Miki Agrawal Gets Real About Money and Business

On her Lead With Love podcast, host Jadah Sellner highlights entrepreneurial journeys that focus on maintaining an open mind, open heart, and desire for transparency. On Lead With Love, Sellner and guests delve into frank conversations about money, startups, growing pains, and topics typically left unearthed. Recently, serial entrepreneur Miki Agrawal stopped by the podcast, where the duo dished on everything taboo.

Read on for highlights from Miki Agrawal’s episode of the podcast:

Jadah S.: What’s your relationship with money? I think this is a conversation, talking about taboo topics. I coach women in business, and this is just a conversation where it always feels like money is taboo when it comes to women, but men, are, I’m generalizing right now, they tend to have a more open public conversation around the metrics and the numbers.

I’m just curious about you being a serial entrepreneur, building social enterprises. You need money to take care of your team, and all of those pieces in the company. What is your relationship with money and profit and all of that?

Miki Agrawal Talks Money

Miki Agrawal: I mean, I think money’s energy, right? Money is a made-up energy exchange that we’ve agreed to is worth something. When you’re giving your energy to create something, to have energy be received feels good, and I think it gives people an incentive to actually do things.

I think that the more energy that you’re given, the more energy you have to give. So I think it’s incentive-based, right? I think that conscious capitalism is actually the most important vehicle that will change the world, it’s not non-profit, it’s just single for-profit, it’s not the government, it’s conscious capitalism, and what that means is, it’s a win-win-win-win model where everybody wins, not just the shareholders, but the shareholders, the suppliers, the employees, the founders, the environment, everybody has to win in order for the business to be a conscious business.

Those businesses, conscious businesses, actually outperform just for-profit companies, oftentimes up to 14 to one. So if you actually think about what’s best for the business, it’s to create a win-win-win model. I really think that that’s how money can be used for good, it’s like if you actually build a business where there’s an incentive to really build the business, but to do it right and to really empower everyone in the business making process, and that’s where the magic happens.

Miki Agrawal On Life’s Balancing Act

Jadah S.: How do you balance your ambition with building companies and also raising a family now that you’re a mama?

Miki A.: Yes. I mean, I think that I’m definitely working smarter, not harder, and I think that I’m getting as much if not more done now than I was before. Before, you’re kind of checking your email, and you’re like reading an article. You’re kind of like doing a lot of things, and there’s a lot of like kind of downtime in between, not a lot, but like sometimes, or you put too many meetings that are unnecessary on your calendar, where you just like over-busy yourself and I just cut all of that out.

I’m just doing focusing on what I do best, which is coming up with campaigns. It’s inventing and really focusing on that, and allowing the people who are better than me to do the other things that the other parts of the business has really given me the space to be creative and be inventive, so it’s exactly where I want to be.

Jadah S.: Yes. I’m sure for those listening, just the curiosity of like oh my goodness, you wrote a book in two and a half months and the new baby. I’m curious what your home team support looks like for you.

Miki A.: I have the most epic nanny, who actually moved into my apartment downstairs. We bought a townhouse in Williamsburg, there’s an apartment downstairs, our nanny and her amazing son live there, and so it just really, and she’s like a grandma to Hiro.

She really feels like part of the family, and her son is really feeling like a part of the family, and just having really good help with someone who teaches him, who’s teaching him Spanish, who’s teaching him numbers, who’s teaching him the alphabet, who’s always playing with him, who’s always taking him out on a walk, who’s always taking the library.

I get to really in between reading books, tell stories, teach them things, take him to the park-like I get to really do what I love, which is being around him too, but not have to let it overtake my whole life, and give me the space to do what I love as well, which only gives me the space to be a better mother.

The more fulfilled and happy I am, the more fulfilled and happy he is because he just feeds off energy, such energy beings, right? So, if they feel my energy is great, then they’ll be great. If they feel my energy being sad, which it rarely is, they feed off of that. So I just always try and feel like I’m fulfilled and purpose-driven because it’ll only inspire him to be the same.

Jadah S.: Yes. What about you just being an innovator and a disrupt-her? What are you looking at right now as you kind of look toward the future? Is there any unsung song or dream, desire, project that’s like brewing inside your belly right now as you look towards the next chapter of innovation?

Miki Agrawal On What The Future Holds

Miki A.: Yes. I’m definitely working on a bunch of new inventions under Tushy, which is the children’s, like the sort of like children’s space, and it’s very exciting. I’m also working on two new companies, new disruptive products. One is to really help deal with the whole 5g network that’s coming to America, and it’s going to really hurt human health with all these radiation towers.

Then the others is another product, a product for women that will help them a lot. I can’t share more than that right now, but it’s really exciting. All the projects I’m working on are so exciting and so fun, and I’m just enjoying; I’m enjoying exactly what I’m doing right now.

Jadah S.: Yes, it’s so beautiful. Because I can see, like the pain or the problem that society is grappling with, and you’re just like, oh, let me hold you like we’re going to innovate something to solve this. I can feel that deeply like in your heart and how you operate in the world. Is there anything that you would like to say before you say goodbye?

Miki A.: I definitely would love for everyone listening to, to really challenge yourself to think disruptively and to look at every aspect of your life. To question like am I doing this, because it’s just been done like this before, or because it really feels authentic and in integrity with what I feel.

I would love for you to check out my book. It does give women sort of perspective and understanding of historical context of where a lot of societal preconceptions came from, and so once you understand where these things come from, you’re kind of like oh, really, I can disrupt that right now for myself and really have agency within myself to create the exact life I want, and I’m excited for everyone to read the book.

About Miki Agrawal

As a best-selling author, Miki Agrawal has penned “Disrupt-Her” and “Do Cool Sh*t”, both modern manifestos that explore the intersection of pursuing dreams and making things happen. A thought leader, she often partakes in various leadership panels, speaking engagements, and other thought-provoking sessions.

Miki Agrawal is the Founder and CEO of several companies, including Wild (gluten-free pizzeria chain), Thinx (period panties on a mission), and Tushy (bidet attachments for every toilet).

Check out Miki Agrawal’s Medium page for more musings from the serial disrupt-her.