000 days to live and that’s it, so the question is … What are we going to do with that time?”


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Miki Agrawal (www.mikiagrawal.com) is a serial social entrepreneur and all around badass…her biggest and most prestigious honor to date is obviously being Andrew’s wife :)

She was the recipient of The Tribeca Film Festival’s “Disruptive Innovation Award”, she was named “2017 Young Global Leader by World Economic Forum”, “Social Entrepreneur of the Year” by the World Technology Summit, she was one of INC Magazine’s “Most Impressive Women Entrepreneurs of 2016”, Forbes’ “Top 20 Millennials on a Mission”, and made the cover of Entrepreneur Magazine in 2016. Most recently, she was named Fast Company’s Most Creative People in 2018.

She is the founder of the acclaimed farm-to-table, alternative pizza concept called WILD (www.eatdrinkwild.com) with 3 locations in New York City, one in Guatemala and more on the way.

She co-founded THINX (www.shethinx.com), a high-tech, period-proof underwear brand and led the company as CEO to a valuation of over $150 Million and to Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies of 2017, all while helping tens of millions of women period better. She also co-founded Icon, a high-tech pee-proof underwear brand that helps women manage light bladder leakage.

She most recently founded TUSHY (www.hellotushy.com), a company that is revolutionizing the American toilet category with a modern, affordable, designer bidet attachment that both upgrades human health & hygiene as well as the environment from wasteful toilet paper consumption. She and her team are also helping fight the global sanitation crisis by bringing clean latrines to underserved communities in India through their partnership with Samagra.

Harper Collins published her first book entitled "DO COOL SH*T" on entrepreneurship and lifestyle design and Hay House is publishing her second book “Disrupt-Her” which just came out this March!

Miki is an identical twin, half-Japanese, half-Indian French Canadian, former professional soccer player, graduate of Cornell University and proud new mama of Hiro Happy.


Key insights Shared:

  • Why it’s important that more people embrace the idea that we can disrupt the status quo

  • Disruptive innovation and how business vs. personal disruption intersect

  • If you become more aware of what you’re thinking about in regards to disrupting the status quo, it might lead you to where you want to go and eventually lead you to make money in that path

  • Feeding some sort of responsibility that I have (what I’m supposed to be doing) and what society told me is okay

  • The taboo of talking about money (status quo)

  • How to start having the conversations that we want to have in our relationships

  • The importance of building a community of people who are living the life the way you want to live it, in order to live your life on your own terms

  • The value of showing up, contributing, and being consistent

  • Social Enterprise: Make money, shift consciousness, and meet human needs

  • Grit vs. curiosity and resourcefulness in business

  • Not being resigned to “I don’t know.”, figuring it out and being resourceful

  • If you love what you have created – you will talk to anyone about it!

  • The more we sound like we’re texting our best friend in branding, the more we align with our authentic voice

  • The value of presenting the brand value proposition along with accessible, and relatable language

Moments You Don’t Want to Miss:

[3:20]  Miki’s big idea

[5:00] Miki’s latest venture of disruption

[7:30] Disrupting the status quo in specific industry categories

[8:35] Miki’s view on why we should disrupt the status quo

[10:30] Disruptive innovation and how business vs. personal disruption intersect

[11:55] What advice would you give to the person who is in a routine and is accepting the hand they’ve been given, but wants to start life with a new lens?

[14:00] How do we start introducing behaviors that are aligned with how we want to be living our life?

[14:45] The taboo of talking about money (status quo)

[17:50] The idea of being a conversation catalyst within your community

[18:11] The importance of building a community of people who are living the life the way you want to live it, in order to live your life on your own terms…

[20:25] How you can build a thriving community that meets you where you are currently at in life

[24:05] How can I contribute, and support the community that I want to be a part of?

[26:45] Turning disruption of the status quo into business success

[31:15] The one characteristic that can most detect the success of entrepreneurs

[31:50] “What sucks in my world?” How can people leverage this question to find their next business idea?

[35:55] Grit vs. curiosity and resourcefulness

[37:40] What entrepreneurs should think about to build a business in these taboo markets and disruptive categories

[39:00] Miki’s disruptive business thesis

[42:35] One of the best things to keep in mind for finding creative talent

[43:50] The idea of “breathing room” in creativity

[46:05] Why spending a lot of time considering brand identity and aesthetic is important  

[50:35] Why the ability to be disliked is such a powerful tool in business

[52:08] An overview of tangible actions listeners can take away from this conversation

[53:20] The one thing that Miki wants people to leave this conversation remembering


To learn more about Miki and her current ventures, see below:

- https://www.disrupther.co/

- https://www.mikiagrawal.com/

- https://hellotushy.com/ (if you really want to properly clean yourself)

- hhttps://www.instagram.com/mikiagrawal/?hl=en