#107 - Soft Power: Miki Agrawal’s Unapologetic Mission to Create Global Impact by Solving Unsexy Problems

What do period-proof underwear, bidet attachments, and "mycodigestible" diapers have in common? They’re all industry-shaking, taboo-busting innovations brought to life by creator, founder and global change-maker Miki Agrawal — and they’re solving very real, very “unsexy” problems, that also just happen to help heal the planet.

In the first installment of our two-part conversation, Miki shares how 9/11 shaped her career pivot from investment banking and pro soccer to becoming a creative force behind brands like THINX, TUSHY, WILD, and HIRO Diapers. We unpack her bold creative process, her pragmatic approach to disruption, and how she's built impact into the DNA of every company she launches.

We also dive into:

• How to use humor, art, and shock value in marketing
• The story behind the now-iconic THINX subway campaign
• What it really takes to challenge legacy industries
• Why bold collaboration beats solo hustle
• How solopreneurs can build mission-driven business models — with or without physical products

Whether you're scaling your dream or just getting started, this episode is a masterclass in turning purpose into action — even in the messiest, most uncomfortable corners of entrepreneurship.

🔔 Don’t miss Part 2 — dropping soon!

WHERE TO FIND MIKI:

Miki Agrawal's website

TUSHY (suprise someone you love with a bidet!)

HIRO Diapers 

Mindset to Market is a Luminous Creative Production. If you'd like to learn more about our business coaching program and group coaching container, please visit us online at DeborahcSmith.com.

Mindset to Market is produced by Deborah C. Smith and designed to inspire and support big-hearted creatives in finding their own unique path, building a sustainable business, and creating financial, spiritual, mental wellness and abundance.

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Transcript

 All right guys. What happens when a wildly creative mind refuses to follow the rules and decides it's time to disrupt the multi-billion dollar industries that are responsible for creating insurmountable piles of waste with the goal of totally challenging taboos in solving global scale problems? If it's sounding like the plot of a Marvel superhero film, I totally get that.

But lucky for us, this person actually exists. And if you didn't already know her, you're about to find out. So today I'm bringing you a special two-part interview with someone who's not just an entrepreneur, but she's a truly a movement maker. My guest, Mickey Agarwal, is an artist, an author, an activist, a creator, an unapologetic innovator.

She's the founder of thinks, which is the period underwear brand that revolutionized how people talk about menstrual health. She's the founder of Tushy, which is a sleek bidet attachment brand, which is tackling the global sanitation crisis, the issue of bleach in our paper products and deforestation.

One toilet at a time. She's recently launched Hero Diapers, which makes the world's first micro digestible diapers designed to be broken down by fungi rather than just composted. And way back in the day before all of that, she built New York City's first ever gluten free pizza place. So we had a brief crossing of paths in 2014 when one of my mobile mobile juice bars was located inside the same building where thinks was headquartered.

And so I've known about Mickey and been a follower of her work and a fan ever since Mickey has built her success on audacity originality and. Solving very unsexy problems that affect our everyday lives. And in doing so, her companies have made a world changing impact. And so this is a slightly extended intro, obviously, because I wanted to drop some stats, uh, for you that are not covered in our conversation.

So as you're gonna hear, the interview is gonna pick up sort of mid flow, and then our conversation just immediately takes off in, in, in all directions. You're going to hear how nine 11 played a role in her career path. You're gonna hear about some of her most impactful and off the wall promotional events.

Um, can anyone say, but con, um, you're gonna hear her take on how companies can give back at any level and some of the most impactful lessons that she has learned throughout her very impressive career. But what we did directly discuss is the actual stats of the real world impact that her businesses are making.

So I wanted to give you guys a quick snapshot. Okay, so thanks. The Period underwear company, um, has helped to divert millions of single use pads and tampons away from landfills, dramatically reducing landfill waste. These are products that take literally thousands of years to break down, and Mickey stepped up and presented the first alternate solution to this in something like.

40, 50 years or something like that. So amazing. And also, through the early partnerships, things helped to fund reusable pad production companies in Uganda, improving menstrual access and supporting local women-led businesses there. And that work sparked an entire category of reusable menstrual products with dozens of new companies following her lead and changing the game completely.

Also eliminating the taboo of talking about our period, which was something that we just simply did not do. Prior to this, so she changed the conversation completely. Tushy has helped to save over 2 million trees by reducing America's dependence on toilet paper through bidet use. America did not have a simple bidet attachment, and once again, she led the way and there's tons of companies and are now creating these simple attachments.

Uh, this company also helped to support sanitation access for thousands of families in India, helping to address the global sanitation crisis there. So they have give back. Partnerships in place inside these companies that make a real impact in other parts of the world. They're not just products, they're actual solutions with a ripple effect on the environment, on equity, and truly innovative.

So in part one of this conversation, we are gonna go deeply into how creativity has fueled her businesses and her strategy and how she. It uses that approach to solve lots of problems. Um, and we talk a little bit about what it really takes to disrupt legacy industries like this. And this conversation is bold.

Mickey is brilliant. She may make you a little uncomfortable in the best, very best kind of way, and I really hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did, and I will see you on the other side. 

Hey there. Welcome to the Mindset to Market podcast. Your 

go-to place for practical tools and solutions for the everyday challenges of being a creative and spiritual solopreneur living in a material world.

I'm your host, Debra Smith. I'm a holistic business coach with 17 years of experience, and I help my clients bust through mindset blocks and build a daily practice that. Prioritizes your business's financial growth as well as your personal health and wellness. I'm here to offer you support, creativity, mindset, practical how-tos, and getting into imperfect messy actions so you can find balance while building the dream business.

If you're a purpose-driven solepreneur, who's working on that dream one day at a time, then you're in the right place. 

Let's dive in. 

I am so grateful to get to chat with you about your work and, and the impact that all your companies have made. And you have been, you've had a wild career already and you're still so young, and I feel like by the way, you're moving.

You're just getting started, so you need to chat about it all. But you're a four times founder. You know, you've got wild. Thanks, tushy and Hero. Currently under your belt, you've written two number one bestselling books. Do cool shit and disrupt her. You've been recognized repeatedly and awarded by popular media and institutions that recognize women in leadership positions in business.

And I think the coolest thing is that you have, you're a leader really in not just innovative, but like shock value, bold, taboo breaking, creative campaigns, which is like so exciting to chat with you about it. So as I was preparing for this, I did a little research. I had no idea that you were a professional soccer player before you became a business owner.

So I'd love to hear what the pivot was like and what made you decide to start a business after leaving a career as an athlete. 

Yeah. I mean, so it was playing, I was playing for the New York Magic and it was sort of like the feeder team to the power. So the power, it's like it's all in the professional league.

One's more farm, take farm team to the power. Um, and I played for the New York Magic and I played my entire life starting from age four to. You know, all the way through. I played D one in college, I went to Cornell and played division one there. And, um, the whole kind of impetus of becoming a a, an athlete and going for that pro athlete vibe was, um, after nine 11.

So I got actually out of, after my graduate from college, I got a job in investment banking like me, which I'm so not investment banker type, but it was like, oh my god. The best job that paid the most that you had a signing bonus and you had like. You know, um, street cred and you, you just learned a lot about finance.

There was a really good foray into the world of business. And so, um, and a bunch of student loans to pay off. So it's like, okay, I'll become an investment banker, I guess. Um, but then nine 11 happened when I actually, like on the 11th day of my job starting at Deutsche Bank, and I did the two and a half month training program first, and my official start date was like that first week of September, 2000.

One 

a wild time 

and then nine 11 happened and 700 people. So my subway stop every morning is two World Trade Center. I would basically walk upstairs from two world trade, get tea with my girlfriend Laura, who worked on the hundredth floor and walk across the street to my job at Deutsche Bank and nine 11 happened.

700 people in my girlfriend's office died. I thought she was dead the whole time, but she had gone down right before the plane hit to get coffee, so she was spared. Like I, I was, you know, all the lines were jammed, all the cell phone lines were jammed, so, you know, we couldn't get in touch. I literally 700 people, everyone in her company and the company above died, like, and uh, and, and so when I remember calling her like, oh, like, you know, and then two people in my office died on that day, and it was the first and only day in my life that I slept through my alarm clock.

Like, I had never slept through my alarm clock before, and it was sort of this real wake up call in my twenties when I just was like the mystery of life as you never know when it's gonna end. 

Yeah, yeah. And 

so, yeah, and so then I just, you know, wrote down three things I wanted to do with my life. And the first was to play soccer professionally, and the second was to make movies and start, start a business.

And I did all, all those things. Uh, and that was all, yeah. 

So I was actually in Tower one on the day that the first, the plane hit. And so I have a wild nine 11 story. I was randomly a temp job as a PA on a TV set. Um, but it was a nightmare. It took me 48 hours to get home and I witnessed a lot of horrible stuff that day.

And, and so I'd, it was a, that was a life changing day for me as well. 

Wow, that is wild that you were there. And honestly, I had this, I had such survivor's guilt 'cause of what happened to so many people there that I was the only volunteer at Deutsche Bank to volunteer with like nine pages of critical documents to get for the investment bank with multi-billion dollar investment bank.

No one else volunteered except for me to go into the building with a marine, like two moon suits, gas mask goggles. Face mask and go in and like retrieve critical document. And I just wanted to see with my own eyes like what happened. 

Yeah, 

it was like rubble and it was, it was absolutely insane.

Unforgettable. I mean, we were like running down the street as the building was falling. It's just, it was like being in a movie. But we, because we were there, we thought a BA had gone off on the upper floors. There was no sign of, no, we didn't know it was planes until what the next day. Like the people on the ground had no idea that we had no idea, we had no access to television, no cell phones.

So it took me. A full day and a half to even learn that planes had hit the towers. 

Did you have seal like the ru did you 

see? Yeah, the whole was in my mind. The second that the sound happened and the shaking of the building, it was a bomb, of course, because that's the only thing that made any sense. And we ran up the stairs and out of the subway and started running down the street back to the office.

At Trinity, grabbed her stuff and started running to get out out. And next thing you know, I'm on the Staten Island ferry. The next thing you know, I'm in some stranger's house wearing her husband's pajamas and waiting to find out how we can get back to Brooklyn like. It just was a long journey back and then took me a, what was happening, 

took me a week to get back home too.

I went and stayed at my, at my managing director's family's house in Westchester. Yeah, because the Brooklyn Bridge was like completely blocked and so couldn't get home either. That's so crazy. Crazy, crazy. 

I had to walk across the Veno Bridge from Staten Island going traffic unforgettable, you know what I mean?

Seeing warships in the, in the, in the bay there. If you lived through nine 11 in New York, like that's. It's a bond that we will all never forget. You know? I mean, it's really shapes the way you see the world. 

A hundred percent. Wow. What a story. I'm, so, 

I didn't even know that. So now it's like we're off track already, but I, of course, I'm like, so you built a gluten-free pizza business that really, that was first to market, right?

Did anybody else have a gluten-free pizza shop in New York City? It was kind of, I wonder a little bit about like getting that off the ground and launching wild in the wake of, all of that was happening in New York. 

For sure. I mean, people were very like, New York Pizza, Joe's Pizza and yeah, it was, it was very, yeah, hard of the time in 2005 when people were like, subway sandwich is healthy spot.

You know, like that's what was healthy. It was subway sandwich and um, and so, you know, and everyone was like, very Joe's Pizza. And so like, I spent years standing outside my little restaurant, like, like handing out little pieces of pizza. Having people walk by and like, taste some help taste pizza.

Delicious. And then they would try it. I'm like, did you know what's gluten-free? Do you know what's warm to the table? Do you know you healthy? Yeah. While they're, while they're like with their, Hmm. They're like, oh. Then I tell them, because initially I'd be like, gluten-free pizza, like no one would stop, you know?

Right. 

And stop like, yeah. So I, I ab test a lot of headlines like out loud and people, I really got to learn, you know, at an early age, what drew people and ultimately. I learned very early on that you have to meet people where they are, you know, and that's how you change culture. It's like you meet people where they are, and you know, my son's godfather, John Mackey's, the founder of Whole Foods Market, and he and I had lots of conversations about, you know, his, his first business, whole Foods.

Before it was called Whole Foods. It was called Safer Way, 

isn't it? Started 

in New Orleans. In, in, in Texas. It's Austin. It started off. Yeah, I, I'm in Austin now, and so he, so he, um, it was called Safer Way and they didn't have sugar, no coffee, no meat, no dairy. It was like vegan, like super, like, you know, one of those stores like health food stores, and it literally almost shut down in, under a year.

And so he had to make a real decision. Whether to meet people where they are and offer like the healthiest, you know, sugars and the healthiest coffees and the healthiest, you know, versions of meat, like the local and whatever. 

And then, 

and guess what happened? You know, like 40 years later, whole Foods market has converted more people into a plant-based diet than having been staunch in this and then just kept small and maybe would've died.

So I think, you know, what I learned as well at an early age is like how do you meet people where they are? You say yummy pizza, you say, you know, like you create a beautiful, fun, friendly, inviting environment you where people are wanna come in. And then when they're inspired, that's when you're like, try this.

And then they're like, okay. And then they try like, this is delicious. And then you're like, did you know gluten-free? It's from to table, it's local, it's seasonal, all the things. And then they start to learn more. But, but I learned early on, so as I said, when I then went on to build thanks to she and a hero, it's really how do we speak the language of where people are, right?

Yeah. We learned that the hard way. So I owned Green Pirate, the juice truck that was inside the stare at Lehigh Building. Yes, I know. I wasn't sure if you remember. It's so funny because I, when we launched that business, it was 2006. People were still smoking in bars. Like nobody, like we were like, what if we took the ice cream truck and turned it into a organic juice bar and it was just like we were begging people to try the fucking juice.

Like literally, I'd be out on the street, we would blast reggae. We had like a graffiti truck. We were just in the street. We would hire dancers. Be like, come dance outside our truck. So somebody will come and check us out and then we would just give away the product. We would give it away because as soon as they took us, 

that's 

expensive.

Giving away juice is so cool. 

I mean, it was like, you know, we didn't do it all the time, but we had to give. Yeah. Had to, we had to give away samples because 

for sure we gave out, I gave out so many samples of organic blue pizza for sure. 

We, we, we would just say, Hey, give it a try and, and it's on us and just tell me what you think.

Of course, you know, people on the street in New York just walking down the street would take a sip of this green liquid ready to think it was gonna make them throw up. And they would be shocked when it was delicious and felt like this vitality in their system. And so by the time our lives actually intersect cut to years later, and for the listener, I used to own a mobile food vending truck that was basically a vegan plant-based juice bar, but.

What I haven't talked about, I don't think ever is that we got invited to drive it inside a building in Chelsea. And so we would just literally drive there every day, this huge key 30 step van and drive it in the freight elevator up to the 15th floor and park it there for the day because, and 

I would go to that juice bar.

Yeah. Well your assistant used to come and she, she would be like. This is for the owner of Thanks. And I was like, Ooh, awesome. Like I was all excited about it. One time I remember she came up and she's like, she wants to change all the ingredients. She wants a specialized beverage. And I was like, yeah, girl.

That's what this is all about. Like change the recipe. That's why I'm, this is why I exist. And I love, one time, I think you and your husband came to the truck in matching suits your 

Oh my God. My husband, IL Yeah. Of Cold Forest. We were matching suits all the time. Yeah. Yeah. 

I loved, I loved knowing that you guys were doing what you were doing, and so I, we have to talk about things.

Thanks. When it came on the scene, it wasn't just a product that you could buy. Now, this is like literally a cultural moment. It, it was activism disguised as a business, and I found out about things because I was a New Yorker who got on the subway one day. 

No way. 

I'll never forget every single subway car was plastered with women of every shape and size, every color in their underwear.

And I have to ask you about this campaign. It was everywhere. It was in every subway car. So for listeners who don't live in New York City, the the subway is filled with ads. It's, you know, it's a big place to market your. But this was every single panel of every single section of every single car. And it was for like a long time too.

It was like weeks and weeks and was like, there's gotta be a woman behind this. This is like Lilith fair level shit. Like this is like changing completely the narrative. It was uncomfortable. It made you have a conversation, it made you have a conversation. And then when I found out what the product was, I was like, how do I tell everybody about this that isn't in New York City seeing this right now?

So. I would love to hear how you came up with that and just talk about the campaign. 

Uh, well, I mean, you know, that campaign was such a deep collaboration between me and our incredible design team at the time. We had, you know, I had brought in these young artists, um, school of Visual Arts who, you know, we're just not tainted by the system, you know, and still actual fine artists.

So I actually hired fine artists. So in my team. Thanks. Like of the 20 employees, my first, like 10 of the 20 were creatives. And, um, and I, and I really considered us an art. And you know, like artists, you know, who were sharing a product, you know, and not a product company because you had to, in order to change culture, you have to like do it in an artful way, especially when you're talking about periods.

Something that's so considered taboo at the time. Like no, you were, you were like tucking your tampon in your sleeve and slinking away to the bathroom. 

Yeah. 

At the time. And now everyone's like, period power. But like before it was so known that way. And so the way we really thought about is we actually sat around and told stories.

We were like, okay, let's just tell our period stories. And you know, one of them told a story of, you know, like being at a party and, um. Wearing a white dress and sitting on a white couch and she was eating flaw and she started her period and she like got up and saw the period stain on the white couch and then took her flon and smashed it into the blood.

And so to like make it feel as though like the flaw had stained the couch and not her blood. And so we were like, oh, food. That's interesting food. Let's look at all the different foods that can represent. You know, that time of the month. And so the, the grapefruit came from that. And then, you know, one of the things that, it was always so funny, I would run into my, every time I was ovulating, I would run into my, you know, creative team's den and just be like, I just felt my egg drop.

You know? 'cause it was such a feminist like, environment, you know? And so, um, and so the egg yolk falling, like that was like, one of that was, you know, a, a visual from. Just inspiration from telling stories and just real stories. What was, yeah, real stories and um, and then really cutting up with the iconic two-tone colors.

Like it was really an incredible effort from our design team. It was so special about that experience was, you know, the subways like, you know, we were startups, so like to actually have a consideration of wait, could we afford being in a subway? I dunno if you noticed, but like every subway has these, these things called remnant ad space.

So if no one takes an ad spot, you have basically 10 days to deliver like 75 posters to basically get them on the subway for a month at like a fraction of the price. And so that's how we were able to do it. Like our team worked around the clock, like actually slept under the desks to actually make it happen.

And it's what? It's what. It's what we were able to make happen. And you know, again, it's scrappy. You have to be scrappy to, as a startup, and we got to have, you know, the Williamsburg subway station, grand Central. We had 14th Street Union Square, we had the inside, the subway carts. It was like, for us it was iconic.

It was iconic. Like I remember walking down the subway for the first time. I actually have the video, I can send it to you walking down. And I, I'm just like, it felt like an art gallery. It felt like a museum. It did not feel like it was some kind of like bad, it felt so, so different. 

Yeah. Yeah. 

And I was so.

Yeah. I was so inspired by just not like, you know, it's like you see ads, they're just like, blah, you don't even, but when you walk out, it felt like this, like this gallery experience. 

The other thing I remember clearly is re I remember saying to my friend or roommate or whoever at the time, it's everywhere.

Yeah. 

Like you had taken over public advertising space with this. You can't escape this. This is gonna happening. And I love it. Like, oh, shh. This is, this is, they're not, this is not, we're not gonna sneak in the back door on this. We're coming out with like a full fledged in your face campaign saying, we're gonna change the narrative.

Yeah. And so the product itself is also so innovative and like it eliminates single use plastic in women's reproductive products, which is, I think the industry hadn't changed in like decades. Like there's been no innovation around this product. It's just landfills full of plastic and no other option for women.

And like you said, the shame associated with it. It changed so many things. So it's just, yeah. Thank you for doing. Yeah, my God. Yeah. It's also like paving the way for so many other people to rethink about how we, how we use like products that are, can be made of different types of substances, not just plastic.

Right. 

For sure. And that was a thing, like we've helped divert billions of tampons, pats applicators from landfills up to now, you know? And so it's been such a cool thing to say like, hey, you can just literally. Wash them and reuse them, and they don't feel like these bulky pads are full of bleach and toxins and all plastic, all this crap that ends up in landfills.

And you're just like letting that your most sensitive part body just like seep in all this bleached trash, you know? And so for us to, you know, you can use in underwear that's so much, you know, thinner and you can reuse it over and over and over again. It was just such a huge, huge, 

it's huge. Yeah. Oh my god.

I feel like, you know, 

and we've also helped girls, every pair of underwear sold. We funded this company in Uganda to make washable cloth pads at an affordable price and sell them to local Ugandan women at a really affordable price. 'cause we helped subsidize the cost of making the pads and empower this one company, Uganda, to grow and build their company on the ground instead of just like giving away free pads to people.

That actually creates a welfare model. We actually empowered a local Ugandan company to create more local jobs and create. You know, an actual empowerment model. Just cool. 

That's amazing. So that's actually one of my questions because I was thinking about with a product business, there are certain variables that you have to consider, like to make it product, the product affordable and also profitable for the business.

And the ingredients that go into it are critical, right? Like the actual thing it's made of. So then you have to fold the cost of creating the product into the final, you know, revenue that you create. But. A lot of my clients are actually service-based businesses, so they provide some type of a service, whether it's coaching or reiki or accounting or whatever, and they don't have a physical product.

And so I've been thinking a lot about how do we fold this type of activism into a business model from the ground up as we're building businesses that don't necessarily have an end product. We can say, look, I saved X number of billion dollars in plastic or whatever. And I don't know if you have thoughts on 

Yeah, on the give, on the give back side.

Yeah. 

Yeah. I mean, I think it just needs to be like folded in all the way, like, you know, even just you guys providing juice in general is a beautiful offering. Like maybe even just like supporting local farms. Like, like there's like little ways that in that, that correlate to the business. I don't love it when people are just like trying to find a give back for marketing just to like be like, look, I'm helping people.

Like, but it's not actually like from the heart. So for us, with with Things or Toshi or Hero or anything that we've been even at while my restaurants, it was really about what is actually like such a relationship that makes sense and that when we, that there's a relationship between the two. And so with Think it was like.

For every underwear sold. We fund this company to make washable cloth pads at an affordable price at Tushy for every, you know, bday sold. We fund the build out of clean toilets in India to help solve the global sanitation crisis, and we also fund reiling and re forestry projects all over South America and Central America.

And so that all had a correlation with, you know, what our product was solving as well. 

Yeah, it's really amazing. And I'm curious, did you just feel like, you know what, I have the capacity to take on this huge problem, and I wonder where that comes from, and for entrepreneurs who have big dreams, but they're like, I don't know how I would ever tackle that.

We all have big dreams, right? We all wanna make a big impact. What's the thing that gets you to say, you know what, and I can, I can do it. I actually can get certain people on the phone or get the funding in place to try this and do a prototype. 

Right. I, I think it's just like, I don't know, having a healthy level of naivete, being like, yeah, sure, I could do that.

You know, or I can bring in the team that can help solve this problem, or I can inspire and galvanize the right types of people to like, make this thing happen. Think, you know, like, it, it gets easier a little bit from a realm of galvanization of, of the people. Over time. I think the beginning, it's the hardest for my, for, for, I mean, it's, it's hard across the board, but, um, I think, you know, it, it's not a, I have to do it myself, like I'm a twin.

I was born in the womb with someone. I was always sharing space no matter what for the moment of inception. So I'm just so used to sharing space and sharing ideas and sharing like the vision and, and figuring out how we can collaborate and co elevate. Solve together. And I think that there's, you know, because of that collaborative, general, you know, just way of being, I think that, you know, I'd like to be able to bring together the right people to solve these problems.

Like, you know, I, I'm, I don't have any, like, there's no experience of like period under, like there's no experience of, there's no experience in like diapers and, you know, something global plastic crisis. But there's enough of a motivation to say, wow. The period problem, like the fact that it's taboo and, and millions of girls, hundreds of millions of girls are dropping out of school because of their period today.

Like this makes 0% of any sense because it, it's the thing that creates human life. And every month I'm just making a mess and this so freaking annoying. There's gotta be a better way. And then going to the bathroom, same thing with tushy. It's like, are you kidding me? We're cutting down 15 million trees every single year now 20 million trees.

To to, to like disrespectfully wipe butts with them and it doesn't. Imagine if a bird poop in your arm, would you take a drag piece of paper and smear it around and call yourself clean? No. Like we've been indoctrinated to believe so many things. That just doesn't make any sense. And just, it's every day habits, you know, that I care most about.

It's like, wow, I have a period every month. I go to the bathroom every day. You know, if I have a child, I change a diaper 20 times, 10 to 20 times a day in the beginning of their life. There's these habits that are just like, whoa, look at the waste, look at the waste streams. Like, look at what we can do to make it better.

There's such possibility to make it better. So I think we just have to all be possibilitarian and that, and then just take like one foot in one step at a time. There's no like, and then I figured it out. Yeah. Like we're still, it's we're, it's an ongoing, it's like it's a marathon. There are sprints along the way, but it's really like it takes 10 years to be an overnight success.

Most people don't have the patience or the time or the desire to, you know, to build something at for, you know, in that way. And so. It's really about like, how long can you really like learn and grow and adjust and learn and grow and adjust, and there's no failure. It's just learning and growing and adjusting over time for many, many, many years.

Yeah. Oh my God, I love that so much. A lot of my listeners are so entrepreneurs. They, they really are just starting their own business and trying to figure it all out and pulling the pieces together. This is the greatest argument for why you should join networking groups. Find a group of women or whoever you wanna commune with, who you get together and exchange and ask for feedback and just do the collaborative thing.

Because for me, along my business journey, I've, I've found that conversations with other entrepreneurs have, have helped me, like just remind myself that I'm not alone. You know? And this idea of building teams that are like aligned with your higher purpose, so you're not just carrying the idea alone.

You're not the only one out there trying to say, I really wanna make an impact. Build a team of people that can help you think outside the box. You know, I think that's such great advice. Um, I love tushy. We, we, I, if for anyone who doesn't know what Tushy is, it's a bidet attachment that you can attach to your toilet.

It hook right up to your water pipeline that your flushing mechanism would normally attached to. It's simple, it's attractive. It's just like a little box with two dials. And, um, I have a funny story for you. When I. When I first figured out that Tushy existed, I was like, oh, we need that. Why don't we have that?

Like, that's like a Japanese toilet, like the fancy Japanese toilets. This is like a practical thing that anyone can attach to their toilet. It eliminates the need for tons of toilet paper. It's so much better on your skin. It's so much healthier than putting toxic paper in your butt. And um, so my husband and I live in an old farmhouse up in the Catskills, and uh, and like I was like, Ooh, Santa brought something special for you this year.

And I wrapped the lock. And he opened it and he was like, what? Like what is this? I'm like, guess who's installing some new technology today? Like, and so we put them all in and at first he was a little skeptical, but now not only is he your biggest fan, I have overheard him like telling his guy friends that they need to get it.

Like he is a huge fan. And also we've started sending them as surprise gifts to people. It's the greatest. You just send them a bidet. They don't know who it's from. 

It's a gift that keeps on giving. It's 

a gift that keeps on giving. They don't know it's from us. We just send them in the mail. It's the best surprise gift ever.

Amazing. 

Heading it forward. Send it tushy today. Save somebody, but 

amazing. I love that. Yeah. I mean, we've. She's really, yeah. And by the way, just going back to the solopreneur thing, you know, like I love that, you know, that, that, that, of course you start somewhere, you start and you build and sometimes like, it's okay if you wanna just be, not just if you wanna be a solopreneur and then have a lifestyle business brick yet, like I love that, but there's a part of me that's like slightly jealous of that lifestyle, you know, versus, you know, having to, you know, have a whole thing, you know?

Um, and so. Yeah, I, I do think that there's also like really epic like internship sites that you can get, like student interns that are so amazing for like a thousand dollars a month for like 20, 25 hours a week. And it's like they're so stoked for these jobs. Even th like people, they don't ca like.

They're any, they're just like, wow. It sales are like, you know, and for them they're getting work experience and they do have talents of like today's world and it's not like exploit, it's actually like such a win-win on both sides. They're winning, they're getting experience and cash. We're getting, you know, support from young, you know, smart, talented people.

Yeah. So I'm always in support of the internship model. It's really, really helpful. I have, I have an amazing intern right now at Hero who's like. I'm hiring her the second that she graduates from college. 

Awesome. 

And yeah, and she's learned so much in the last three months than, than she's learned it in the last four years in school, you know?

So, 

yeah. 

Because she's getting real world experience. No, that's a really good point. So I have this here, which comes with thei. I'll show a screenshot of this. For who? For the listeners. It's a little tiny booklet that comes when you get ay, that says this number two shall pass. And then you guys, this booklet, it's.

The first is that the Taylor's a table of contest. Then it's like how to rag about your ji to your boss, Janice, to your competitive sibling. It's just so funny. The next piece is how to analyze your poopoo like, and it's all the different little pictures about and 

anal an analyze. You see that? An analyze, 

yeah.

This book is littered with smart pun. Funny, funny, funny stuff. It's like images of different types of poop and how to know like what that might signify. You know, there's just all kinds of myths about bidets. There's astrology in this book, like if you're an 

astrology, astrology, 

astrology. So we love this so much.

Humor is such an important part of marketing, right? Like it's like especially in a world, is absolutely inundated with 

curious, 

horrible, tragic stuff being played out like a film every single day in front of our eyes to have some lightness and some humor in your marketing. Is so critical and I, I was thinking about all the different campaigns that you have created that have been just like, besides the amazing, you know, iconic think campaign.

You've done lots of stuff that was really kind of bold and almost shocking, right? So all the wild creative campaigns. Which ones are your favorite? And just for entrepreneurs listening who don't have huge ad budget, a lot of what Mickey has done with her teams has been just really creative. You could have zero 

money welcome, great constraint.

Yeah. It's money's a great constraint for creativity. It's like if you don't have money, then what you have is more creativity, you know? 

Yeah. And you can, you, you can't use up your creativity like you use it and you just get more of it. No one can stop you if you think with your imagination about a way around the problem.

So I would just love to talk about humor and creativity in your, in your campaigns and if there's any like standout campaign. 

Yeah, I'll, I'll share some of the, some of the links with you for my, my favorite tushy ones. Um, but my, my, I would say top campaigns for tushy is the Bellagio Fountain. We basically rigged 10 toilets to basically play like the Bellagio Fountain Show.

Where, um, it like to like, you know, classical music, so like, and it's like out of toilets like Theo Fountain and it was like one of the most iconic things we've ever done and I. So proud of it. I, I brought in my friend Chris, who's this like rigging genius guy who spent three months over COVID just figuring out how to use Arduino like systems to like live, play like these buttons.

Then to then spray the toilet. I mean, and I have the whole behind the scenes video that I can send you, that you can link to this, to this video because it's so audio. It's so good. We also did one of my favorite events that campaigns we did, we is, is we did this event called The Funeral for a Tree.

Don't hate me for cutting this interview in half. I hope you're feeling as inspired as I was speaking with Mickey, and I hope you're looking forward to part two of our conversation and absolute real talk because you know, I don't play. I'm editing this into two parts for two reasons. Number one, I didn't finish editing it in time, and I am already days behind my schedule straight up.

And number two, um, statistically I'm just looking at the data on my analytics pages for this podcast, and it shows me that you, my listener, are loving 30 to 40 minute length episodes, and the longer episodes are harder for people to get in. And when I, when I drop a eight to 10 minute episode, it has a lot of listens because people are willing to give that a shot.

But the average 30 to 40 minute interview sessions are well received. And so rather than play an hour and a half interview, because I really didn't wanna edit out so much of this conversation, so I'm, I'm making it two parts. Hope you can appreciate that. Um, the other. Half of this interview is coming down the pipeline in just a couple of days, so don't you worry.

You won't have to wait long. And I appreciate you so much for being here on this journey, and I hope you are thinking about, I hope this got your wheels turning. How can we all do better and be more thoughtful and creative and not be afraid to try and change something that, that, that, that could be better for us, for other people.

And that's a lot of what I took away from this conversation. So more to come and as always, my friends, until we meet again, may you be vibrant.