A Simple Innovation That Will Save You Money And Help Save The Planet with Miki Agrawal

Coming up on this episode of the Doctor's Pharmacy.

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Hi everyone. Just wanted to let you know that this episode contains some colorful language. So if you're listening with kids, you might want to save this episode for later.

Welcome to the Doctor's Pharmacy. I'm Dr. Mark Hyman and that's Pharmacy with an F, F-A-R-M-A-C-Y, place for conversations that matter. And today's conversation should matter to you because it's about doing things that make the world better in a way that's pretty disruptive and fun and crazy. And we're having an extraordinary guest who can teach you a little bit about how to think differently, change the world and have an amazing time at the same time. So this is a great conversation. It's with my friend, an extraordinary entrepreneur and broad thinker and disrupter, Miki Agrawal. Welcome, Miki.

Thank you. So happy to be here with you.

Yes. And so she's the founder of several acclaimed social enterprises called Wild, which is an incredible restaurant, which is gluten-free pizza and healthy food and all kinds of great stuff. A Thinx, which is an underwear company, actually not just any underwear company, but a period free underwear, which is basically underwear you wear that wicks all the menstrual blood away and allows little girls to go to school in developing countries where otherwise they would have to stay home and not get an education. We can talk about that. Another incredible company called Tushy, which sounds a little strange, but we're going to talk a lot about Tushy today, which are all valued at over $200 million. She's also got another company and another company coming, so you're going to hear a lot about those. One of them is pretty extraordinary about how to save the world with diapers. We're going to get into that. She's also the author of the number one best-selling book, do cool sh*t and disrupt her. And she's also was named Fast Company's Most Creative People, Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, and INC's Most Impressive Women Entrepreneurs, which I agree, she's very impressive. She speaks passionately about her 16 years of entrepreneurial ventures, from inventing products in taboo categories to creatively launching them, to marketing and scaling them exponentially, to dealing with really bad setbacks. It's not all an easy straightforward ride for most of us who are doing good things in the world. And she shares her colorful authentic revelations all along the way. Now, when I think of Mickey, I think of two quotes. The first is a Chinese proverb that says, People who say it can't be done should not interrupt those who are doing it. That certainly describes Mickey. And the second is a Bertrand Russell quote, which says, the reasonable man slash woman, that was back in the days when it was man, but anyway, it's all, you know, Adapts himself or herself to the world. And the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to him or herself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man or woman. So those are the quotes that I think of when I think of Miki. So welcome.

Oh my goodness. Thank you. I love you.

So you were repeat guests, which is very rare. And the reason I'm having you on is not just because you're one of my best friends, but because you're one of the people who inspired me the most about how to be in the world in a way that's creative, playful, intelligent, disruptive, and makes the world a better place in the midst of all of it. And that is a rare combination of features. And plus, you went to Cornell with me, so that's also a bonus.

Yes. Go big red. Yeah.

So we're going to talk about your companies, but I want to sort of talk about what shaped you. How did you get to be this human that thinks differently, that sees problems but actually doesn't see the problem, sees the solution and how to get there, and then not only sees it but is able to build companies that quickly scale and end up solving really difficult problems in ways that nobody's thought about. How did you get to be this incredible human?

Oh, I would say-- I know that.

Wasn'T on the questions you got submitted.

I love it, I love it. I would say that I grew up in Montreal, Canada. My mother's Japanese, my father's from India. And we just grew up in a very unorthodox household where, you know, whenever there was a problem in the world, my parents, you know, my father came to America with $5 in his pocket. My mom came here from Japan speaking barely any English. And anytime there was a problem, they took it upon themselves to solve it. You know, for example, you know, growing up, there wasn't any gifted children summer camp. And they were, you know, there's sports camp, there was day camps, there wasn't any gifted children summer camp. And so they decided, to take it upon themselves to create the first one in Montreal. And all of a sudden, 500 children, you know, came every single summer and it became a thing that ran for 15 years. And so it was a really powerful just showing that you don't have to have any resources, you don't have to have any money, you don't have to have any connections, nothing. If you see a problem, you can solve it, you know?

So you and your sisters were the problem and they solved it by creating a gifted kids camp. That is awesome.

Yeah.

And things like that. like that. Anytime they would see a problem, like, you know, growing up, electronics in the 80s, you know, were starting to kind of percolate. My parents were like, oh, electronics are the future. Children should know about electronics. So they created this, you know, there was nothing that taught kids about electronics. And so they created this electronics kit called Tomorrow's Professionals that basically taught kids about how to a transistor resistor, diodes, you know, switches, breadboards, how to put it all together, how to create little, you know, electronic systems like burglar alarms. And my mom wrote the manual and drew the pictures. My dad made the kit and they sold it all over Canada. And so it was just a beautiful observation. They never kind of threw it down our throats, but they just solved problems without any resources available to them. And that was really powerful to watch for when I became an entrepreneur down the road and started companies. It was like, oh, I can apply the same type of energy to something. If I want it so badly enough, it could be in the world.

That's amazing. You literally put it all together in ways that are pretty disruptive. The first company you did was a restaurant company. You had your ups and downs with that, but it's still going on. It's wild. It's in New York City. I don't know how it's striving or thriving or surviving within this crazy COVID-19 era. That is an extraordinary fun adventure that taught you a lot about being an entrepreneur, right? Ups and downs?

Oh my God. I would say the restaurant business taught me, first of all, deep work ethic, seven days a week, 12 to 14 hours every single day, nonstop, pretty thankless overall. But I think it also taught me that my strength necessarily isn't operations, but it's really in the creative vision, it's really in The marketing, it's really in, you know, coming up with the actual, you know, concepts for it, but then having a great operational team to execute on it. So I learned a lot from being a restaurateur in my first, as my first career.

And then you started this company, Thanks, because you and your sister were semi-professional soccer players. Yeah. Went to South Africa and saw what was going on with the girls there and that inspired you to think about this problem. So tell us a little bit about that experience and how that shaped your thinking and helped you start this company and what it is. Yeah, I mean, so I just think.

That, first of all, you know, when I was in the restaurant business, I would run from one restaurant to another. So I opened my second restaurant, it was so exciting. And I would ride my bicycle from the Upper East side location to the West Village location. And it was such a moment, I had an imprinting moment where I was riding my bicycle down the West side highway and the sun was setting and it was spring and it was beautiful. And I was just like, wow, you know, like we can really invent our own reality if we so choose, you know, and going from one restaurant to another and building it out was such a beautiful imprinting moment. But, you know, oftentimes when I run from one restaurant to another, I would completely forget that I, you know, if I had my period, I would just have these crazy accidents all the time and it would just leak through everything and it would just interrupt my day. I'd have to run home and change and clean everything. And I was just a very irresponsible believer, you know, and you like to wear white. and I love wearing white. Oh my goodness.

Yeah.

And then of course in the developing world, you know, my father's from India, my mother's from Japan and I've traveled around the world, you know, and on my trips discovered that there are millions and millions of girls, half a billion girls that don't go to school because of their periods and millions of those girls drop out of school because of their periods because they get so behind. Imagine missing one week of school every single month because of your period. I mean, it's so hard to keep up. And so a lot of those girls drop out and they just lose the opportunity. And there's this great amazing study called the Girl Effect that Nike put together, which basically says that they studied, if there's a man and a woman who are both working people, they learned that 90% of women's money that they earn goes back into their family and their communities. Yeah. Guess how much of the man's money goes back in the family and the communities?

10%.

Yeah, like 10 to 15%. And the rest he squanders on himself, alcohol, gambling, whatever, but just on himself. And so the idea is that if it's a working woman that's actually contributing to a village that needs to be uplifted, They are, 90% of their money goes into uplifting the community. So if millions of those girls are dropping out of school, that's billions of dollars of lost income potential these communities could be receiving from these women.

And that's not the only thing. I mean, a Project Drawdown, which lists the top solutions to drawdown carbon from the environment, lists education of women as one of the top solutions to climate change.

Yes.

So not only are you Creating economic vitality by helping solve this problem, but you're helping solve climate change by dealing with women's periods and education.

It's just there's just a mothering, right? There's like women are just mothers and, you know, Mother Earth and there's just there's a stewardship that a nurturing stewardship that's just innate, you know, and, and I think that, yeah, it's a huge thing. So when I started things, you know, with my co-founders, it became, you know, an absolute resolve to, you know, to, to, to weave the two businesses together to create an underwear that supports women here in the first world and then also solve a problem for girls in the developing world.

And you hit a lot of resistance with this because no one wants to talk about women's menstruation or periods. It's a pretty taboo subject. Tell us about the adventure with the New York Public Transit in Subway system because that was quite a story. They had these big ads for breast reconstruction and all these things in the subways. And I traveled throughout the New York subways and they really didn't want to talk about your periods and show grapefruit. Can you talk about that and how you overcame that?

Absolutely. So when we were finally getting past the digital marketing phase and wanted to actually go do some subway campaigns, we had enough money to do that. We submitted a proposal to the New York Public Transit System that just said, you know, underwear for women with periods and it was a woman, it was a grapefruit as our sort of image, halved grapefruit. And they've been- How risque. yeah, I mean exactly, it was a grapefruit, but they were like, it looks like a vagina. And we were like, well, that's up for interpretation, right? And they banned our subway ads. They said, you know, what if nine-year-old boys sees these ads? And we said, wow, in the most progressive city like New York City, you know, how is it possible that something as natural as a woman's period that creates all human life without that blood, no human being would be here? It's not supposed to be taboo. I mean, the fact, and if anybody listening finds this subject to be uncomfortable, it's a really interesting subject to lean into because, you know, it's to ask ourselves, like, why has society put such shame on something that creates human life? I mean, that's in the womb. That's the nutrients that fed all of us to be here on Earth. So it became a big story. So we said, okay, if you don't put our and we were gonna go to press. And we went to press and the.

Story-- New York Times loved that, right?

Oh my God, the story went viral internationally and it put us on the map. And fast forward to my current company, Tushy, which we'll talk about in a second. But when we tried to run our ads for Tushy in the subways, they banned our ads again saying that bidets are sexual products, which was crazy. And so we went, we said, okay, we're gonna run the same type of campaign and see if it works. And we basically went to press again. And the story again took off. And Michael Chay from Saturday Night Live ran a three minute rant on why the New York City should have kept our Tushy ads on the subways. And so it was a fascinating study.

Incredible. So fast forward, you know, Finks was, you know, it's an incredible company doing great things. And, you know, being a woman entrepreneur is not easy because you're often in a man's world. And you were dealing with men from Southeast Asia who notoriously are not the most forward thinking when it comes to women's rights and women's place in the world. And you experienced a real setback. And how did that affect you and how then did you come out of that?

Yeah, I mean, you know, I think what I learned was a couple of things. You know, one, don't give away control too early of your business, you know, or give a big chunk away. And at the time, we really needed the money. And, you know, so that was one big thing. But I think for me, I think it's just like finding that spine within ourselves. For me, I had to really go in and say, wow, there's some crazy shit that went down. When money came into play and when power came into play and I had to restructure the business and the company and it was a really, really challenging time when people react in a really challenging way, when sometimes you have to let them go. I didn't protect myself enough. And so there was a lot of learning that happened from that experience, you know, how to really protect myself better and then how to also hire really effectively and how to take my time hiring. So fast forward to Tushi, I mean, it took, you know, it took me seven months to hire my CEO. And like, I probably went the other direction. But, you know, when sometimes like in business, when you scale really, really fast and you're just like, oh my God, hanging on for dear life, you sometimes have to hire a bunch of people. And so I think one of my big mistakes was I appointed, you know, one person to hire 10 people. And I kind of, it was very shoot from the hip as our coach would say, you know, and it wasn't a thoughtful process. And so when I had to kind of look at my, at my company and say, whoa, this is not the culture or the, the business that I, that I want to build, I kind of had to restructure the business. And in that restructuring, there was a lot of, angst that came from that. So I think from that experience was just like, okay, hire slow, fire fast, hiring people is like a marriage. And so I learned that it was an important lesson to learn.

Yeah, I mean, so often what seems like horrible things that happen to us often turn out to be the best things. And if that hadn't happened, you wouldn't have been free to do what you're doing now.

Correct. And I think for me, I think the other thing for me is that you know, when you're a hard charging entrepreneur, when I was a hard charging entrepreneur trying to live in a man's world, you know, I had to like keep up, you know, keep up in that sort of that tone and just be sort of tough. And what I learned from that experience was, you know, like I can be a softer, you know, gentler human and not have to compete and, you know, for respect in a man's world like a man. but I can just be myself and if people want to say, oh, she's soft, or then, you know, turn around and she's, if she's too tough and she's soft, if she, you know, just kind of eliminate all that noise because it's so much whiplash. It's like you're not this, you're too fat, you're too thin, your butt's too big, your butt's too small, your boobs are too big, your boobs are too small. I mean, it's like, you know, you're too intense, you're not intense enough. Like, it's just all the things. And so to really wipe out that noise and just ask myself, like, what kind of leader do I want to be? Like, what kind of human do I want to be? You know, like, what is fully integras with myself? and to ask myself those questions and sit with that and write out what those are, you know, was really important to me for my next company to just sort of what kind of structure I want to create for my business.

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Well, I'm half Japanese, half Indian and both cultures grew up with bidets. In Japan, they're those fancy toilets that when you walk by it sings to you and it, It's so expensive and thousands of dollars plus plumbing plus electrical. So in Japan, it's like pretty much.

Ubiquitous in every household. Yeah, you walk in, the seat goes up, the toilet paper comes up, it.

Warms up, the seat is warm. It's a whole experience and it's magical. You wash the front, wash the back. Yeah, yeah. And in India, they have those, like you said, the buckets with the spray guns, you know, or you even don't even have a spray gun, you just kind of throw water in your butt, you know, and a wall with a water bottle that you just spray. And so I really knew about Bidets growing up and I've had an session with it. And, you know, in 2013, for me personally, you know, I had a very intense hyperthyroid condition, which, you know, where. Which is when you became my doctor. It was 2013, 2014, was when I really started seeking your help and support. And that hyperthyroid condition was so acute that my endocrinologist, you know, well, that it made me poop up to eight times per day. I was pooping up to eight times per day because it was just, my body was just working in overdrive. And because of that, my, just my, like wiping my butt became such a painful experience because you're going to the bathroom so much and you're wiping and wiping. So eventually I had to go in the shower. And it was just such a frustrating experience that for Valentine's Day, my boyfriend now husband, Andrew, got me this crappy Chinese bidet product. You know, and I was like, what's this? And he attached it to the toilet. I was like, what's this? And it completely changed my life. And I was like, oh my God, it was like this ding, ding, ding moment where I was like, I am going to create the best in class version of the bidet attachment and bring it to America because every single American human needs to try this. Everybody in the world needs to have one of these. And what we created is a modern bidet called Tushy. which looks like a beautiful iPhone next to your toilet. You have a couple in your house, you get it.

Three.

Three, yes. And it basically clips onto your existing toilet in 10 minutes, turns any toilet into a bidet, and it saves 15 million trees from getting flushed down the toilet. It saves our health and hygiene for anybody who's cost conscious. It's just like the average family spends $500 a year on toilet paper, and that adds up really fast. from a cost savings, from a hygiene and health perspective. I mean, UTIs, hemorrhoids, anal fissures, anal itching, bacterial vaginosis. I mean, you name every ailment down there by just washing it properly with water is like a duh solution. I mean, the analogy I always give is imagine that you jumped in your shower, didn't turn the water on, and just used dry toilet paper to wipe down your dirtiest bits. I mean, people would call you crazy. Right? So like, why are we doing that to the dirtiest parts of our body? We would never just use dry toilet paper to clean any other thing in our lives and call it clean. And so it's been such deep indoctrination, which is why I'm so excited about, you know, the idea of a disruption and disruptive innovation is because we've been indoctrinated to believe things to be true, but they're just illusions. And so if we can just wake up to like, oh wait, let me wash instead of wipe, Like it was just, it was, you know, it was just an obvious thing.

So it's sort of good for your health. Yes. It's good for your wallet. Yes. And it's good for the climate because you're not cutting down all these trees. Yes. It's a triple threat.

It's just so obvious, right? It just, people don't know about it and people find it to be weird. They're like, is poop gonna spray everywhere? And the answer is no, it pulls it down like super precisely into the toilet bowl. People around the world been doing this for so long? The other question is, is it pulling water from the toilet bowl or the toilet tank? The answer is no. It's coming from the wall, the same water you brush your teeth with. So all these things people just are afraid of it.

Well, speaking of water, we use a ton of water to actually make toilet paper, right? So not only are we affecting trees, but we're affecting our scarce water resources. I mean, only about 5% of the world's water water is fresh water. One percent of that is in Lake Baikal controlled by Putin. At least 4% for the rest of us. And we are using a ton of it for growing food for animals through industrial agriculture, which I've talked a lot about. And water scarcity is a big deal. There's a half a billion people every year that suffer all year long from water scarcity. And there's two billion people that suffer periodically throughout the year from water scarcity. Recently, Cape Town, which is a modern industrial Western city in South Africa, almost had a complete shutdown because they almost ran out of water and literally they saved the last minute by some rain. But they were literally on water rationing. California had a massive drought. So we're seeing real water scarcity issues. How does this help solve that problem?

Well, so the average toilet paper roll requires 37 gallons of water just to press down one single roll. And the average American uses an average of 57 sheets of toilet paper per day or a roll and a half of toilet paper per week. I mean, it is an unbelievable amount of toilet paper. Someone in my family uses probably three times that.

He just likes to use a lot of toilet paper.

There's wiping and wiping and wiping and wiping. And by the way, wet wipes actually cause anal fissures because it strips away the natural oils we're behind. And so by stripping away natural oils over time, it breaks down your skin and causes lactic acidations. And so, you know, we've had so many customers who've had anal fissures, anal fissure operations, and they were like, Tushy has saved my life. And there's no more pain, they're gone, and it's over. So basically, so you're using 37 gallons of water to press down one toilet paper roll versus one single pint of water every time you use Tushy. And so net-net, you're actually saving 55 gallons of water per week by using water to properly clean your sink.

One pint, man. You must leave your tushy on a long time. I don't leave mine on.

Well, one pint is not even that much.

It's like a beer, right?

That's two cups.

It's not that, you know.

Yeah.

But I think, you know, I use less than that.

Probably less. And then you use a couple of squares to pat dry. So use 80% less toilet paper. We have organic bamboo toilet paper. So rather than killing this big, like, beautiful 100-year-old tree, you know, we sent you some, beautiful soft bamboo tissue. It feels like the same or softer even. Yeah.

You also have a bamboo cloth, which are reusable.

So you can have a little. We have bamboo towels. In Italy, they don't use toilet paper at all. They use butt towels. And so you just have your towel for a couple of days or a day if you want to use it. So you're taking your mini shower and you just pat dry. And so you only have toilet paper for your guests or whatever. And then you just have a couple of squares to pat dry instead of using 57 sheets of toilet paper per day. It's just an obvious solution.

I remember living in China and there was quite a scene there. They didn't have toilet paper, but what they did have was the People's Daily, which was used as toilet paper. So if you ever tried to wipe your butt with a newspaper, it's not that fun. But it's probably a good use of that.

Americans, you know, Americans, propaganda machine. Americans did that too. Americans used news, used phone books pages when they were free as a wiping tool.

Phone book pages. I mean, who invented toilet paper? How did that even come to be?

Well, so in the late 1800s, the Scotts brothers and Charmin were sort of.

Like the first ones to pop.

Mr. Charmin. And the Scotts brothers, you know, Scotts paper. And they're the ones that they were like, what can we, what do humans do every single day? Oh, poop. Okay, what can we market to the American consumer that just makes them use something over and over again? They call it consumables, right? And so they can consume it over and over again and not considering the damage to the planet, the water damage, how much bleach goes into the processes to make the 12 paper, and then to use the petrol to bring it to a store, packaging with plastic, shipping it to a customer. I mean, that whole system is just so resource heavy. And it just back in the 1800s, they weren't thinking about that. They were just thinking about making money and how to create sort of resources and build a huge, huge business. And now it's like, whoa, the ramification of damages are really severe.

So, yeah, we even have a term for that. It's called CPG, consumer packaged goods. And what did Thomas Jefferson and George Washington use to wipe their butt?

Oh my God.

I mean, what did they do back then?

Probably cloths, like clean cloths that they would just use and they probably had people cleaning them over time.

Yeah, it's pretty crazy. I think that- Do you know why.

Americans have not adopted the bidet?

No, because it's French and we were against everything French.

That was one of the first reasons. Okay, so the second reason is during World War II, when American soldiers went to Europe and fought in World War II, the American soldiers would go to French brothels in France and they would see the days in French brothels and they associated the days as something sexual. So when they came back to America, to puritanical America, they were just like, Oh, we were never in brothels. We think bidets are disgusting. So they actually imported pizza because they went to Southern Italy and discovered Southern man's poor food called pizza. So they brought pizza, pizza hut dominoes came right after World War II. All those companies ballooned after that, but then they shunned the bidet. So it was a really fascinating historical study, yeah.

So we got pizza which makes us sick, and we didn't get bidets which make us healthy.

That seems like a dumb idea. Right?

So, this whole idea of bamboo is interesting too, right? Because you're using renewable, quickly growing product that can be turned into towels or paper products, right?

Yeah, bamboo grows up to 39 inches per day. You know, it takes a bit of time for it to kind of, you know, you know, percolate in the soil, but then when it's like, breaks through, it grows 39 inches per day and it's like, it's the most, you know, it's like a weed. So instead of it being like a tree, it's like a weed. And so because of that, it's a much more sustainable product to use in killing this beautiful tree that sucks in the oxygen, you know, sucks in the CO2, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, like, you know, all the nitrogen dioxide. I mean, trees are the most, you know, brilliant technology that we just literally cut down and wipe our butts with. I mean, how disrespectful could we be of the most important thing that gives us life, that gives us oxygen? So true.

I was a little, honestly, a little skeptical when you started touching. I was like, Hmm, this is a little weird. And I mean, how is this little attachment that doesn't cost very much going to actually be like a real bidet and is going to create a mess and like, How's this gonna work? And I'm like, you sent it to me and I put it on the toilet, actually my wife did, because she's better at handy things than I am. And I'm like, wow, this is so easy, it's so simple, it's so clean, it's like, how could I have even doubted you? And then you sent me this toilet paper, and I'm like, all right, this is gonna be like bamboo toilet paper, it's gonna be like sandpaper, it's gonna be good for the earth, but bad for you. I'm like, wow, this stuff is so soft, and it comes in this beautiful packaging. I'm like, this is so great. I open the present. Yeah, it's like great. And so I was like, wow, and I don't feel guilty about using up all this water and using up all this trees. And, you know, it's probably not good when you flush down the toilet either, right? It probably goes into what happens to the toilet paper actually.

It goes to the pipes and it goes to the system and it's processed in a plant. It's a very, very, you know, challenging. I mean, New York City, we met with the New York City Department of Sanitation and they were just like, how can we support you? I mean, bidets, literally if every New York City household had bidets, it would save them from getting these fatbergs. Fatbergs in New York City is basically when wet wipes and toilet paper and food particles, the oils and all the disgusting things in food all clump up together and create these like multi-thousand tons of cloggings in these huge New York City pipes. And it costs millions of dollars of our taxpayer dollars for people to go into those things and clean out the most disgusting sludge. And so if we just simply use bidets and just flush out the system, you're using less water, less paper, less everything. It's just resource related for the cities. It just creates a bigger breath of like a sigh of relief for cities to just not have to deal with the processing of so much shit and toilet paper.

Literally.

Literally.

So, Miki, what are some of the biggest myths? We talked a little bit about it, but tell us more. What are the myths that we have about the days? What are the obstacles that you have to get over in people's minds? Because even me who is pretty open to this stuff, it was a bit of a hurdle to get over the idea of actually wanting to get one of these things. So, how do we help people understand what are the myths and how do we break through those?

I mean, It's actually funny because we have our little, we have a book that we're, that's coming out.

This number two shelf talk.

And this is gonna go in every single one of our Toshi boxes. And we actually have a chapter which is called the Truth or Derriere, Bidet Myths Debunked. And so actually, so- Truth or Derriere. Truth or Derriere. Bidet myth debunked. And so, like, okay, so the first myth is, is it dirty toilet water you're spraying your butt with? And the answer is, of course not. It's not dirty toilet water. It's literally the same water you brush your teeth with. It's pulling from the wall. So, our product actually comes a little splitter and a hose that pulls the water right from the wall, from the splitter. So, it's like, that's the first bidet myth. The second one is, using a bidet seems a waste of water to me. Actually, like we talked about that already, it's like 55 gallons of water net net, you're actually saving water. Myth number three, toilet paper clean just as well. I splurge on the extra soft stuff and it says, you know, the truth is toilet paper is playing you, you know, and actually leaves germs behind. It's actually like, imagine like, you know, like cutting up a raw chicken in your kitchen and then like it's got E. Coli and all the bacteria and all the whatever it is that, you know. And then like you take a piece of dirty, of dry toilet paper and you just wipe the plate down and put your plate away. People will be like, shouldn't you wash the chicken bacteria off your plate? I mean, that's literally what we're doing to our butts. It's like we're wiping this bacteria infection, E. Coli, with dry, smearing dry paper around, and then sitting on that all day long. And for women, it creeps up to your vaginal canal. And that's what causes bacterial vaginosis, you know, like, you know, bladder infections. Bladder infections. It causes all just the infections that you get, UTIs, yeast infections, all those things.

Yeah, I mean, as a doctor, one of the main problems with women getting bladder infections is how they use toilet paper and wipe, and that actually introduces bacteria up into the urethra, which leads to these bladder infections. Why women get so many more bladder infections.

Yeah, just like water is the universal solvent. It's not laced with any kind of of chemicals or anything we're not saying to put like use soap because you don't use soap down there because it misses your pH, you know, but just flush it out with a lot of water and you're good. Well, that's a medical thing, you know.

We have a saying for that in medicine. We call it the solution to pollution is dilution.

Yes, thank you. Exactly. Listen, I mean, you know, and that's another because the days are too expensive. It's for rich people. And it's like our product is 79. I mean, it's for everyone. And, you know, it's just that's, I.

Mean, and $79 is one time and that's it.

You buy it one time, it lasts four years versus spending hundreds of dollars every single year. I mean, you're saving thousands of dollars over the year, over the course of the years. It's just so obvious. It's just people don't think about it. And so I think for us, like, you know, this whole corona thing, I mean, you know, the toilet paper shortage, the great toilet paper shortage of 2020 happened.

Yeah.

Everyone just cleaned out all the stall, you know, all the, all the stores.

Yeah, you go to Walmart, every store there's no toilet paper and there's like one roll. There's a box of like single rolls and it says only one per customer. It's insane. It created a mass fear and hysteria about toilet paper shortages.

I don't understand that. It was crazy and all of our customers were like, we got our Tushy, we're good. And it was so interesting because, you know, we spent the last six years, you know, getting people to kind of like, you know, peer over the edge, you know, the analogy I always give is the Cornell analogy or alma mater. You know, there's that big, I don't know if you ever jumped off Lover's Leap before you graduated from Cornell, but there's this big gorge that you jump off called Lover's Leap. And it's sort of like a bit of a rite of passage, you know, when I was there, that you have to jump off the 30-foot drop and it's so scary in the Cayuga Lakes. And, you know, the freshman year in sophomore year, you kind of go and you like, you get to the edge and you peer over and it's like so long, and it's like, ah, you run away from it. And then like, by the time you're junior, by the time senior, you're like, screw it. I'm just taking a leap, but I'm going for it. The kind of same thing happened with Toshi and Bidets. Like, people were like, kind of getting, ah, should I buy one? I don't know. It feels weird. It feels, is it like awkward? It's water shooting in my butt. Like, is it, I don't know, like, it's just weird, you know? And people, oh, one of the big stigmas is like, is it gay back in the day? And it's like, first of all, that's so stupid and it's so, like, it's just, Like the stigmas and all these old preconceived nonsense like that. Anyways, and so by the time the toilet paper shortage happened, people just leapt off. And we had our first million dollar day during the toilet paper shortage. And it was like a really, really powerful showing that people were finally ready. And then they just were like, okay, toilet paper's not available. I'm going to try Tushy and just see what happens. And the results, I mean, the people, the feedback, I mean, people were just.

Like, what are people saying?

People are just like, what have I been doing my whole life? I mean, it took a pandemic for me to try this obvious solution. So it was sort of like, really, I mean, New York Times wrote up a headline that said, like, is America ready to adopt the bidet? And it was just a really, really powerful moment for us as a company. And just for me, just to be like, wow, like, people laugh for so long, you know, at this business idea and at no one's going to invest, no one's going to try it, no one's going to use it, no one's going to talk about it. you know, it was such a moment of just again imprinting where it was just like, okay, like, you know, like we're on the right track and people's lives are better because of it. The tree that the earth is smiling more because of it.

So 2020 is not only the year of COVID it's the year of the bidet.

It is! We call it Bidet 2020, instead of Biden 2020, or like, Bidet 2020. Cut out the end.

Well, this is amazing. And you know what you do is not just solve problems, help people reduce climate change and create jobs. You are also giving back. And for every single Tushi sold, you fund a group, an organization in India that builds clean latrines for the urban poor who have access to nothing and are literally pooping out in the open in the street. So tell us a little bit about this organization and how you're helping families get access to clean sanitation? Because sanitation is a big issue in the world. A lot of people just don't have access.

So thank you, thank you, thank you for this question because it's such an important thing for us to kind of also, and everyone listening to really like let that sink in. It's like we just go to the bathroom and we don't think about it. It's just a basic human right that we just don't think about. But, you know, there are three billion people globally who don't have a consistent safe place to go to the bathroom. And almost a billion people practice what they call open defecation, where they're just pooping outside in broad daylight. And women, it's a separate thing for women. But, you know, open defecation, a problem when people just poop outside, it gets into the water systems that people are drinking. We've been drinking bacteria, infection filled, you know, water. They're getting diarrhea. And a lot of these people die of diarrhea. I mean, there's half a million children under the age of five that die of diarrhea every single year. and it's just, it's a really, really solvable thing. And so, you know, what we've done is, you know, we've done a lot of research on what is the best way to attack the global sanitation crisis and to approach it. And, you know, there's a lot of nonprofits that kind of go to a village, build a toilet, and then leave. And then all of a sudden that toilet, you know, people don't know what it is, why they need it. They kind of use it a couple times, then it becomes disgusting and dirty, and then that toilet becomes a deeper cesspool of infection for people to use. And then now it becomes this eyesore in the village. And so what the reason why we partnered with this incredible organization called Samagra based in India is because what they do is it's a teacher man-woman-to-fish methodology. And I'm always in the business of, you know, of like creating an autonomous sovereign village, a sovereign human versus a handout model. Like the sort of like, the welfare model of just like waiting for the savior to come and save me and like give me a handout. People don't want handouts. People don't want to feel empowered. They want to feel empowered autonomous sovereign in their lives. And so, you know, what Samagra does is, you know, they build so they build these clean toilets in India. And then what they do is they teach the local community members what happened. They spend six months there. And so and they incentivize the villagers, hey, I'll give you free bar of soap if you come and use the toilet. Hey, I'll give you free minutes on your phone if you use the toilet. Hey, I'll give you all these little gifts and things that you need for your household if you use this toilet for the next six months. All of a sudden, the village smells less gross. All of a sudden, the water systems clean up. All of a sudden, their children are not getting sick. All of a sudden, their elderly are not getting sick. All of a sudden, they're not getting sick. all of a sudden people are living longer, all of a sudden they're feeling much better. And then so what they do is they're teaching the local villagers during this time to clean these toilets. They're actually paying a couple of villagers $2 every day to clean these toilets. They hire people locally. And so then all of a sudden what they find out is that then by the end of the six months, these villagers are so ecstatic about all the results that happened. They didn't even know what these results would be because they were just so not used to what will happen that they then, they then, you know, like appointed, you know, two people paying, each family then pays about a dollar 25 per family per month for them to pay for someone to clean the toilets. And so it becomes an empowerment model. So then they become an autonomous village that takes care of the toys. They hire two people to take care of the toys, they get paid for it, and then we can move on to the next village. So not having to stay there forever. They then understand why it's important. They end up paying $1.25 per family per month, which is totally reasonable. Most of these families make between $2 and $3 per day. And so paying $1.25 per family per month is totally, totally manageable. And so we move on to the next village and create again the same sovereign autonomous thing. And so we go from village to village and it's not, you know, it's an obvious choice. And so what I'm doing now for Tushi is I'm so, so, so excited as we finally create the hello Tushi Foundation. and what I've been really inspired by and like excited about is the closed loop model, closed loop systems. And so what I'm creating for Tushy, for a hello Tushy foundation, is what I'm calling the Village Regeneration Starter Kit. And so the Village Regeneration Starter Kit is basically, so the first thing is we're partnering with this really epic organization called Ecofiltro, which basically makes these water filter systems that can take the dirtiest, most disgusting like putrid water and put it through its filter system and it's $30. That's all it costs per family. $30 and it produces that into perfectly absolute clean purified drinking water. Then, we're partnering up with this toilet company called Ecozoic which basically makes these toilets that have enzymes and microbes in them that break down the poop.

Kind of like composting toilets.

Yeah. And then turn turn the poop into fertilizer. And so basically, the fresh, the water, people drink the water, they're pooping, not disgusting poop, they're putting cleaner poops, they're drinking good water. So then that feeds the toilets, the toilets and the fertilizer then feeds the little farms. We're giving each family a vertical farm, which then grows up to 12 varietals of fresh foods. And basically in eight weeks, they're going to have all this produce that grows really fast, it's nutritious, And so then each family gets the food that the fertilizer for their poop fertilizes the food and the water from the filter, fertilize, you know, waters the food. And so it's this closed loop system. And then we're creating these solar cells that basically have these fan that can power fans because a lot of these children and elderly are dying because these huts don't have access to air flow. So we found these solar cells for $95. we can have these solar cells that can power these air fans and these fans just then now save and then power by the sun. And so it's this full on clueless loop system where all they want is access to food, to clean water, to clean toilets, and to basically energy. And so this village regeneration starter kit that I'm creating is going to be the foundation for the hello Toshi foundation. And I'm so, so excited about that.

So great. So you're not only helping the people who are actually buying Toshi, but you're helping people who are struggling. And I think people should understand that most of the advances in our life expectancy had nothing to do with modern medicine. Like very, very little. I mean, if we eliminated heart disease completely, we'd add four years of life expectancy. However, it's the social conditions, it's the public health and sanitation issues that are often at the root. And that's really why we've seen these massive increases in life expectancy is sanitation, is toilets, is clean water. It's not having literally millions and millions of kids and people die every year from diseases that should not kill us like diarrhea. And I've been in these countries, I've seen it and it's just heartbreaking. So I think the work you're doing both in terms of sort of dealing with the dumb idea of toilet paper and creating a better solution and addressing some of the public health issues that are keeping literally billions of people down in the world. It's just so awesome. Thank you for that, Miki.

I mean, thank you. And I think that what's so exciting, and I think this is why I love you so much, is that like, you know, we're creating a world we want to see. And I think like through business, like through business, like we can actually take the profits and take a part of the profits. You know, I believe in profit and purpose go hand in hand. I sit on the board of Conscious Capitalism with, you know, founders of Whole Foods Market and the founders of Grameen Bank and all these, or the President of Grameen Bank and all these really epic leaders. And it's really about conscious businesses that will save the planet and save the world and save humans. It's not necessarily for-profit companies or necessarily nonprofits. I think it's for purpose conscious businesses that'll do that. And I think conscious businesses, if created right, can actually, like our might, we can create the world we wanna see through the profits that we make.

And this is actually a very important thing, Miki, because conscious capitalism sounds like a little bit of a fringe, radical left thing. But the Business Roundtable, which is the leading businesses in the world, came out with a statement last year that said we need to reframe value from just being about shareholder value to stakeholder value, meaning everybody who is affected all along the chain of supply and all along the course of their products How is everything being affected? The environment, you know, people- Employees, customers.

Suppliers, the planet, shareholders. That's the basis of conscious capitalism. John Mackey wrote the book, Conscious Capitalism, and it's about the stakeholder model. It's a win-win-win-win-win model. Everybody wins. And actually, conscious businesses outperform major S&P 500 indices by up to 14X. So financially, it's actually- Financially. Way better investment Well, that's what he... Right.

And then, the head of one of the largest investment companies in the world who writes a letter every year out to the world said, Hey, all you business leaders, unless you incorporate climate thinking into your business model, you are going to have a problem, not just from an immoral or ecological point of view, but from an economic perspective. So you are, dealing with problems you've had that you want to solve, that you create incredible solutions for that not only help you, but help people, help people save money, help save climate, help solve all kinds of big issues like public health crises. And it's just so cool. I mean, I think it's pretty cool. I think I don't know what you're going to come up with next, but I know it's going to be very cool. And I'm just so excited about you and the world and we need more of you. And I think people listening who think they can't do something or something can't be done should really take inspiration from your story because you're one of those people that never sees obstacles, only opportunities. And we all get knocked down in the world and our lives and you have many times. And you get right back up and you go, okay, I'm gonna get back up and do the next thing. And I think it's just so inspiring, Mickey. I don't know what you're coming up with next, but this is such an awesome and I encourage everybody listening to check out what she's doing and Mickey's work she's got her own website it's mickeyagrawal.com it's M-I-K-I-A-G-R-A-W-A-L.com you can check out hello tushy.com don't go to tushy.com it's hello tushy.com it's an incredible incredible gift it's an incredible gift to yourself to those you love it sounds a little weird but trust me it is really the future and it's all what we should be having in our bathrooms. And I've got one every bathroom that I use except when I travel around and then I have to suffer. But it's okay. I think we need tushies in every single hotel across America. That is what we should do. And I actually have a connection for you. So there's a new tushy system that's coming out in September. What is that?

Yes, yes. And so basically it's the future of pooping. and, you know, we have our Tushy Ottoman, which is a stool where you put your feet up. And it's the most beautiful aesthetic stool. We put your feet up to poop properly. Right now, when we take a, when you go to the bathroom and we just sit down on a chair, like, it's actually kinking our colon because we're natural. The natural way to go to the bathroom is actually, like, Crouch down. And so that's the natural human way, which unkinks your colon. All of your poop comes out when you're just sitting on a. seat, only 70% of poop comes out. And so we have the most, but then right now there's some ugly stools that exist in the market. They're just really, really eye-sore. It looks like some hospital thing. So we spent the last two years really developing the most beautiful, looks like an art sculpture in your bathroom.

So you're like the apple of like personal care products. Yes.

And so it's this gorgeous, you know, call it Tushy Ottoman. And then you, of course, sit in your toilet and we have our three, our Tushy Bidet, which you spray your pot with, we've went through every single, like single aspect of the bidet to make it perfect, the way the stream comes out, the way it cleans the nozzle, the way it, like the way it supports you, we've thought through every single thing. And then we have our Tushy tissues. So right now, people like they kind of, you know, like, even when they have a bidet, even when they have a Tushy at their home, because we're so used to it and it's a roll, they made it like the Scotts brothers, they thought it through, like they made it a roll, so you're using way more than you need to. wrapping around your hand a couple of times.

Yeah, it's not like you can just.

Pull out one and one and one. Exactly. And so what we developed is called the Tushy Tissues or the Tushy Tissue Stand, which is this beautiful stand where it looks like it's minimalist, Japanese gorgeous, like aesthetic, and you pull one sheet at a time, one square at a time. So it's like it's, you know, but it's a reverse clean, but it looks like a beautiful thing, and you're saving 80% of toilet paper. and you're controlling how much you use. It's 100 bamboo, and it makes you stand for the planet. We see our Tushy tissue stand helps you stand for the planet and your pocketbook in your life. So that's, that's what's coming out next in the subscription model. And then our Tushy tissue, the Tushy brush. And so right now, the biggest toilet brush in the market, this is like.

I'm so excited to be talking about all these toilet products.

I'm so like, I'm so like, well, they used to call me doctor see every poop at Canyon Ranch when I worked there. That's why I love you so much. You're my poop doctor. You changed my life. I just want to, you really changed my life. I mean, you saved my thyroid and have to take it out thanks to you. You used to be helping me make a baby. You like, you know, indirectly. Yeah, indirectly, indirectly. You know, you really changed my life. I love you so much for that. I mean, like, you're just the best. Anyways, so the last product is, so the number one selling product right now on Amazon is this toilet brush called the Wand. this plastic, toxic eye, like, like eye sore that you like, because people don't want to wash, you know, scrape their toilets with poopy, like, whatever, and then put their toilet brush back in the thing that collects more poop. It's just gross. And so this product on Amazon, you could just like, you just press in this thing and it clips onto this plastic thing that's you clean it and then you clip and then it throws in the garbage. And so it's this terrible single use product and we're just like, but people like love. It's number one selling product on Amazon because people don't want to have this gross thing and are used to disposables now. So what we've created is like the most environmentally friendly version of that, which is basically this bamboo stick that has this grabber and it pulls and each our little pads are made at 100% upcycled coconut husks. And they're upcycled coconut husks and 100% compostable and they're made out of 100% upcycled coconut husks and that just because Coconut husks are super rough. And so you basically just squeeze it, it grabs it, it cleans the toilet, and then it's 100% compostable or if it goes in the garbage, it just breaks down like food. So it's just like in two seconds, it's gone. So it's the most eco-friendly version of the best-selling product on Amazon. So we're excited to go head-to-head against them and just prove that we can clean the toilet as good with a much more 100% environmentally friendly product.

You'Re like Thomas Edison meets Steve Jobs meets Elon Musk. I don't know, something like that. You're pretty amazing. Anyway, Miki, thank you so much for being on the Doctor's Podcast. Everybody should get a Tushy. Go to hello@tushy.com, learn more about it.

It's pretty awesome. And if you have any questions, you can DM me on Insta, just @MikiAgrawal on Instagram.

Yes, and she's cool. So you've been awesome listening to all this crazy stuff about taboo subjects. I hope this hasn't grossed you out too much. too much, but I think it's important for us personally, for our health, for the planet, and to solve so many of our big global problems. Thank you for thinking out of the box, Miki. And if you've all been listening to this podcast and you loved it, share with your friends and family on social media. Leave a comment. We'd love to hear from you and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And we'll see you next time on the Doctor's Pharmacy. Hey everybody, it's Dr. Hyman. Thanks for tuning into the Doctor's Pharmacy. I hope you're loving this podcast. It's one of my favorite things to do and introducing you all the experts that I know and I love and that I've learned so much from. And I want to tell you about something else I'm doing which is called Mark's Picks. It's my weekly newsletter and in it I share my favorite stuff from foods to supplements to gadgets to tools to enhance your health. It's all the cool stuff that I use and that my team uses to optimize and enhance our health. And I'd love you to sign up for the weekly newsletter. I'll only send it to you once a week on Fridays. Nothing else, I promise. And all you have to do is go to drhyman.com/picks to sign up. That's drhyman.com/picks, P-I-C-K-S, and sign up for the newsletter and I'll share with you my favorite stuff that I use to enhance my health and get healthier and better and live younger longer. Now back to this week's episode.

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