The Dr. Hyman Show - The Secrets To Disrupting Your Life On Your Own Terms with Miki Agrawal

Episode Date: January 30, 2019

There are many health topics considered too taboo to talk about—menstruation being one of them. By ignoring this completely normal part of women’s health we miss out on the ability to empower young girls to become educated, strong women who support communities and positive social change. Overcoming stigmas and challenging cultural norms is what my guest on this week’s episode of The Doctor’s Farmacy, Miki Agrawal, was born to do. Miki is a successful entrepreneur who creates innovative products to disrupt industries and change perspectives. She co-founded and led THINX, the high-tech, period-proof underwear brand, and most recently founded TUSHY, a company revolutionizing the American bathroom and making bidets mainstream in the US, to support better health for our sensitive private areas and the environment, all at once. Miki is also founder of the gluten-free pizza chain WILD and the author of Do Cool Sh*t and Disrupt-Her. She was recently named Fast Company’s Most Creative People of 2018 and Most Impressive Women Entrepreneurs by Inc. Magazine. She is also a graduate of Cornell University and proud mama of an amazing little boy, Hiro Happy.

Welcome to the doctor's pharmacy. That's F-A-R-M-A-C-Y. I'm Dr. Mark Hyman, and this is a place for conversations that matter. And today we have another conversation that matters about changing the way we think about how we live our lives, how we disrupt the normal taboos that society brings us. And we have an extraordinary guest, Mickey Agrawal, who's a very close friend, true confessions. I met her on a bus in Las Vegas at a conference on how to make better cities, which was amazing.

And she was there with her restaurant, Wild, which is a gluten-free, organic, healthy pizza company that she's created in New York and Las Vegas. She's an amazing social entrepreneur. And that's an interesting topic we're running into. What is a social entrepreneur? She's an accomplished disruptor and she's always amazing social entrepreneur, and that's an interesting topic we're running into. What is a social entrepreneur? She's an accomplished disruptor, and she's always breaking taboos, which is a good thing

about poop, about peeing, about having periods, and has done some pretty amazing things about it, and we'll talk about that. She co-founded this company called Thinks, which is a high-tech period-proof underwear brand that's now valued at over $150 million. It's really disrupted the whole space of women's menstrual cycle and how we think about it and challenged our taboos. She also found another company called Tushy, which is exactly what you think it is. It's about pooping. And it's about using bidets so you don't actually have to waste all that toilet paper and

create all these health problems like hemorrhoids and anal problems that you get from doing the usual of wiping your butt with toilet paper. And she's also the founder of Wild, as I said, this gluten-free pizza chain, and an author of a book that I love called Do Cool Shit. And her new book called Disrupt Her is about changing our thinking in how we look at our role in the world and how we can live authentic and progressive lives that actually break free from a lot of the conceptions about how to live, which makes us more authentic and happy. She was named recently Fast Company's Most Creative People of 2018, Most Impressive Women Entrepreneurs by Inc. Magazine. She's a graduate of Cornell, which I also went to, and the proud mama of Hero, which is this cute little boy

who I know very well, and her amazing husband, Andrew. So, Mickey, welcome to the Doctors' Pharmacy. Yay, I'm so happy to be here. And we met in 2013. 2013, yes, yeah. And you're an identical twin, and I actually met your sister at a dinner and I thought it was you,

which I'm sure happens all the time. I'm like, hey, Mickey. She's like, who are you? No, it happens all the time. And sometimes we talk for like 30 minutes with the person and them thinking that we're the other. And then at the end, we're like, by the way, and don't worry about it, I'm the other one.

So no, Mickey, you start out doing things differently right from the beginning. You created this gluten-free pizza company because you weren't happy with the kind of pizzas that were out there and wanted to create something authentic. But you also had an interesting experience when you went to South Africa because you were a varsity college soccer player. Yeah. And you learned something there about what keeps women down and oppressed, which had to do with their periods. Can you tell us about that experience and how it changed your thinking and how it led to developing a disruptive company? Yeah, absolutely. Well, so the restaurant business is a crazy business. Have you ever worked in a restaurant before? I have. I was a waiter.

Yeah. And I never worked in a restaurant until I opened my own restaurant. It was a super naive experience. But I think the whole vision of it was to make a better, healthier comfort food for everyone. And so what was interesting from that experience was that I ran my restaurants for like seven years myself, just trying so hard to figure out how to be a restaurateur. And how to not lose your shirt. And how to not lose your shirt. It was just crazy. And I finally brought a partner in who was a restaurateur.

And when he took over the business, in one week, our numbers doubled. And in one month, our numbers tripled and i'd spent seven years trying to figure out how to make it work and it was just like a beautiful telling experience for me that okay i don't have to do everything in every part of a business i can bring other people on who can do things better than you and you can focus on what you do best yeah that was such a an incredible experience when i brought brought in my partner Waleed for the restaurants it then freed up my time to work on my next business

which is which is Thinx and and that period proof underwear period proof underwear and that was

you know the idea came at a family barbecue where my twin sister and I were defending our three-legged race championship title Aguero Palooza Aguero Palooza right

and in the middle of the race, my sister started her period. And as we ran to the finish line and she was washing out her bathing suit bottoms, that's when the idea hit for a, oh, maybe we can create a pair of underwear that never leaks, that never stain, and that supported women every day of the month.

And then I went to South Africa on my trip to go to the World Cup. And during that time, I had traveled all over and met a group of girls. And one specific girl asked her, why aren't you in school? It's a weekday. And she had said, it's my week of shame.

Oh, what a turn of phrase. Yeah, I'm like, week of shame, what do you mean? And she said, well, on know, on my period, I, you know, stay at home. And it's like, why? Well, because we don't have tampons or pads. We don't use anything. So we tried using rags and mattresses, like, you know, and those things would chafe the sides of my legs,

which would cause even more damage to my body. And I would have to stay at home and just heal the chafing, like open sores on my legs. And it just became a realization. And I came back home and did a lot of research around it and realized that, oh my God, like over a hundred million girls are missing a week of school because of their periods. And millions of those girls are dropping out of school because of their periods. And just to stop you there for a minute, I recently interviewed Paul Hawken and he shared that in his book Drawdown that if you combine education of women and family planning, it can have the most impact on drawing down carbon and climate and the

environment because of the impact of educated women in the world. So what you said is just staggering. A hundred million girls don't go to school because of their period or drop out or don't finish because of something so simple to heal. Yep, and there's a study called the Girl Effect that happened, and I can do this study. And the idea behind the Girl Effect says that if a woman is working, 90% of her money goes back into her family and the community, whereas when a man's working,

guess how much of his money goes back into the family and the community. Whereas when a man's working, guess how much of his money goes back into the family in the community? 10%. 10%. You know, 10 to 20%. And, and, and so who is more likely to elevate a community out of extreme poverty

faster? Is it a man or woman? And in those specifically in those developing communities, it's a woman. And so, and if a hundred million girls are missing a week of school and dropping out of school, that's billions of dollars of lost income you know that that when that these communities as a whole can be receiving you know this idea that like no one had ever done

before thought of which is making underwear that soaks up menstrual blood that protects you that's not messy that it seems like magic right it is and and you know something that never even existed before and it's so great because everywhere i go now people are running up to me and dropping It seems like magic, right? It is. And, you know, I'm really proud of it. You had to engineer something that never even existed before. And it's so great because everywhere I go now, people are running up to me and dropping their pants and being like, I'm wearing things, you know, and like showing me that they're wearing their underwear and they're so proud of it

and that the shame around period is gone. And I feel, you know, when I first started the business, you know, with my co-founders, it was, you know, next to impossible to get any press around it and to talk about it. And, you know, and fast forward to today with around it and to talk about it and you know fast forward today to today with my newest newest company tushy it's the same thing you know people are like nobody's gonna talk about poop you know why would i spray water in my butt you

know just like that's ridiculous and i'm just like well number one the rest of the world doesn't yeah and number two it's crazy that you're using dry paper doesn't make any sense and so it's kind of like you know i've been in bathrooms around the world. It's something like a hose and there's no toilet paper. There's a little spray hose by the side of the toilet. That's right. And that's so much of the rest of the world. And one of the reasons why I wrote my book Disrupt Her,

and we'll get into that in a little bit, is that indoctrination is powerful. We've been indoctrinated to believe so many things i mean for you i'm sure around people's you know strange thoughts around food and and what you know what's healthy and what's not you know and and what people believe to be true you know like when we when we grew up our dad would tell us like put boric powder on everything when you like hurt yourself you know and you're like but like what you know and so it's like all these like home remedies and you know when it came to when it comes to things like going to the bathroom,

we have been indoctrinated since the late 1800s to wipe our butts with dry toilet paper. And that's just the way it is. Whereas if we actually thought about it, we would say like, we're not like showering with dry paper or washing our dishes with dry paper. We're using water.

And so why is it so weird to do that? And same thing with periods. Why is it so weird to wash a pair of underwear that absorbs blood? It's such a disconnect for people. And it just takes time to shift the culture. But when it does and it's adopted, then number one, it's amazing.

But then number two, it builds big business. And you had a huge amount of resistance to things. I mean, you tried to get your ads, which are very tasteful, beautiful, artistic, in the subways. And the New York subway said, nope, it's too racy. And yet there are these pictures of women's breasts

and for breast surgery and breast implants. And it's so strange, right? It was wild. And it actually, like that experience, so the quick story is that we had done all of our marketing, it was digital marketing, and then we finally had made enough money that we were going to do our first out-of-home campaign,

our first campaign in a New York City public transit system, which was so exciting for us. But what we didn't understand was that putting the word period in a subway was considered you know according to them not a four-letter word yeah they were like they were like it's basically like the they said the the riders people who are commuting would find it offensive that's what they said to us and i was like is but is you being here offensive to the world because that blood isn't you know you wouldn't be here without it you know and so

it was a controversy because it was like oh in the most progressive city in the world new that blood isn't, you know, you wouldn't be here without it, you know? And so it was a controversy because it was like, oh, in the most progressive city in the world, New York City, we couldn't put the word period in a subway. And so that was a real battle. And actually that battle and that resistance from the public transit system actually created this viral story. And that actually put us on the map. I love what you did. You said, you know, I'm going to go to the press. You're like, I don't know anybody in the press. Yeah, yeah. I don't know how I'm going to do it, but you found a couple of friends who had a connection, and you got the story out there, and it just went crazy.

It went viral. And it was funny because... And the New York subway then conceded, right? Yep, the New York subway. So when you hear no, you just hear an opportunity to get to yes. That's correct. It's true. And, you know, I remember when our director of marketing called me crying, it was just like, oh, wow, this is such a blessing.

We can take this and turn lemons into lemonade. You always can. Yeah. So great. So the idea of the TUSHY concept is kind of interesting because it's not just about how you take care of your body, but you have stats on the amount of paper and trees we cut down. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, when you're when you're going to the bathroom you know like we're flushing down 15 million trees per year to make toilet paper you know the average american uses 57 sheets of toilet paper per day because they're trying to like clean up the poop and they don't want to like touch the poops that are like wrapping the paper around their hand and they're like doing this whole song and dance around it but think about it like if you're using dry paper you're just smearing poop and so you know I'm half Japanese half Indian and I

grew up with bidets and and knowing about bidets and so you know it was such a it was such an obvious solution and I think the hardest barrier I thought what is the price point it was very expensive to buy a bidet. And it's very expensive to put plumbing and electrical. Whereas with my product, with Tushy, it just attaches to your existing toilet. It's $69. So anyone can afford it. And it's just like a no-brainer.

You're saving so much money over time. In three months time, you're paid back. And so it's kind of like, OK, there's no reason for you not to use water and do it properly. And by the way, you're saving yourself from hemorrhoids, UTIs, yeast infections, anal fissures, anal itching. People are like, what about wet wipes? And you know, wet wipes also cause all these issues. Landfills. Yeah, landfills, but also anal fissures and all these things. All this stuff nobody likes to talk about. Right. Exactly. You just want to quickly wipe and run out of there. So I know you really well, Mickey.

And one of the things that's unique about you is that you have the ability to think differently about things. You have the ability to see opportunities for creating amazing products in the world that people need that are sort of beyond what most people would think about. And you have this kind of ability to really create a disruptive life in a beautiful way.

How did you get like that? Like, was this something that you developed over time? Was it, because you wrote this book called Disruptor, which is about encouraging people to do that the same way and to live authentic lives and to disrupt the normal mindset we have. And how did you, how did you end up like this? Wow. Well, I mean, first of all, I have an Indian father and a Japanese mother, and they met and fell in love in 1974. That's disruptive enough.

Yeah. And so for them to be together at all was like a crazy thing. Everywhere they went, people looked at them. My Japanese side said, if you marry this low class Indian man, you know, we're gonna cut you off financially. And then my dad's side said, well, we have an arranged marriage for you in India.

And if you marry this woman, like you're really hurting our family. And so it was like- A little guilt tripping. It was so much. Yeah, like my mom's big dilemma was, do I marry for love or do I marry for honor? And my dad is was do i marry for love or do i marry for honor and my dad is do i marry for love or do i marry for for duty and um and they both chose each other

and i think that was really that was powerful and so when we were burnt when we were born you know we grew up going to french school monday to friday and then saturday japanese school and sunday hindi school and so we went to school seven days a week for like our entire lives. And our parents tricked us into believing that all kids went to school seven days a week. And so we're like, great. But, you know, I learned, you know, when you're when you're thrown into so many different cultures, you do tend to think you start to think differently because you don't you have

you come at things from so many different perspectives from different angles and you have different cultural references that come into play everywhere you go. And so I think that was a big thing. I would also say that my parents, when we were growing up, whenever there was a problem in our community, rather than complaining about it,

they did something about it. So growing up, there wasn't a gifted children's summer camp in Montreal. There was a sports camp, and there was a regular day camp, and there was sleepaway camps, but there wasn't a gifted children's summer camp in Montreal. There was like a sports camp and there was like a regular day camp and there was like sleepaway camps, but it wasn't like a gifted children's summer camp where he did, you know,

you can like dissect a pig and like see the organs and like, you know, and do all these scientific things and science fairs and stuff like that. And so, you know, my, my parents barely spoke French, you know,

and, and didn't have any resources or any, didn't know anyone, but they took it upon themselves to start Montreal's first gifted children's summer camp and it ran for you know 15 years thereafter 500 kids like it and it was really impactful in my life and so you know also when we were when we were elementary school my my parents were like electronics is the future this is like we know when before like computers and like you know commodore 64 was just starting you know like yeah yeah and um no cell phones obviously and so my my parents were like electronics is the

future and and but there's nowhere to learn about it and so they created this really you know this wonderful you know program called and this this company called tomorrow's professionals and my mom is like i am the president ofe of Tomorrow's Professionals. You know, the Japanese accent. It's so cute. And it was great. And they basically made these awesome kits, beautiful kits that had like breadboards in it with transistors and resistors and switches and diodes and LEDs. And you can basically, and my dad wrote the manual. My mom drew the pictures.

Amazing. And you can like make burglar alarms and make like LED lights flashing and switches turning on and off. Unbelievable. And they taught, they sold these kits all throughout Canada. And it was really cool to watch them not complain and just come up with really fun solutions. And so that's just sort of how we grew up. Yeah. So it was really sort of embedded in just the disruption of your parents' marriage to start with.

And them being in a way, in a culture that was foreign to them and having to think differently about everything. Totally. Yeah. And I also think having an identical twin certainly helped too, just because, you know, when you have like someone always being like, yeah, that's a great idea.

You know what I mean? And you're like, you don't have to, you don't go to a lunch room when you're a kid like by yourself. You always have a buddy. You know, there's always those fear moments where you're like,

I don't have any friends or, you know, am I going to get bullied? Like we're both little people, like we're both pretty tiny, but we never got bullied because we were always together. And so I think as a result, like whenever we had an idea, we would always be like, that's such a great idea. Let's go do it. And so just having someone love your ideas all the time, I think really helped a lot. That's amazing. Yeah, your sister's also quite a force to be reckoned with. So the one thing I want us to talk about in detail is the book you just wrote called Disrupt Her. And in our culture, disruption,

if you're disruptive in class, that's a pejorative of bad work. I was disruptive. You go to the principal's office, you get a detention. But now it seems to be a value when we I was disruptive. You go to the principal's office, you get a detention. But now it seems to be a value. We hear about disruptive innovation. We hear about disruption being a good thing in culture, disruptive businesses, and that's the new sexy thing. So what inspired you to write this book and sort of walk us through what the principles

are and how you came to sort of understand this as an important value that we should all be seeking. Yeah. I wrote this book because I was just fairly like frustrated by the fact that, you know, we live in a society where we're still dictated in so many ways on how to think and act and be and how, you know, to live an authentic life is to go against society in a lot of ways, you know, to have a really sort of direct path that's, you know, where you should be sort of living within the confines of that societal path. And that's acceptable. But anything outside of those paths, outside of that path, you know, it's considered bad or taboo or you're, you know, it's, it's, it's considered bad or taboo or, or you're, you know, you're, you're not a good person, you know? And so I think, you know, to, to, to have a place where you can explore all of the sort of, you know, preconceptions that you feel like, Hey, this

doesn't feel like it's me, but I feel like I'm just going along with society. This book kind of gives you that opportunity to break out of all of those, all of that thinking and the societal norms and to just pave your own path for yourself. And so it actually focuses on 13 areas in your life where you want to disrupt and look at and really inspect and question. And then you can make a decision for yourself how you want to be in that area in your life. So can you walk us through those 13 areas? Because it sounds like it's a fun journey. Absolutely. Well, so the first one is, so basically how the book is laid out, it starts with a common

belief and then the disruption. And so the first common belief is that we have to get serious as we grow up. We're told, get your head out of the clouds. Sit down. Be quiet. Stop talking. Stop playing. Stop playing. And it's absolutely true. And so as a result, there's this incredible book that came out

by this guy named Gordon McKenzie who wrote the book Orbiting the Giant Hairball. And it's a great book. he's he's this guy from hallmark who he was one of the creative directors at hallmark for 30 years and every single you know few months he would go to these elementary schools to just like talk to these kids and get inspiration from children and um and he would go to these like kindergarten classrooms and he would say who here is an artist and like

everyone would raise their hand they'd be like oh me me me me me me right and then he would go to the first graders so he's like who here's an artist right and it would be like half the class yeah raising their hands and then now slightly tentatively now the second graders like who here's an artist maybe barely a third and everyone's now darting their eyes like feeling self-conscious and then by the fourth and fifth grade, it's almost like one to none. And so it's such a telling, beautiful depiction of how we're sort of stifled of our creativity and our artful, expressive, childlike state, you know, as we get older. And it's not that teachers don't want you to be expressive, but we've been taught, like, you know, Horace Mann, when he created the school system, he created that system to create, you know, factory workers.

Yeah. And so to become cogs in these machines, right? So when the Industrial Revolution. Which is amazing that we have so many citizens who really don't know how to think. That's right. And they're just, like, take things at face value. Following a ready-made path. Yeah. And they're just like, take things at face value. Following a ready-made path, like listening to, oh, this is truth because it's been said

to me in this way, you know, by my parents or my parents' parents, and it's been passed down and therefore it's truth. So it's like, no, no, it doesn't have to be. Maybe that's the truth for them in their particular time in their lives. But, you know, that doesn't mean that it's true today. Yeah. And also it's like, oh, our parents and the past generation

are so convincing that if you do it like this, then you'll live a good life. Like, look at us. We live this way and therefore this is how you should live too so you can have a same safe good life. It's like, okay,

that could have worked for you but it doesn't work for me. And so it's just like, so the first one is really about how you have to get serious as you grow up. That's a common belief. And the disruption is, no, actually you can still live in a childlike state of curiosity and playfulness and awe and still be a responsible adult at the same time.

And still pay your bills. And still pay your bills. I mean, you and I, we go to Burning Man together. And one of the reasons why we go to Burning Man is to play and to remind ourselves that it's so okay to go and be whimsical and silly. One of my examples I talk about in my book is the story of when I was at Burning Man and there was this like in the middle of the desert, in the middle of nowhere, there was like this literally a washing machine.

And there was like this cat that was like sleeping on it like a like a fake cat that like this toy cat they're sleeping on it with like the the body the cat moving up and down like electronically it was really cool and then i was so excited so tickled by this washing machine that i like got off my bicycle and went and sat on it and then these like three random guys on their bicycles come over to me and they take their step off their bikes and they're like oh my god are you having problems with your load too because i am too and they're like and like i tried using this change and it didn't work so they said that over there told me that if you use this chewing gum and you put the chewing gum in the load and you kick it a couple of times then it'll work and then and it was such a lovely whimsical silly made up on the spot exchange that i was just so

like god like if that happened in real life, like in New York city where someone came and told me like, you know, like use chewing gum, they would think that you're insane, you know? So it's like, why? Like, you know, and this is where like the concept of context comes into play, like having the right context as to like, where are you given permission to play? Where are you given permission to be silly? And honestly, like people are like, oh, you have to be serious when you go to work because that's where you're serious.

That's not a context of play. Well, I disagree with that because the idea for Thinks, for example, was born out of playing. We wouldn't have come up with the idea had we not been having our three-legged race and playing and being silly because oftentimes that's when the most creativity happens.

Yeah. No, it's so true. I mean, I often found that at work, people do create a different personality or persona. And I think it's hard to be different people in different places. You just gotta be the same person. So wherever I go, I'm the same.

It doesn't matter where I'm at, if at Cleveland Clinic or on TV or here on the podcast. I mean, just in me, I don't know who else to be. Right? Exactly. But you've disrupted an entire medical system, and that's why you're you, too. So it's, yeah, it's really powerful. So give us another one of the disruption areas.

Yeah, another one would be like, you know, we're advertised to literally thousands of times per day on our phones, on billboards, when you're walking down the street, like on the subway, in the taxis now, the TVs, on the planes, everywhere you go, you are getting attacked by thousands of advertisements which tell you that the more you have and the more stuff equals a better life.

The more you can like... That's not true? Well, I mean like it sounds it sounds obvious that it's not but it's but but it for so many people it's like you know like keeping up with the joneses and like wanting to have like like mtv cribs like you know like how can you how can you keep up with that and that's what we're told like that equals a better life. But in fact,

you know, the disruption is like to clean house and to practice addition by subtraction actually creates so much more space for you to, to, to live authentically and to explore your life, you know? And so one of the examples I talk about in my book is my, my,

my husband's mom, Andrew's mom, Sam, I don't know if you met her at Burning Man this year, but she's wearing a purple wig. I did meet her. She's amazing. Magically.

Yeah, great woman. Right? And at 65 years old, she sold, like she stepped out of her fear, of like her comfort zone and into the unknown and basically sold every single thing in her life and basically decided, and she's still working. She's a consultant.

She has clients. She's got, she speaks all over the world. She's like, she's really, she's got things to do and she has places to be, but she sold everything and decided to choose to live by different bodies of water for the next year or two or indefinitely just to see like how that will help her flow, be in more flow state. Because she, she grew up in, she lived for 20 years in Hawaii, lived, you know, by bodies of water for so long that she was like, you know, when she, when she moved to Virginia and lived in Linn, she's kind of lost some of her, like her, her, her mojo. And so she was like, I'm 65. Like, what have I got to lose? I'm just going to go live by different bodies of water. And she has traveled the world, you know, by living and has more

creative wrote another book, wrote, did book, has more clients, has more speaking engagements, more things. And she chose to step out of her comfort zone to do that. And oftentimes people are like, oh, she probably has money or she probably has like, you know, she's already passed her prime and quotes or whatever. It's like, no, she's just getting into her prime. She went to Burning Man for the first time. She was there for eight days. She won Burning Man this year, you know? And so it's like, you don't have to, like there is no compromise at whatever age of your life.

You know, you can disrupt like the path that's safe. Like I'm gonna go to see Sal on Sundays at the local diner because I need to read my newspaper because that's what I do every Sunday. Like that doesn't have to be the case. You can literally like up and like create your own. And if you wanna do that, then yeah, that's what I do every Sunday. Like that doesn't have to be the case. You can literally like up and like create your own. And if you want to do that, then yeah, that's great too. But that doesn't have to be exactly the way you want it to be.

You know, one of the things that is challenging for people is they're often concerned with how they impact other people or how they will be seen in the world or whether they'll be accepted or rejected. And, you know, it seems like you kind of have a mutation where that gene is just gone. Like you just are authentically fully you and you are doing the things, even if they're challenging to society or disruptive in a way. I mean, I recently went to your wedding and you're like, nobody used their cell phone. I mean, it's a challenging thing to say to a bunch of millennials to say, well, I'm not

going to use my cell phone. And everybody put their phone away. And everybody got to show up and have an authentic experience together. Yeah, you were there. And I was so happy to see you. You were wearing your badass Burning Man jacket, the band leader coat, of course. Yeah, it was amazing.

We did a three-day love festival for the wedding. We didn't want to have a wedding where it's just a normal wedding. We wanted to do a love festival where everyone deepened their love together. I mean, I had an amazing time you have fun yeah it was beautiful it was great yeah so so practicing addition by subtraction it changed my life too you know when i moved from my you know one apartment to my my new home i get got rid of 80 of my stuff wow and it's like and it bogs you down like stuff you know there's this book obviously that so many people know about which is you know the marie kondo's book you know the life-changing magic of tidying up and it it really

does free you it does free you and it's like everything has a space everything belongs where it should belong and everything else is just noise and that and for me like that goes for my friendships you know like all the friendships that i feel aren't additive or mutually like you know beautiful and up leveling with one another, co-elevating. Like, you know, those friendships, like, you know, it's time to sort of like slow those friendships down and work and be with friends who really give you wings and make you feel great. And you can do the same for them. It's co-elevation at its finest. You know, we get rid of the energy suckers in your life and the complainers and the whiners.

Yeah. And it's like people should be allowed to feel and to go through their ups and downs. Absolutely. At the same time, like in my book, I talk about putting a timeline to that sort of the painful moments.

Because every time you see a friend and they're just talking about the same sad thing, it does get tiring over time. And then you start to dread hanging out with those people versus like, okay, I'm going to have a couple of sit downs with you, cry, share, and then I'm going to move through it. You know, in my book, I talk about how like we can either be a flowing river or a stagnant pond, you know, flowing rivers and a stagnant pond could be your mind to flowing river. There's like fish and it's healthy and you can like,

there's like things are moving, but a stagnant you can like, there's like, things are moving but a stagnant pond are like toads and like lime green gunk on the sides and shit's collecting and it's full of like a cesspool of infection.

You know? And it's not good. Even in the restaurant space, you know, they talk about how stagnant water promotes pests, right? Like there's stagnant water

that like roaches and like mice and the reason why like the health department like when they see stagnant water that like roaches and like mice. And the reason why like the health department, like when they see stagnant water, they find you is because like that promotes all these pesky things. It's the same thing with your mind. If it's stagnant and you're sitting there and you're letting it just fester,

it's just not a healthy thing. And you give people steps to how to break through that. Oh yeah, absolutely. And so, um, you know, so,

so, so I, so that specific one is, you know, chirping is for procrastinators, chirping in your mind, like chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp, we can chirp all day long. Chirping is for, is for procrastinators. And instead of chirping about what you don't like, create what you would like, create what you would like. And how do you do that if you don't know how you do it automatically, right? You just naturally kind of fall into creativity and innovation disruptive

thinking but it's not typical for most people well you start by by finding the people that really make you let that light you up so a great example is my friend max my friend max is like literally like 10 11 years younger than us than me and my sister yeah and when we met him and max the poet max the poet max dossell he's amazing we met him. Max the poet. Max the poet. Max Stossel. He's amazing. We call him Aristossel. And his father's John Stossel, who's like, you know,

who's a big time, you know. Journalist. Journalist, yeah. On TV. And Max, you know, when I met him, she was 22 years old. And, you know,

like seemingly, just got out of college, seemingly in quotes, not a lot to offer to someone who's been in the world in quotes, quotes, quotes, you know, for a long time. But, you know, what he did was we met and then, you know, we would invite to things that he'd be the first one there and he would be contributing and he would be offering amazing insights from his perspective. And he would be just showing the up all the time, day in, day out. Every day we're like, oh, Max, there you go. We'd send a mass text out.

He'd be the first to be like, I'm there. And then now he's literally one of my best friends. He was in our wedding party. And because he just showed up. And one of the Burning Man principles is participation. If you just participate, the more you put in, the more you get out. People are like, oh, I want to change my life. It's like, okay, but you have to put in the work.

You have to seek out those people that light you up. You have to show up to their events. I love Mark Hyman. I'm going to go and show up to his events and go and talk to him and offer something insightful and not just be like, I think you're great. Can I have a picture with you? It's more like, hey, when you said this and here,

it made me think of this and I thought maybe to give you this insight. And you're like, oh, wow, that was really thoughtful you know or like when i talk about it in my first book do cool shit i talk about like always offer something where like hey i have like a community of like hundreds of thousands of people let me like share your story with them and or even if you have like hey like i don't have a community of hundred thousands of people i have nothing but i know my friend who's an editor at my school newspaper right you know who can then get a little story in your paper just by giving something anything you can that will open the door because the minute you start by asking for something with someone you don't know

yeah it's just like you're like oh it's taker not interested yeah so that's a that's a number one taker not a maker yeah exactly yeah i actually uh there's a book by, not interested. So that's a number one way to start. A taker, not a maker. Yeah, exactly. Actually, there's a book by a professor at the University of Pennsylvania called Adam Grant where he talks about how in business you can achieve much more success by giving and helping and sharing. And that's honestly how I built my whole career

is I'm always helping everybody else. You are. So if somebody needs something, if somebody wants to promote something, if it's something I believe in, I'll share it because I want people helping everybody else. You are. So if somebody needs something, if somebody wants to promote something, if it's something I believe in, I'll share it because I want people to be elevated. You know, people want my help as a doctor. I do it when I can.

I mean, I always find that I'm interested in serving and helping. And what I find is that everything comes back a thousandfold. It's true. It's just stunning to me how you do that and you put goodwill into the world and you create goodness in the world. And it just, it's a cycle. And you know, it's not how you do that and you put goodwill into the world and you create goodness in the world.

And it's a cycle. And it's not how you do it because you're going to get something back. It's because it's just how the nature of things work. So, Mickey, in your book, you talk about hate-hers. Yes. Like, as people who hate women? Yeah. Or is it just haters in general?

I mean, I'm speaking a lot about women who hate other women, like haters, um, or who act out as haters, you know, but it's, but also like people who hate women. Yeah. Yeah. Or like, I'll get into that in a second.

Yeah. I'll explain. So, okay. So basically what I mean by that is, so, so when we're, when we're born,

we're not born haters. We're not born haters. We're, we're born love hers. We're born, we're born loving. We're born caring. Anders. We're born loving. We're born caring. And just over time, again, with the societal pylon of how we should think, act, and be,

and how other people are doing better, and you're now competing with everyone, and you're put into this competitive sort of state, you start to act out as a hater. In my book, I talk about no one's actually a hater. We just act out sometimes as a hate her. You know, in my book, I talk about no one's actually a hate her. We just act out sometimes as a hate her. And in fact, hate hers live within all of us. Doesn't even matter how good we are, like in the world, we do have those moments

where we're like feeling bad about ourselves or we're feeling insecure or sad or hurt or angry. Then we can internally, then we can act out as a hate her. Right, it usually comes from some source of pain yeah it's all it always comes from within and like you know it's we forget that externally external and internal are completely linked i mean of course you know that as a doctor it's just you know if if we're feeling like shit we're going to act out like shit if we're feeling

loving and safe and secure and confident and powerful then we're more likely going to act out as a love her support others be champions be champions of others, be like, you know, like super loving to everyone around us. But when we're going, when we're on the other side of our emotional spectrum, then of course we're going to act out as a hater. And so, so the disruption here is hate hers exists within all of us. It's so easy. I feel like in society, we're like, you know, like we think that haters are other people. You know, it's like, oh, she's a hater. But it's like, let's be honest.

Like it does exist within all of us, depending on where we are in our own emotional spectrum. And so the faster we can catch ourselves acting out as a hate her, the faster we can go back to being love hers. And so, you know, for me, in my experience, building businesses and being in the world and especially, you know, pretty out there in the world, you know, I've experienced a lot of of of hating on, you know, like people hating on me. Yeah. And and that's, you know, like initially I took it so personally and it was really, really hard for me, especially, you know, as a pregnant person, you know, and the hormones are kicking. But yeah, but, you know, I always go are kicking, but, um, but you know, I always go back to being like, no, no, no, there there's, there's a hurt there. And, and, and that

hurt, you know, could have been caused by me and, and probably was. And so for me to own up to my side and then say like, Hey, like they were acting out as a hate her because they were hurt or they were, they felt sad. And that was how they wanted to like get back, you know? And so I feel like if we can all self-reflect on that, when we're, when we're feeling like talking about others, like my challenge that I have in my books at the end of every chapter, I have these disruptive exercises where you, you do something, you have to do a physical act. And so the, so the challenge is whenever you think about being a, or you're thinking about hating on someone,

you send a text, you pull out your phone and send a text to someone that you love and just say, hey, I'm playing a fun game. One thing I like about you is X. And that's it. And so like the idea is that by reminding yourself of the good in others, you're reminded of the good in yourself. And so you, you know, like that's so important.

It's something people don't think of doing, but it works so powerfully to transform relationships and to transform your world, which is when you appreciate something about somebody, when you have an experience that's positive with somebody, when someone does something that you like, tell them. Affirm. Tell them.

Yes. So share your experience so that they know how you make them feel. Absolutely. And how they make you feel absolutely how you make they make you feel yeah my husband andrew started a company called tribute yeah and his whole thing is and it's a video technology company that basically collects and compiles video montages to you know for for anyone for their birthdays and for their it's it's an incredible gift yeah you did one for my birthday it was amazing and um his whole thing is if you have you know how

there's a saying like if you don't have anything nice to say. Don't say anything. Right, don't say it at all. Whereas he changed it to if you have anything nice to say, say it all. Yeah, and so it's a beautiful ritual that if you have something great to say, then absolutely say it. And then the next thing would be the concept of failure. Like people, like failing is embarrassing.

And a lot of times people don't even start to disrupt their lives or even start to do anything because they feel like if I put myself out there and fail, I'll be so embarrassed. And everyone's going to laugh at me. I'm going to have to put my tail between my legs and I don't even know what I'm going to do. And so the whole disruption is, you know, just simply replace the word failure with revelation. What has been revealed to you? In my experience as an entrepreneur, I've been through so many ups and downs. I've been failed myself in some ways or something happened where I, I, I, my judgment was, was often. So therefore, you know,

like it was just bad, but instead I'm like, oh no, what has been revealed to me? Oh, well, I was real revealed to me was that I was too trusting was revealed to me. That was, you know, that there's so many different things that were revealed to me in my experience as an entrepreneur, where I feel like, you know, if I, if I look at it as a revelation for the next time, where I can do things better the next time, where I can move forward in a, with all these new lessons in my, in my back pocket. It has some negative good in it. Yeah. It's always, and then you end up with gratitude.

Yeah. I mean, either someone's criticizing you because there's something that they're dealing with yeah or because maybe there's a nugget in there for you to learn from yeah and see it as offensive or as a criticism seen as a gift yeah there's a very different way of framing and i learned to do that when i was about 18 because i would get a lot of you know bullying in a sense yeah well you know it's kind of weird yeah a sense. Yeah, of course. It was kind of weird. Yeah. I was a little nerdy. Different and disruptive. And different.

And so, yeah, and I learned very quickly that if I just reframed it and not as something that would take me down, but something that could really elevate me or just have compassion for them, it changed everything. Right? Yeah.

Just a little shift in just the use of the language that you give to the thing. It's not a failure, it's a revelation. Wow, that's from a negative to a positive. It's amazing. And then the last disruption is that we have to oftentimes keep a lot of our things quiet inside of us. Like a lot of the negative stuff that happens

to keep it inside of us whereas the disruption is it's truly all about transparency vulnerability and community I mean that's really what it ends up being about like when I you know I went through a really really challenging time at things um you know with my and with with all of my companies in some ways like who doesn't you know at any point of your life um you, rather than keeping a lot of that pain within, I shared a lot with my friends and with my tribe. And by purging, I really was able to move so much faster through it. And being vulnerable.

It was amazing how you dealt with it, yeah. Yeah, and being vulnerable is the most important thing. When you're feeling sad or feeling triggered, you just share it. And then people can help support you through it as you move forward. Yeah. So your book's pretty awesome. I think there's a description I read, which is, when we do question, challenge, and disrupt all aspects of our life, we can live a more excited and passionate, lit up experience full of adventure, love, friendship, and fulfilling work that creates a positive ripple effect. Hell, I want that.

Yeah. And it reminds me of a quote from Goethe, which is a very famous quote, which is that whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. That's right. And that's exactly what you're talking about with this book

is how do you be bold in your life? How do you disrupt? How does that lead to creativity and magic and wonder in your life? And it's really what you're talking about. Absolutely. And it is a roller coaster and it's fun, but it's like there's this incredible quote by,

is it Emerson when he says like, I want to skid to death doors sideways and fully like mangled up and not in a well-preserved body. Like I want to live life. No, but that's- I'd rather like the Rose Pro, which is, you know, make sure you suck the marijuana.

Yeah, yeah. No, no, no, for sure. But I mean like, like, you know, what I love about my life, like the ups and the downs, like it expands your emotional capacity.

Like you feel, I've never felt like the highs without, you know, in the same highs that I felt to this day had I not experienced the depths of despair and the depths of betrayal and the depths of to this day had I not experienced the depths of despair and the depths of betrayal

and the depths of sadness. Had I not experienced that, I feel like the spectrum has now increased. The joy is now even... More capacity for fully living. Fully, fully feeling. And I'm so grateful for that. That is truly the most powerful thing

from any of the positive and negative experiences that it just expands your emotional capacity. So I'm going to read this quote from Thoreau, which sort of reminds me as well of what you're talking about. Live deep and suck the merit of life. That's one of them. He says, I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately to front only the essential facts of life and see if I could not learn what it had to teach and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. Exactly.

And the other quote is, men live lives of quiet desperation. I think what you're challenging us is to break through that and to think differently and to look at our lives in a new way. And the book Disruptor is really a powerful statement and a stake in the ground to help inspire all of us to do things differently and to live our authentic life. So thank you, Mickey, for joining us on The Doctor's Pharmacy.

Thank you so much for having me. It's great. And this is a place for conversations that matter. If you like this podcast, I encourage you to write a review, share your thoughts with us, share it with your friends and family on your social media. And if you haven't subscribed, subscribe now on anywhere you get your podcasts. We'll see you next time on The Doctor's Pharmacy.