Miki Agrawal
Appearances
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
All of our ideas that we do, it really stems from, there's a problem, let's solve it, instead of complain about it. Our Indian father always said, create, don't complain. You know, in a world of like so many complainers and sort of backseat drivers and trolls. Talk, talk, talk, and no action. Yeah, for us, it's like, okay, there's a problem, let's solve it.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And I think that you nailed it. I think it's really about embodiment. I think it's about dancing your way through life. I think it's, to me, it's twofold. It's one, it's... Um, get out of your head into our bodies, right? I think we're so cut off at the head and we forget that our bodies actually hold all the wisdom.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
So how can we actually move into a kind of a more integrated work, live, play environment and escape? But, but burnout to me happens because... Yeah, I think sometimes like you're just working with two pieces that they're missing. One is without clear direction. Right. And without kind of the support and community to to help you stay kind of in the pocket. Right.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
I think that's what I was going to say, which was that part about. I think because we're twins, we're really good at asking for help. Excuse me, can you help me? Like, Radha, come help me. Can you? And we're so used to being like, you know, let's go, like, let's go, you know? And it's like, there's always a, like, team.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
Like, we grew up, we were in the womb together, like from the womb to the tomb, like we have this saying, and it's like, We've always been in community, always asking for help. A lot of people are too proud to ask for help, ask for support. Literally, when we're anywhere, it's like, excuse me, can you help me with my luggage up top? Can you carry the stroller down the stairs?
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
We have no problems asking for help. And I think when you ask for help, it gives other people purpose. And when we do it in a way that's full of excitement, it actually enrolls people in ways, and that's authentic, because it is authentic. I think that's the sweet spot, is like, yes, there's the awe, the curiosity, the playfulness, there's the doing and being able to get shit done, but...
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
it requires a lot of support. It requires a lot of help. And we have, across all of my companies, our companies, we've been able to attract the best people ever because of the enthusiasm, because of the excitement, the idea itself, but then also, like...
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
the feeling of, like, the usefulness that they all feel because they are playing integral, important roles that we're like, wow, like, you do this? I'm so inspired. And then they're like, wow, you do this? I'm so inspired. So we have this mutual awe of each other that then creates this upward spiral of, like, let's fucking go. Yeah. And I think another thing to add to that is, like, integrating.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
Like, I think people burn out because they're heads down, working 100-hour weeks, and there's no integration in their lives. Meaning... they haven't made time for community. It's sort of like, okay, I'm gonna focus on swiping to meet my romantic partner.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
I'm going to heads down work 100-hour work week, so focus on work and my professional career, and then community and friendship will come when I have time. Or, you know, like, if I have, you know, a moment here and there, right? And so...
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
When you flip that and you actually focus on community first, and you really prioritize your friends and your community, not only will they first introduce you to love interests and romantic partners, but they will also be there for you in all the moments of struggle in your work and in the work that we do. So I get to sort of both celebrate my wins and my victories, like when we sold things,
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
we took 50 friends to Columbia on an all expenses paid vacation because they were there with and for us on the journey of building things. And so most entrepreneurs maybe don't have even any friends to celebrate their wins with because they've been dog-eat-dogging or elbowing their way to get to the finish line. isolated themselves.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And so, it's so critical to actually flip the paradigm from career and romantic partnership, and then friendship second, to community first, romantic and career second, because the community will actually support both of those parts of your life.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And it's fun too.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
it was so powerful to see the community show up. Like Radha and like 20 friends came with like a boom box, circled me, you know, with music and danced around during that time. And like for a year, I probably didn't have one day where I didn't have friends coming over, bringing me food, bringing music, bringing song, bringing love, bringing cheer, juice, whatever. Um,
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And, you know, we battled like, you know, the big bad wolf together, you know? And we got to, you know, heal together and they got to witness healing happen. They got to witness like, you know, me on my knees and like asking for help and support and love. And they were like here for it.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
Sure. So we were defending our three-legged race championship title, our family barbecue. It's called Agripalooza. And it was a 10-year title that we were the reigning champions of. It's like egg toss and three-legged race are these two kind of like tentpole events at our annual Agripalooza. Our last name is Agrawal, so Agripalooza. It was, you know, competitive, everything competitive.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And I think imagine going through that experience alone when you're literally going through this type of an experience where you're running out of money in your company or you're going through a story that is really difficult. You're going through a challenge at work and you've given all of yourself to the project and you have no one to confide in or turn to.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And that's why one in three Americans have zero friends to confide in. This number has tripled in the last 30 years and turns out having poor social connections is as harmful to your physical health as being an alcoholic and twice as harmful as obesity or smoking 15 cigarettes per day. So, loneliness is really prevalent amongst entrepreneurs, amongst, I mean, one in three Americans in general.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And I think we've become more lonely as we've continued to swipe post-pandemic. There's so many experiences that we're, you know, the political polarization that we're facing, of course, during these elections.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
You know, we're in a really important time to come back to each other, to remember the importance of belonging and community, and that's sort of why we've dedicated so much of our life to that effort and community.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
A hundred percent. And we're not perfect.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
PMS sometimes, too. And we, you know, sometimes there's so much going on that we're like barking orders sometimes. But our team feels so loved, celebrated by us. Like, you know what I mean? Like, it's a beautifully textured relationship. but ultimately it is that cheerleading. It is that, it is that like the passion that keeps all of us so motivated.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And I think there's a, there's a, there's a fine line between, just being a cheerleader and holding someone also to their highest and their best. And I think, actually, people really value and feel more motivated when they have a manager or a team leader who's holding you accountable to sort of pushing you, hey, Alyssa, I know you could do better than that.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
I know you've got, like, a deeper, more magical, you know, like... Can you go all the way?
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
Yeah, you know, and I think, like, it's not just leading from, like, Paula Abdul on American Idol. Like, people, like, look at Simon Cowell, even if he's kind of an asshole, but he's like, but they respect him because he often gives really specific pointed advice.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
That's helpful, and he's right. And so I think that mixing the cheerleader with a really sort of, like, Tough love feedback, but loving. So that they want to show up with their best self, and there's an excitement for that. One of my friends, David Yarris, who's working for a company right now, he's like it's the first time he feels excited to work for this company.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
He owns an agency, and his client is this big functional medicine company. And he's just like, it's the first time I feel challenged. He's like, usually I can just coast my way through by just sort of like sharing presentations or whatever. But like, they're pushing back. They're pushing me to do better. They're pushing me. They're motivating me.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And I'm staying up till three o'clock in the morning for the first time in like 15 years and like working my ass off because I feel so challenged and excited. I want to prove myself. And there's something exciting about a manager or a partner or a leader or a company or a coach who's going to hold you to that.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
So we were tied to each other in a three-legged race. And so then, of course, we, like, you know, ready, set, go. And then we were running together, tied to each other. In the middle of the race, Radha started her period. And then, like, she started bleeding into my sock. And then we started, like, sprinting through the finish line in first place, obviously. And then we sprinted, we kept going.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
Exactly. And I feel that way even as we're building our new company and with Tushy, our design teams, both teams, they know that I don't mince my words when it comes to creativity. It's like, I think you can go further. I want to create something that's iconic. Is this iconic? It's not iconic. And it's sort of like, will other people copy us? If this is not copyable, then it's not iconic enough.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And so they're like, okay.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And a way to do it is like, okay, put three Pinterest boards together, the most iconic shit you've ever seen in these three different directions and then come back to me. And then it's like, then it crystallizes. Then it's like, okay. And then all of a sudden they surprise themselves and produce something that they didn't think they could.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
They need enough direction to then go and be creative. Because you need a sandbox to play in. Because if it's just like full on, there's like, where do you start? It's like, give me the sandbox and let me play and create as much as I can inside the sandbox. But everyone, including children, adults, like boundaries. Boundaries are really important.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And that's, and that's, and that's coaching. Learned boundaries. Wow.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
But when it comes to, to, to feedback, when it comes to, you know, like pushing the, pushing people to think bigger and think further, you know, is requires, um, that's the visionary piece that I think is required, but then, but then giving them enough rope to go and like create the coolest knot and the coolest ribbons and the whatever they want to create with the rope.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And to celebrate it when they do. And when they come back, you're like, that's it. And I think, like, if you're gonna be a leader, you have to love teaching, right? I really feel that. It's like you as a coach, you as a leader, you love to teach. You know, I love teaching. Mickey loves teaching. I love... might teaching my masterclass on community building.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
I love teaching the next generation of community builders how to do it, how to design experiences, how to build scalable communities, you know, all across the world. And when I think about just like the passion for teaching, that's in service of the other person. I think so often in this life, in this world that we live in, it's like, what do I get out of it? Me, me, me.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
I, I, I. And I just think that the more you can teach them, the more they'll actually not only call themselves forward, but they will also, they will become teachers themselves for their next generation. It's like, it really becomes a trickle down. And also they'll get like a bit more like calloused hands in that like, right now everyone is so like, you know, like, like fragile, you know?
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And so it's sort of like, no, when you're giving them like feedback with love and say like, you've got this, I believe in you. Like, come on, like you can do better like that. It's like there, it's a training ground for life. It's not just like, you're doing great, fired, find someone else. It's like actually like, let's see what you've got, but like, you gotta dig deeper. You've gotta dig deeper.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And I think like, so often, like there's a fear of like, does it make me feel like a bad boss? Am I like being too, like, you know, overbearing? Am I, you know, like being too critical? Am I intense? And I beat myself up a lot about like, did I come off intense?
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
Like, cause sometimes we're moving so quickly of so many things, like, you know, then you're just like, shit, but like, but then they come back and they bring something and you're just like, okay, like, You know, it's always a calibration. It's like a game of calibration when it comes to leadership. You know, there's so much calibration happens internally, externally, in relationship.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
We kept going up the stairs to our family room bathroom so she can change out her bathing suit bottoms and wash them out. And as she was washing out the blood from bathing suit bottoms is when we had the idea. Like, oh my God, it would be amazing. It would be amazing to create a pair of underwear that never leak, that never stain, that supported you on every day of the month.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And for me, like when I'm when there's too many things on my to do list, I'm moving too quickly. It ends up coming out intense, sparky when I like slow down.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
lower my tone of voice, really, really think... There's this video that my friend showed me about this guy who is... It's just a total funny comedy about this guy who wants to become a politician. And Nelson Mandela basically was like, you have to slow down your voice and make comments like this. And so it's like that level of like...
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
When it's, oh my God, excitement, we can be our full effervescent, vivacious selves. But when it comes to tough feedback, it's for me, it's the learning of dropping in, slowing down, lowering my voice.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
They have to deal with their feelings being hurt.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And it ends up taking 10 times more time. And then I spend time just like calibrating my own self, being like, oh, I was too hard. I was like beating myself up about like, oh, was that too intense or whatever? Versus like when it's exciting, yay. When it's fat, it's fun. When it's feedback, slow. I love this.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
Yeah, I love you. So for me, Daybreaker really, our foundation is about belonging and belonging through the lens of joy, through the lens of the body. And, you know, I went to Burning Man, and the creation story is I went to Burning Man, and I, at that time, had only been comfortable dancing if I was drunk or if I was, you know, whatever. I just didn't fully know myself.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And I remember going to, you know, deep playa, throwing my bike down, and just sober, getting into my body. It was like four o'clock in the morning, and I just remember closing my eyes alone. I didn't know a single person at Burning Man, except for my RV, my sister, and three friends that I went with. This is 12 years ago, before I started Daybreaker.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And I remember just being anonymous in a sea of just like strangers. And so, just the safety of being able to just practice being in my body. I remember closing my eyes and just finding myself for the first time, finding my self-expression for the first time, and crying, and just like this, like, coming home to my body, because we're so cut off, right?
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
Like the three-legged race. Then we talked to her older sister, Yuri, who's a surgeon. And she was like, we were like, all of your underwear are stained brown. Like, why? She's like, well, in the middle of an operation, you can't be like, yo, face while you're cut open. Let me just go and change my tampon while you're, you know, you have to bleed through.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
We're in our head, we're not in our bodies, we need a Medicaid to be in our bodies. And so the idea was like, in that moment, it was this aha of like, oh my gosh, like, how is it that it only... can we find ourselves in these faraway festivals? How can we bring this type of return to self into the cities where we live? And so Daybreaker was really born from that kind of a social experiment.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
It's our project where my co-founder, Matt Breimer, and I, he and I, you know, got together and we just said, let's try to bring that experience of a sober dance party. Oh, and then, actually, one thing I missed out was, as I was dancing, my eyes closed, crying, coming home to my body, I then blinked my eyes open and the sun was rising.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And you know what happens when the sun is rising and you're just, like, seeing and all of a sudden the whole, just the desert just lights up. And I just remember being in the most incredible awe and realizing, oh my gosh, like, we just don't dance enough in the daytime. We're always dancing at night.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And so the idea was like, okay, let's replace the, you know, let's replace all the negatives of nightlife with the positives of daylife. So let's make the dance party, let's call it Daybreaker, we'll break the day. with energy and tension in life and do it in cities where we live. So we started in New York and then it grew very quickly to San Francisco and LA and London and Paris and Chicago.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And now we're in, you know, 45 cities around the world. We're a community of a million people. And just people, I think, are just tired of going to bed. I think there's a wellness movement, right, that happened And people realize like they need sleep. Yeah. We want sleep. We want to, we want to get like sleep is such an important part of mental health.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And so let's still find a place to dance and connect with the light, with the circadian rhythms, drink green juice instead of alcohol and do it in, you know, where you can get to know yourself, come home to yourself rather than escape yourself, which so much of festival culture can be. Right? And so... It's incredible.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
Like, you can't... Like, it's very difficult to go to any other party after going to Daybreaker, because the vibration is so high. Like, every time I leave, the frequency of my body, I'm vibrating at the highest level. It's truly next level. Well, we're in our 11th season, and so it's wild, you know, when you think of a dance party, you know, they typically come and go.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
If you're in the middle of a soccer game, you can't be like ref.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And I think that the reason why the threat of this is here to stay is that, you know, we're only a million, you know, it's a lot, but we're only a million community members strong. There's seven billion, eight billion people on the planet.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And it's like if everyone just woke up and started their day with a dance party in costume with a friend or two, or just outside in the sun with the vitamin D on your face, like think about how different the world would be. So I think we still have a lot of work to do in this space and just in terms of proliferating around the world, but just really excited.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
Can you stop the game? I got to go change my tampon.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And I'll also say one thing about Daybreaker is that it's like you rarely see a community of people like so behind something and just like, oh my God, the Daybreaker, it's like the band that's like coming to town, you know? And it just... it creates such a space of like belonging. Like it's such a place where people can like feel like they can go and know how they're gonna feel when they leave.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
They're gonna feel so good. And so it's like, why wouldn't you want, that's why it's been 11 years old. That's why it keeps going because it's not like a, okay, this club is done because I've done enough And I'm like kind of like this place reminds me of like the down that I feel after, you know, versus like when you whenever whenever I think about Daybreaker, I feel my body's frequency rise.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And so why wouldn't you want to go do that for yourself over and over again with it with people that you meet, fall in love with, build community with? It's just... Yeah, fully expressed in the morning.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
Yeah. There's so many moments. And so in that moment. Actually, what was interesting about it was the blood came right off my bathing suit bottom. And I was like, oh, this is an interesting moment of material that the blood can actually come off. But it's not breathable. Bathing suit bottoms, you can't wear them as underwear because it's not that your vagina can't breathe.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
Yeah, I mean, we also just launched our nonprofit this year, Belong Center, to end loneliness. But I think really, you know, that's our biggest pandemic of our time, is that we are a lonely population. We, you know, the foundations of our society are pushing us to be in our, you know, alone homes, in our alone cities, in our alone offices, in our work-at-home alone spaces.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And, you know, we are less and less sort of meeting in social spaces. And so... to me, these third spaces like Daybreaker, you know, where you get to go and you get to just, like, dress up and meet people all ages. We've had Jane Goodall come to Daybreaker, you know, studying a new type of human or infant, you know, down to, you know, lots of pregnant women or little toddlers in their carriers.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And it's just, it's an intergenerational community. And I really believe that, you know, when we silo, the reason why people don't belong is I think we often silo you know, people based on age groups. You're millennials, you're Gen Zs, you're, you know, Gen X, you're a boomer.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
It's when you actually mix all the groups and the humans together, when you have, you know, all these generations learning and supporting and modeling and sort of teaching each other in that way. It just makes for just a much more cohesive, rich community experience.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
Yeah, and just kind of like off that, when I think about the way we built Things versus the way we built TUSHY is a very, very stark difference where I think it was like all young white women, you know, mostly. And while it was obviously a period product, so it was a certain way, but it did create a bit of a siloed experience and expression versus when TUSHY was built,
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
we made a very, very clear point to make it age diverse, race diverse, gender diverse, like just super, super diverse across all three race, gender, and age. And the level of cohesiveness, the ideation, the camaraderie, the respect, it's just a different, much more beautiful thing.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And so... When things are homogenous, when things are one way homogenous, it's hard to feel a sense of belonging because there's going to be competition, there's going to be jealousy.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
If they're the same age, they look the same, they dress the same, then eventually going to be like, you know, someone's going to, oh, her eyelashes are longer than mine. Or she got a promotion, I didn't, or she does, or whatever.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
So you spent like four years really developing the technology. Exactly.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
versus like, there's a much more rich, cohesive, you bring this perspective, that perspective, there's, you know, a wisdom from the age, or there's like new wisdom for the youth, like, and it's a learning from each other constantly.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And, you know, like, as we build all the next future things, it's like age, there is something about diversity of inclusion, like there is actually, there's a reason it works.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And it's not because it's like, check the box. It actually works better. Makes for a more rich, a better, creative, collaborative experience.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
I just feel like we always like to solve problems that start with our problems in our own lives. And then then we kind of extrapolate. Is it is it is it a problem for a lot of people? It's a three question. What sucks in my world? Does it suck for a lot of people? Can we be passionate about this for a really long time?
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And I wrote a book called Belong. And really, I just think that we know why belonging is so important, but we don't know how. How do you belong? Like, what is, you know, what are the best ways, you know, to belong?
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And to me, it's like the moments that are the happiest in our lives are when weddings, you know, parties, like birthdays, like all these moments we get to dance, we get to dress up, we get to celebrate life. And so that's sort of, you know, to me, Daybreaker is sort of that wedding birthday, you know, kind of gathering, we get to dress up and have fun with the sun and tuck you in by 10 p.m. Yeah.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
Yeah. So Belong Center, you know, it's a national nonprofit where we launched a program across all 50 states already. I mean, just in the last year alone. And we're a brand new nonprofit, but we've been, you know, I think press and media love us because...
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
Again, everyone talks about why ending loneliness is important, but no one is actually boots on the ground building centers, creating the programs, doing the work to actually end loneliness. And so we've launched programs including Belong Circles.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
So it's a curriculum-based, facilitator-led Belong Circle where it's a 75-minute circle where you meet once a month in whatever city or state that you're in.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
We're both heavy bleeders, you know? And I just think that we've had always, and we continue to this day, every month it's like, it's my first time. I'm like, oh shit, my period, you know? And so I just feel like we always like to solve problems that start with our problems in our own lives. And then we kind of extrapolate, is it a problem for a lot of people?
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And in that 75-minute circle, you're getting to know one another, you're meeting each other, you're working on different strategies on how to make friends, how to connect with one another, you're bonding with each other, you're doing somatic practices. And by the end of it, you walk out of a belong circle and you're like, I don't feel lonely, I feel more connected, I feel more hopeful.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
I feel like I can actually go out and learn. I know how to make new friends now. I know exactly what to do. I'm going to throw my first dinner party. I'm going to create an event experience to go and do that in my little community where I live. And so I'm just really excited about this nonprofit because we get to teach people in so many ways. There's not one silver bullet to ending loneliness.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
There's so many ways that we need to approach this topic. But we have the Circles program. We have a... a block party challenge that we're launching next year. We're inviting America to revitalize a block party. I love the block party. A block party in your neighborhood with a sprinkler and a thing to get to know your neighbors. So we're building a whole block party challenge next year.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
We have a belong bench, these yellow circular benches, where you see just benches that are straight and you're linearly sitting. I sponsored one in Austin. Nikki's a sponsor of one of these. But imagine like when you sit on a bench at a park, you're just sitting straight looking forward, not looking at each other. So we built these yellow benches that are circular.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
So you're sort of forced to sit in a circle and see each other, look each other in the eye. And so we're putting these benches all over America right now.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And then the last thing we're doing, just in our first year kind of temple projects, is a study with UC Berkeley and the Greater Good Science Center on the science of collective dance, collective awe, so that doctors can begin prescribing social dance experiences that are sober to their patients as an antidote for loneliness, depression, isolation, and anxiety.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And I don't know if you know this, but like 75% of depression cases are from, you can guess, loneliness. Right? But, you know, we medicate depression and anxiety, but really the way to actually support or solve it is solving loneliness.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And you have to belong to yourself first. And so I have this whole compass of belonging, which is sort of a directional map that you can sort of like do for yourself. So whenever you're feeling lonely, you can just sort of ground in and you can say, okay, Alyssa, you know, in this moment, I'm feeling out of belonging. Let me just get into my compass. The north is the spiritual realm.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
The south is the planetary realm. The west is your lineage, where you came from. And the east is your service. And as soon as you actually sit in those maps and you're like, you're touching another realm, which is sort of greater than you. And so you feel that relaxed, you're the, you're, you're, you're actually, your brain begins to relax when you're like, ah, there's something greater than you.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
than me. And then you recognize when you go down in the South and you realize, oh, I'm part of a node of the planet. There isn't a word for separate in indigenous cultures. There isn't a word for lonely in indigenous cultures because we are all one with the planet. So as soon as you ground into this the energetics of the planet, you don't feel lonely.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And then when you look behind you and you realize, oh my gosh, I am the product of all this lineage, you know, behind you, your parents and your four grandparents, your eight great-grandparents, your 16 great-great-grand... You know, within 10 generations, it's 2,064 people that it took to get to you. And so you all of a sudden realize, like, you get to carry the legacy of,
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And are we passionate about this topic? Those are the three sort of starting points for any project that we start.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
thousands of people in just ten generations. What a gift. And you feel less alone, right? You feel less unmoored when you have that type of map that you get to go with. And then finally, of course, service in the East. What faces forward? It's like, as soon as you ground into, it's not about me, but how can I actually serve my community?
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And as you know, there's lots of research around this, when you serve your community, you feel so much happier, so much more, you know, purposeful, and of course, less lonely.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
Yeah, I mean, when you look across the board between Thinks, Tushy, and Hero, they really are about my core mission, my core values, which is to elevate people on the planet.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And ultimately, Thinks was meant to elevate, you know, the shame around women's periods and through a solution, through our period-proof underwear, but then we've helped divert billions of tampons and plaids outside of landfills, which is huge. They take hundreds of years to decompose. With Tushy, our modern bidet, you know, washes your butt clean after you poop.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
What sucks in my world? Does it suck for a lot of people? Can we be passionate about this for a really long time?
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
You know, we've helped save over 10 million trees from getting flushed on the toilet. We have 4 million really happy people who love our product. because it serves them, it makes you feel cleaner, but it also serves the planet. So there's this purpose, this self-purpose, but then there's this external purpose.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And I think Hero, we've created the world's first myco-digestible diaper, which is, that can be digested by fungi. So myco-digestible means digested by fungi. So actually harnessing plastic eating fungi to help solve the global plastic crisis.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
Really exciting. It's insane. It's going to change the world. The whole concept is when the baby poops into the diaper, the baby poop fertilizes the dormant fungi to grow, eat the diaper, and then when you throw it in the landfill, the goal is for it to eat plastics in landfills too. So it has this double solution, it's like the mission behind what we're creating.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
But when I think about just the... Yeah, the vein that sort of ties all of it through is this lens of elevating people on the planet. I think with Hero, it's really about, you know, the agency that parents can feel for their babies and say, like, my baby's poop can literally help, you know, solve this plastic problem. It's now beyond me. I have to take care of my next generation and the planet.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
It's no longer just me creating a bunch of waste and just not, you know, like worrying about it because I'm going to be dead. But now you have a kid and now you're leaving. What are you leaving behind? What legacy are you leaving behind?
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
So I think one of the reasons why we're approaching the diaper category first beyond it being the number one household plastic waste item in the household, the number three waste item in a landfill, diapers are, they take 400 years to decompose. A single baby goes through 6,000 diapers in their lifetime. And the very first disposable diaper is still somewhere in a landfill today.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And so, there's crazy stats. And so, to be able to wake up people and say, hey, like, we have been in collaboration with nature for billions of years, and we've just lost touch.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
When we built cities, we made everything concrete, and like, that's why I'm so excited about the Blanc Center and turning everything back to this harmony between people, you know, each other and the planet, self, each other and the planet. I really believe in that too because we've lost touch with nature and because of that lost touch, we just think we can just trash it and then just say whatever.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
But because we now have our lineage forward-looking service, like really thinking about what's coming next, especially as a new parent, I think that's the right people to go after first because they're just going to care more. P.S. Mickey just won, her team just won yesterday, first place at a competition.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
The most innovative companies of the year at the Hygienics Conference, which is like 150 companies went up for it and they came first place.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And what's really, really exciting and promising is that the industry that's been like the non-woven space that makes the diapers, the pads, the adult diapers, dog, all the products that are plastic and ending up in landfills.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
these materials companies, these fabrics companies, these fiber technology, the fibers companies who make the fibers to make these nonwoven products are very interested in working with us. So they're not seeing us as a threat. They're seeing us as a collaborator, as an ally, because they understand their end of life
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
Obviously, we've had multiple businesses across the board, from our restaurants, you know, which are still open for almost 19 years, called Wild, in New York City, to building Super Sprouts, which is, you know, nutrition education for children. to, you know, Things, and Tushy, Daybreaker, and now Hero. It just, and of course, like, all the... And Belong Center.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
challenges that they're creating that the world is noticing too, and it's making them feel like bad guys and they feel it too. And so for them to say, wow, we can still continue to make the products that we're making and also have an end of life solution for it, which is plastic eating fungi. We had the most number of people at our booth. It was like a science fair project.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
I felt so like we won the science fair. It was so cute. But it was just also to be received by these multi-generational incumbent textile people. In the world of nonwovens, it was a huge nod of validation. Procter & Gamble, Kimberly-Clark, they were all at their booth just learning and trying to understand, oh, how can we collaborate? It's cool.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
But also, like, poop is the best fertilizer. It's mother's milk. It's, like, pure. Versus, like, Right now we're using cow poop, pig poop. We're using all the poop of like all the other animals. And yet baby poop, we're just throwing it, wrapping in plastic and throwing the trash and harnessing this potent, pure mother's breast milk, lead like fertilizer.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
So now we can harness billions of pounds of these to help solve the global plastic crisis. Why not?
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
I mean, to me, what's really cool, it's like a, it's a sanitation company disguised as a consumer product. It's a biotech company disguised, yes.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
I mean, I think becoming moms was the biggest change ever for us to like slow down, remember what matters, think about like what we really care about, like actually like doubling down on community, doubling down on the planet, doubling down on what matters for ourselves, family time, you know? I think that's been such a huge gift for us as well.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
Yeah, and I think, I mean, to further kind of go into what's changed inside of me, you know, I actually feel like, you know, when you build a business as a CEO, your job is to criticize, is to be critical, is to like look at what's wrong and not what's right, right? Your job is to point and look at all the little mistakes and not celebrate as much the mistakes the magic and the juice, right?
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
So I think that for me, the biggest learning that I've had is to really let that critical side of, or my CEO kind of like looking for what's wrong to make small improvements, let that stay at the office so that when I come home, I can really be in just pure celebration
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
you know, of my family, of my children, of my friends, without that sort of, you know, trained critical eye that can often be judgmental or can often be self-critical in so many ways. And so, to me, that's been a big work in progress.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
You know, of just like, you know, yeah, that we've been trained to be killer. You know, we're trained to look at what's wrong, and we bring that to our relationships, to our love interests. Like, we look at everything that's wrong with our partners, rather than all the magic that's going well with them because that's how we've been, you know, obviously that's how we've gotten to where we are.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And Belong Center, and Wow It's Now, and all the projects. You know, it's always been, like, I think for each other, like, the biggest cheerleaders for each other. It's like, ooh, I love that idea. Like, oh, my God, 100%, I'm going. Like, it'll be the best thing ever, you know? And I think it's always, like, a boom spiral of, like, an upward spiral of energy of, like,
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And so I think it's really about training ourselves to let that go at home so that we can just be in pure support, love, and joy for our families and our relationships at home. I love that. My word for 2024 is soft power.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And, you know, I think for me, the most, I think for both of us, that is the greatest challenge is that, like, when we're in our soft, dewy, feminine selves, like, it's so, it feels so good and things flow, creativity flows. And it's not discounting the strong, powerful, structured masculine side of ourselves too.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
We have feminine masculine in all of us, but I'm really challenging myself to find a way to find my breath to be able to stay in my soft power, even at work, because I feel like there's this like, kind of like when it comes to like money or more like business or having people rely on me, count on me, need me,
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
there is a bit of a contract, like a tightening that happens to like wanna perform and wanna get it right and not mess up. But when I'm in my soft power and when I'm breathing and I'm gentle, I'm actually performing better. I'm actually a better leader. I'm actually more creative. I actually get shit done even more smoother. It's more lyrical versus like structured and tight.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And so for me, it's like the retuning myself to relax when it comes to like financial conversations, when it comes to the harder conversations that historically have made me tighten up and to just remember to like, okay, I can feel my, you know, myself getting activated. Just breathe slower and take a second and relax.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
You know, there's even my new friend is like, you know, shared with me, it's like, I can sense that, you know, it's your breath changes, your breathing pattern changes when you're in different versions of you.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
and i wonder like what you can do to like keep your breath slow you know obviously when you're excited it's great but like when you're you know it's like how do you maintain a slow breath because then when you're that's when your soft power can be consistent is when you're just tuning in without losing the energy the jet the jet the jet the the But that's great.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
Like, you know, my coach Lauren, she's just like, keep all that. It's just when you're in the triggered state, all the negative is when you have to look at that.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
It's actually slow is fast.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And then you have to pick your battles. I mean, we just got off a 40-city tour, you know, to get out the vote. And it was just like every day we were in a new city producing events for a thousand people in different cities, new markets we've never been to. And it was the most grueling three months of my career, I will really just say. And we just ended it, obviously, on the election day.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
can-do-ness because we have like each other's wind behind each other in that way. Yeah, I mean, I think also just when I think of having a friend that's always there for you to support you and to cheerlead your ideas. And challenge you. And challenge you. We definitely are two type A, you know, matriarchs.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And when you're going so fast, and you're also sleepless, and you're also just like... You know, we talked about this yesterday, actually, just this idea of like, you just have to be okay with 80% being correct.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And I think the best kind of leadership is just for you to really let go of the reins and to really regain your own sort of autonomy in your own life is to not expect 100% of exactly your vision. But if you get to 80% of your vision, that's great. We're happy. We're stoked because that gives us freedom. That gives us time to breathe ourselves. We don't have to overextend.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
When we know when we do, we're stressed and more contracted. They say like, So 80% is better than 100%. And they say, like, treat your business like your second child. It's like your first child, you're like, is it breathing? Everybody's like, oh, it's sleep time. Second child, you're like, just, you fall down, just get up. Walk a little bit more mature.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
Yeah, you're just like, just say you're fine. You're fine, you know? And so it's like this level of, like, relax. You know a little bit more. Obviously, experience helps, but, like, you're just, you're not tight. You're just relaxed.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's a book, Becoming Nobody, by Ram Dass that I really love because I think Again, in a high-octane, like, look at me, society. I need to be somebody. I need to leave a mark. I need to, you know, I want to be the cover of this mag.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
I want to be, you know, it's like, everybody is, like, in this, like, wanting to become somebody, and the somebody-ness makes your ego show up in different ways. And just remembering that we're all gonna die, that we, you know, that we all came from the same place, the planet, and a mother's womb. I don't know, it's like that particular book has been just so impactful for me in this moment.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
Um, from that place of just... the exhale, the soft power that comes from, like, not needing to be somebody, but to be nobody, to be... to just be in service of.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
I mean, ah, she's the most creative person I know, and I know it's gonna just cry. This morning, she showed me a video of a campaign that she's working on for Hero, just launching the company, and she's like, it's a Kickstarter campaign that you're sharing with the world, and I just... It's just like, it's epic, it's magic, it's creative, it's exciting.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And so, you know, I think it's one of those things where we, you know, don't mince our words with each other. So we're able to both be direct in our feedback and also be the ultimate cheerleaders for one another. You know, it's like her win is my win. And my win is her win.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And it's like everything that this woman touches is filled with excitement and service and just one of oneness. And yeah, and I'm just, I don't know, there's nobody I admire more in the world than this. Yeah, yeah. I was going to say the same thing, but like you're my biggest inspiration. And that's it.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
Like watching the Daybreaker tenure video was like, like the pride and like the joy and like the wow. And the creativity and like the inspiration that I feel every time, like watching everything she did for this 40 city tour was like,
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
the coolest like important beautiful servant leader work that was so fun and full of joy and like the amount of joy you've brought into the world is just next level and it's like yeah like thank god that we get to take baths together all the time like be twins be besties and like really be real real with each other and you know always rupture repair and come back
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
Yeah, from the womb to the tomb is our motto as twins. And yeah, it's really cool to be around someone that inspires me so much. And whenever I get off a call with her after she's sharing about a new idea, I have ten more ideas for Daybreaker. I have ten more ideas for... Belong Center. I have ten more ideas for my projects." So whenever we talk, it's so generative. Yeah, it's so exciting.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And I think that's honestly, like, one of the biggest secrets of how we've been able to achieve I think, is because of the level of enthusiasm I received from my sister. Or, you know, it's like, every time I create something, I'm like, I send it to her, like, what do you think? And she gives me critical feedback or vice versa. I'm like, well, what do you, you know?
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And it's like, it's so, it's just generative. And I think that's like, generative keeps you young, it keeps you vibrant, keeps you excited. It's like, it feels honest, it feels authentic, it feels real. And so I think because we keep each other honest, that authenticity just spreads out into what we're building, what we're creating.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And so there's no sort of like, oh, you know, you have more of a win than I. It's like sort of like no one can tell us apart. So it doesn't even matter. It's just like, oh my God, Daybreaker changed my life. And I'm like, great. Now I'm like at this point.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And it only creates more like, ugh, thank you for the authenticity, then we can be more authentic. And then it just creates this beautiful ripple effect as well. Because if she's acting like too cool for school, I'm like, you're being too cool for school. We get to call each other out and just keep each other honest. And that's like, also the authenticity. It's like, that's the juice.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And I feel like she holds that. You know, we hold that for each other.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
They can find me at love.rod on Instagram or at Daybreaker at D-Y-B-R-K-R and at Belong Center. So these are three Instagram channels and then daybreaker.com to find us on a dance floor somewhere.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
It's the greatest website of all time. I'm not kidding. It is. Yeah, and radaagrawal.com, which is all of my projects that I'm working on. Beautiful. And then for me, I would go to hellotoshi.com to wash your butt.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
God's work. I can't poop anywhere else now. Don't go to toshi.com. It's a very graphic anal porn site. Go to hellotoshi.com. And then it's at Mickey Agrawal on Instagram and at Hero Technologies, which is the newest project, H-I-R-O Technologies. and mickeyagraw.com for all my projects as well.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
People are like, Tushy, I have a hundred of them in all my houses. And I'm like, it's my sister, but yeah, I'm an investor. Yeah, exactly. We invest in each other's companies. So I'm a lead investor in Hero Technologies, for example. And I'm like the number one ticket purchaser at Daybreaker. Her and Erwin Valencia. Love you, Erwin. I'm coming after you.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
one in three americans have zero friends to confide in this number has tripled in the last 30 years and turns out having poor social connections is as harmful to your physical health as being an alcoholic and twice as harmful as obesity or smoking 15 cigarettes per day so loneliness is really prevalent amongst entrepreneurs amongst i mean one in three americans in general and and i think we've become more lonely as we've begin continue to swipe
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
But I feel like all of our ideas that we do, it really stems from, there's a problem, let's solve it, instead of complain about it. Our Indian father always said, create, don't complain. You know, in a world of like so many complainers and sort of backseat drivers and trolls. Talk, talk, talk and no action.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
For us, it's like, okay, there's a problem, let's solve it. And then let's have fun while doing it. Let's make it. And I think for us, our biggest core value is creativity. You know, and when I think of, you know, how we solve problems, not just sort of through spreadsheets or through kind of a binary experience, like black and white, it's always like, how can we add creativity?
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
How can we add color? How can we add story to everything we do? And I think that's what's been so fun. And it never feels like work. It always feels like
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
We've had it all, from investors saying, like, I'll give you money, but I'm in love with you, to investors squeezing my cheeks, patting me on the head, to lawyers holding me by the back of the neck and being like, you know, I'm gonna make you my New Year's resolution. You know, or like, you know, boys, let's go outside and talk business.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
Like, it's like, you know, the old boys club, like, style. We've been around for 20 years. I mean, we've been entrepreneurs for 20 years. And, like, I would say that we were, you know, it's just in the last, what is it, 1988, that women were allowed to start their own business. Literally. Like, that's, I just read this online.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
That in 1988 was the first time that women could open their own business and set up their own LLC. And... And just a wild statistic to understand that just in the last, you know, 25 years, have we been able to actually fundraise, build a business, and be autonomous female-owned business. I mean, it's crazy. So it's still, we're still on shaky ground.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And I think there's still, we live in such a deeply, deeply patriarchal condition system. And even women, I mean, the number one who voted for Trump, I mean, like, you know, it's just like we, it's like the idea of a woman leading is just so weird and strange.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And there's this power struggle, less and less, but there's still a power struggle that you see in the world between, you know, like, are there enough seats at the table for everyone? The answer is yes. Like, we believe that there's enough seats for everyone at the table, but a lot of people don't. And so we've had to, like,
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
you know to raise money people even after selling things like people like oh you got lucky you know so for tushy it was like started over so i've never raised a dollar in my life or never built anything in my life it was really interesting and the here was different because you know after having two companies under the belt and plus daybreaker every between the two of us like it got easier.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
Exponential.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
It was really intense. No one was gonna invest in an underwear company about periods, you know? No one is gonna invest in sort of anything women's product. This is back in, I mean, 10, 12 years ago. Now there's more women starting businesses than men. There's more women graduating college than men. So there's, you know, the tables and tides are turning.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
But also there had been like, you look at so many female founders who achieved success have had some level of takedown. You know, I'm so grateful that Radha hasn't. You know, but like, you know, so many of us have gone through that because of the power dynamics that women experience. And like, I didn't expect to have an experience like that. You know, I was pregnant as well.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
So it was sort of like... But then now, coming out on the other side of it, with the world changing, with things changing as a result of the work that so many of us have done, it's really powerful to now have these stories to tell. It's actually more interesting, creates more texture. It doesn't, you know, it's like, everything's great. It's just like, cool.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
You know, versus like, ugh, like we suck the merit of life. Like we... You know, the famous quote, it's like, I want to skid to death's door sideways, not in a well-preserved body, loudly, thoroughly used up, loudly proclaiming, wow, what a life. You know, it's like just a used, like you've experienced everything, the highs, the lows, everything in between.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
It's like you really juiced life in every way. And that's such a gift.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
I mean, I think someone said it's like, what is the ingredients to maybe our careers? And I think for me, it's we trade on our enthusiasm. I think so many people are just like too cool for school or trying to be professional. I hate my job. Me too. There's a posturing that happens. And I think that for us, it's like, we still feel that deep zest for life and enthusiasm and everything.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
It's like, oh my God, Alyssa, wow. Like your earrings are incredible. It's like every detail of life is just like a wow. And I feel like that enthusiasm mixed with, to me, like creativity and purpose. You know, when you bring those two together, then magic happens, right?
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And I think it's like, if you're just kind of focused on purpose and execution and all of that without the enthusiasm, then life can get pretty tedious or life can get pretty stressful after a while. But if you stay and you really continue to find that enthusiasm, that joie de vivre, you know, that I think that both of us, I think, continue to inspire within each other,
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
I think that's really, to me, the best ingredients of what makes us continue to be inspired in our lives. I wrote a book called Disruptor. The book is really looking at the 13 major areas in your life, whether money, friendship, relationship, career, just all the areas in our life that people find like this is the way it is.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
And it's like looking at the historical context of where these beliefs came to be and then really disrupting the one by one and finding agency in our own lives of how to how to do that. And the very first disruption, the very first common belief is you have to get serious as you grow up.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Have a Purpose-Driven Business, More Freedom + Make a Difference | EP 65
you know it's like as you grow up get serious like sit down be quiet if you want to go to college and shut up and listen if you want to get a job and shut up and listen like your voice isn't a part of this equation like that is really like the way we've been taught so often to get in line just you know do your work but the disruption is no you can actually live in a childlike state of curiosity playfulness and awe and still be a responsible adult at the same time you can have both like you can really have both