{"id":118555,"date":"2019-01-25T12:26:40","date_gmt":"2019-01-25T17:26:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wanderlust.com\/?p=118555\/"},"modified":"2020-01-14T11:07:24","modified_gmt":"2020-01-14T16:07:24","slug":"disrupther-feminism-miki-agrawal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wanderlust.com\/es\/journal\/disrupther-feminism-miki-agrawal\/","title":{"rendered":"Disrupt-Her: A Manifesto to Mindfully Overthrow the Patriarchy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wanderlust presenter Miki Agrawal is known for disrupting industries typically associated with shame. She loves questioning the status quo, and society’s standard approach. Between co-founding or inventing several companies and products, she also managed to write a bestselling book,\u00a0Do Cool Sh*t: Quit Your Day Job, Start Your Own Business, and Live Happily Ever After<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Her newest book,\u00a0Disrupt-Her<\/em>, A Manifesto for the Modern Woman<\/em><\/a>, comes out in hardback on January 29. We sat down with Miki to get a feel for what this newest project is about, and why we’re so excited for it to come out.<\/p>\n

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Wanderlust (WL):\u00a0<\/strong>What do you mean by Disrupt-Her<\/a>?<\/p>\n

Miki Agrawal (MA):\u00a0<\/strong>A person who is courageous enough to live life fully lit up, on her own terms, and is committed to moving the world forward, despite societal obstacles in her way. Disrupt-Her<\/em> is an unabashed manifesto that inspires us to move past outrage and take positive steps on the personal, professional, and societal levels. It galvanizes us to action in 13 major areas of our lives with as much firepower as possible. These are the credos we live by, the advice we give to friends, the tenets we instill in our companies and peers on a daily basis. It\u2019s a whole body F*CK YES to your work, your love, your relationships, and your mission.<\/p>\n

WL:\u00a0<\/strong>Why is disruption to the status quo necessary right now?<\/p>\n

MA:\u00a0<\/strong>Doing things \u201cthe way society deems is acceptable\u201d is not working. Eighty-five percent of people worldwide hate their jobs. Over 55 percent of Americans are medicating, and an even-greater percentage are bored with the \u201cacceptable life path\u201d that most follow (often to satiate previous generations\u2019 societally accepted dreams that got squashed by their previous generations\u2019 dreams for them and so on). It\u2019s a vicious cycle and it\u2019s hitting a boiling point. There is more outrage and divisiveness that ever before in this country, including rising mass shootings and suicide. The takedown culture is a pleasure to so many, and media is taking advantage of the click-bait ugliness that people are seeking to mask their own boredom. Society as we know it needs an overhaul. And who is society? It\u2019s made up of *people* who are not different than any of us\u2014so why should we listen to those people who are from years past and whose concept of \u201cwhat\u2019s acceptable\u201d may not be relevant to today at all?<\/p>\n

All of this needs complete and total *positive* disruption. People clearly don\u2019t want to follow made-up rules like sheep, we want to break free of the shame that has a chokehold on our lives and live life on our terms, and fully lit up.<\/p>\n

WL:\u00a0<\/strong>What are some of the common societal beliefs that you are attempting to disrupt in your book?<\/p>\n

MA:\u00a0<\/strong>Why must we get serious<\/em> as we grow up<\/em>? Why must we get our head out of the clouds<\/em> in class? Who is making up these rules and why?<\/p>\n

Why are our children still learning like they did during the Industrial Revolution? The rows of desks, the standardized tests, were all made to churn out factory workers. Why are we still making our children go through this obsolete process of learning that clearly isn\u2019t working? Why are we medicating our children to \u201chelp them focus\u201d on a system that is completely irrelevant to current times?\u00a0Why must we follow a career path at all? Even if you go to medical school and become a doctor for a few years, why must you stay in that profession? Because it makes your parents have more bragging rights? Because you might \u201close face\u201d if you switched careers and might possibly fail at the next thing you do, so rather you stay in your \u201csafe career path\u201d that makes you unhappy than try your hand at the thing that you are actually passionate about? Save face to whom and for what?<\/p>\n

Why are we still not talking about \u201cmoney\u201d? Why is still tacky to talk about? Money is literally a made up energy exchange that we have agreed to is worth something and yet it\u2019s taboo to discuss? Who says?<\/p>\n

Why are we all down to live in a culture of complaining? I get it, everyone wants their angst heard, especially the selfie generation, but isn\u2019t it better if we connected in a different, more positively disruptive way instead of hiding behind complaining? I call bullsh*t on all of it and more.<\/p>\n

WL:\u00a0<\/strong>How has this approach helped you? What have you gained by being a disruptor?<\/p>\n

MA:\u00a0<\/strong>We literally only have around 21,000 days to live from the point we graduate college (average 22-years-old) to the point we die (average age 80), so why not live those days\u00a0fully lit up<\/strong> and\u00a0fully alive<\/strong> and fully in our power<\/strong> to decide exactly who we want to be, for said short amount of time?<\/p>\n

I have learned to quickly discern what is societal conditioning and what is my own thoughts and it has given me so much freedom to focus on being in integrity and choose a positive, loving path that speaks to me and to those I love.
\nI learned that I don\u2019t need to \u201cget serious as I grow up,\u201d I can still live in a child-like state of curiosity, playfulness and awe, and still be a responsible adult at the same time.<\/p>\n

I learned that I don\u2019t have to follow a \u201ccareer path,\u201d I can follow my \u201clit path,” where the dots of my life will inevitably connect.\u00a0I learned to look at money as flowing energy and the more I saw money as an energy exchange, the more I was able to be released from the weirdness around it and by releasing the weirdness around it, I was able to build my businesses to over $150 million.<\/p>\n

I learned that rather than complain about things, come with solutions before even voicing any complaint. Those who come with solutions are coming at it from a productive angle, not from an \u201cacceptable-culture-of-complaining\u201d angle.<\/p>\n

I learned that if I want to move society in a new, forward-thinking, positive direction, that it will come with a lot of pushback\u2014and I have learned to love the process of teaching people the new, positive, more forward-thinking, happy way of existing, judgement-free of yourself and those around you.<\/p>\n