{"id":103416,"date":"2018-07-26T16:47:21","date_gmt":"2018-07-26T20:47:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wanderlust.com\/?p=103416\/"},"modified":"2018-07-27T15:00:44","modified_gmt":"2018-07-27T19:00:44","slug":"miki-agrawal-turned-life-empire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wanderlust.com\/pt-pt\/journal\/miki-agrawal-turned-life-empire\/","title":{"rendered":"How THINX Founder Miki Agrawal Turned Her Life Into an Empire"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hear from Miki and other wellness entrepreneurs, industry leaders, and medical experts at Wellspring<\/a>, Wanderlust’s premiere wellness expo in Palm Springs, October 24\u201326.<\/em><\/p>\n

Wellness industry professional discounts<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0scholarships<\/a>\u00a0available!<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

If there\u2019s on person we can look to for inspiration, it\u2019s Miki Agrawal<\/a>. This serial entrepreneur has started three businesses, is writing her second book, and still makes the time to maintain a\u00a0meditation practice<\/a>. She’s known for addressing taboos (her company THINX changed the way we look at periods) and turning problems into solution through business.<\/p>\n

I asked Miki to divulge her sources for creativity and share what she’s learned along her journey. Ready to turn your own life into an empire? Here’s how she did it.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nWanderlust (WL):<\/strong> You\u2019ve created a myriad of awesome projects. What would you say is a common thread for inspiration?<\/p>\n

Miki Agrwal (MA):<\/strong> I get my ideas from simply being in the world, doing my best to observe things with a fresh (childlike) eye, questioning the things that don\u2019t seem to make sense, and notating the things that \u201csuck\u201d in my day-to-day life. And rather than complaining about the things that don\u2019t make sense or suck, I get excited because it\u2019s an opportunity to solve those things and make our collective human experiences better.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n

WL:\u00a0<\/strong>I\u2019ve read in previous interviews that THINX<\/a>, TUSHY<\/a> and WILD<\/a> came out of necessity\u2014both for yourself and for others. Can you speak more to this? How has your life and life experiences influenced your entrepreneurial projects?<\/p>\n

MA:\u00a0<\/strong>TUSHY solves one of the things that I do very often and every day: poop. I am one of those people who poops a lot and I never understood why we wipe our butts with dry paper and call that clean. We certainly don\u2019t jump in the shower and only use dry paper and call our bodies clean. That area of our body is critical to our health and happiness (ie. sex, babies, excretion) and yet we don\u2019t properly take care of it because it\u2019s a \u201ctaboo\u201d area. Also, since the late 1800s, we have been led to believe that toilet paper does the job but all it does is cost us money every month (to the tune of billions of dollars per year if you add us all together), kills millions of trees per year and causes chronic infections and issues down there like UTIs, hemorrhoids, and fissures.<\/p>\n

So I created a simple, modern, affordable bidet attachment called\u00a0TUSHY<\/a> which easily clips onto any standard toilet and turns it into a bidet. It\u2019s only $69, takes 10 minutes to install, requires no plumbing or electrical, comes with everything you need in the box, and it\u2019s literally the most important thing in my bathroom. Also, for every TUSHY sold, we fund an organization in India that builds clean latrines for the urban poor who have access to nothing and are defecating out in the open. To date, we have helped 12,000 families gain access to clean sanitation facilities.<\/p>\n

As for THINX, I just couldn\u2019t believe that there hadn\u2019t been any innovation in a very long time in those categories because again, those topics were deemed \u201ctaboo\u201d by the social system that we lived in. I thought that by creating best-in-class underwear, it could shine a light on this subject and make us ask ourselves why are these things [periods] not okay to talk about when it\u2019s the very thing that creates human life? Also, I was a very irresponsible bleeder and kept ruining all of my underwear\u2014and I needed a solution for that! Under my leadership, we helped over 100,000 girls gain access to menstrual products throughout Africa<\/a>.<\/p>\n

WILD came about when I realized how sensitive I am to processed foods: the bleach, refined sugar, hormones, antibiotics, pesticides, preservatives etc and it turns out that millions of people are too, for obvious reasons. I had to give up my favorite comfort food, pizza, so I decided to start New York City\u2019s first gluten-free, farm-to-table pizza eatery in 2005. During that time, everyone thought \u201cgluten-free<\/a>\u201d, \u201cfarm-to-table,\u201d and \u201corganic\u201d meant \u201cmust taste like cardboard,\u201d so it took a lot of education to get people to \u201cget\u201d it.<\/p>\n

WL:\u00a0<\/strong>Promotion for your brands (THINX especially) come across more as art than the do advertising. How have you used art to now influence TUSHY and your other projects?<\/p>\n

MA:\u00a0<\/strong>My teams know that unless it\u2019s artful and show-stopping, it won\u2019t pass the test. We are in the process of rebranding TUSHY to make it artfully aspirational yet playful and fun. Art needs to be fun and not too serious. Also, since I’m talking about \u201ctaboo\u201d subjects like poop and periods, the campaigns better be artful, or people will be too grossed out to talk about it. The art and playful tone bring people\u2019s guards down.<\/p>\n

WL:\u00a0<\/strong>What or who is something\/someone who has most influenced you professionally?<\/p>\n

MA:\u00a0<\/strong>I think having a twin sister<\/a> who has been with me since birth has taught me to remain authentic. Anytime I\u2019m not being \u201cmyself\u201d or she\u2019s not being \u201cherself,\u201d we keep each other in check. Like, \u201cWhy are you acting like that?\u201d or \u201cYou\u2019re being weird right now.” Haha. It came naturally, but I learned that being authentic is critical in business, especially if we are doing things that are out of the ordinary.<\/p>\n

\n

If we are working from a place of \u201cpleasing people,\u201d then trying to create businesses that break taboos simply will never happen.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Also, my life coach Lauren Zander<\/a> has had more influence on me to face myself over and over again to deal with all that life throws my way in a really productive way and she makes self-work so much fun! I have worked with her every single week for almost five years and it has truly changed my life.<\/p>\n

WL:\u00a0<\/strong>It\u2019s pretty clear you\u2019re a creative person. Do you have trouble deciding which projects to focus on?<\/p>\n

MA:\u00a0<\/strong>I always ask myself three questions before moving forward:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \n

    What sucks in my world?<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  2. \n

    Does it suck for a lot of people?<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  3. \n

    Can I be passionate about this issue, cause, or community for a really long time? (This is the most important question to solve.)<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    WL:\u00a0<\/strong>You\u2019re all about tackling taboos. What\u2019s next on the agenda?<\/p>\n

    MA:\u00a0<\/strong>I’m really focused on TUSHY\u2014getting every butt in America clean, saving 15 million trees from getting flushed down the toilet unnecessarily each year, and saving our natural resources that are required to make toilet paper (ie. it requires 37 gallons of water to make 1 single roll of toilet paper!). Changing the culture around our bathroom habits is something that I\u2019m going to work on for a while.<\/p>\n

    I’m really passionate about the global<\/a> sanitation crisis that is affecting over 1 billion people globally. The fact that TUSHY not only elevates human lives in the first world, but also funds the buildout of clean latrines in the third world, makes me even more motivated to keep going.<\/p>\n

    WL:\u00a0<\/strong>I\u2019m super excited for your upcoming book, DISRUPT HER : A Manifesto For The Modern Woman<\/em><\/a>. Can you tell us more about this?<\/p>\n

    MA:\u00a0<\/strong>Disrupt-Her<\/em> is a new kind of Manifesto that asks\u2014no, demands\u2014that women question, dissect, and disrupt 13 major areas of our lives, including societal preconceptions that keep us from living fully lit up, both personally and professionally. In this book, I want to teach women to:<\/p>\n