The LightStyle Interview Series with Radha Agrawal | Shame, Self-Altruism, and Building Your Dream

[Music] hi everyone I'm Leila Samedi the founder of standing light welcome to the life style interview series I'm so excited today to be at the Daybreaker headquarters with Radha agrawal CEO and co-founder of day breaker and thinks underwear thank you for being here thank you for having me it's so awesome what did I delight on you oh thank you so this is you need to be here usually we're at the standing lighthouse headquarters but we came all the way down to Brooklyn to shine a light on you and we wanted to learn about this journey this magical mischievious journey that I've been on and all the hearts that you're igniting across the world with Daybreaker and also all the work that you're doing philanthropic lis with some all the projects that you're endeavoring on so tell us a little bit what's happening right now and all the things that you're up to yeah well first of all thank you for having me Leila it's good to see you high five you know with with Daybreaker it really started out as as an experiment like anything I think anything that we do in life is always some that we tinker with and we try and the Daybreaker start out as a social experiment my friend Matt and I we sat down together and you were like wow night life is no longer fun you know it's sort of overrun by main bouncers ever on their cell phones I'm actually talking and and so the goal was can we offer a different way to connect with one another can be offered later let our hair down and dance authentically and not feel unsafe and so that was sort of the beginning the genesis of the idea that we've since grown we're now in 17 cities around the world we have 350 thousand committee members waking up to dance all over the world and and today you know the goal really again is to continue expanding the movement all across the world but anybody who wants to sort of let their hair down can everyone another can have a space and place to do that you know - crazy statistics to share one in four Americans report zero friends to confide in and that number has tripled in last 30 years and Harvard is came out the crazy study that shows that having weak social ties is as harmful to your physical health as being an alcoholic and twice as harmful as obesity and so you know isolation is actually nepo Democrats having this country and something that we really want to solve here Daybreaker and I think we just launched action and very excited to shares is um David for campus which is our campus project where the goal again is to eliminate the need for the solo cup right and the idea right if I think of that let me go out at night you're having to just have a solo cup and that's the way to connect with one another and the idea is you don't need that fill the cup in your hand anymore you can actually just dance and do yoga and connect and self-express we just launched at USC this past weekend and our goal is to be on on 100 campuses by 2020 so yeah it's so exciting it's really exciting and I love I mean side know but with that you're helping the environment by eliminating the plastic 100 yeah yeah bring your water bottle yeah exactly bring your jar yeah mason jar yeah don't anything so Wow so Daybreaker started how long ago Wendy's one design yeah our launch was December 10th 2013 and it started in New York City in the basement of a coffee shop in Union Square and the goal again was was just you know to to get our friends together dance in the morning and then quickly you know to events later a friend of ours who's moving to San Francisco said I want to bring it there and so it's a very organic experience like none of it was like scale scale scale right like that's I think such a such an important part of entrepreneurship is how many employees you have or how big as your office and I think it's just a very much usable way to look at entrepreneurship and and for us is like let's just keep it slow and steady and have evergreen growth and and have just have a very organic experience if someone wants to bring it there if we have enough excitement and energy galvanizing around the city and we will go to that cities so what we do now is we look to see how big our sign up lifts are before we go to a city so Philadelphia's our next city and because we have almost 5,000 email sign Wow from people who wanted to come to Philly an awesome taxi of 4000 as well as we're launching Austin next month at Whole Foods which is really fun on our rooftop and yeah so we actually look and look to see what the community actually wants before we go there and so that's how we decide how that's going to go and where to go and you have that and it's a sustainable growth that way and you literally are creating it from the heart and if you guys feel that you know I mean when you go to Daybreaker and I had the pleasure of going to one literally almost exactly a year ago really yeah no kidding that just hit me Wow oh my gosh yeah and E our mutual friends yes is also part of the series yeah oh cool yeah so amazing I mean and you feel it like you've just enter into this space that is just radical acceptance that's that's the whole idea you know I think for us it's like let's actually turn every aspect of the nightlife experience on its head so yeah instead of the mean bouncy we actually have a mandatory hugging committee so literally every city has at least three huggers at the door to welcome you into the experience it is like sort of judge you and into the right size you up and I think that's um you know and then and then when you come in you know sort of instead of alcohol we have an open bar situations and having to wait in line and put your ID and the whole thing is like comment and take it and sort of come as you go it feels very much like you're coming into our living room right right and you know we have greens let me copy and teen breakfast I'm living room at home yeah exactly and it's no alcohol no alcohol that's a very big part of our our expression is is that you don't have to you can self express without without the need to to change your sort of cellular structure right and and you can just come and really authentically let go and that's that's something that I feel like we don't often shine a light on enough enough on that sort of individuality yeah yeah so take us back a little bit um your because your story is amazing and I would love to shine a light on that as well and help people realize you know where you came from and how inspired what you're doing now yes I mean I moved to New York a month before 9/11 oh wow Kikki back a little bit and move to has an investment banker actually so I was kind of on the dark side though you know though I really credit Investment Banking she sort of to teach me about work ethic 100 hour work weeks look like what sacrifice what what spreadsheets look like and not to be afraid of them and and I think that was a great training ground for me to just sort of realize after 9/11 first of all that I wasn't excited about about Investment Banking whatsoever and the 9/11 really showed me that the mystery of life is that you never know what's going to end you know it's time to pursue a passion right now you know stop the presses and of course I understand the crippling student debt to learn that were that were faced with which is the number one issue in America right now that we have to deal with and and so I do understand the sort of the fiscal responsibility that we as graduates need to fulfill but if we can actually align our passions with our with our purpose with our with our professions that's really the dream right and so good for me 9/11 happen and I'm like you know what like what do I care about and I did this assessment and actually I'm writing a book about this and it's about how to sort of find your passion and how to build community around it but but the idea is to really sit down and think about like what do I care what are my values when my interests one of my abilities I called a via write your via and assessment and so in doing that through I really realized that I really want to go into film and community and the world of creative and so then went into that world for six years in advertising marketing and still the film business Wow I worked with the Coen brothers and George Lucas and all kinds of wonderful filmmakers but in the realm of commercials so in between movies a lot of these filmmakers will do a blood wiser commercial or change Bank commercial or an apple computer kappa commercial and so I got to really go on these sets and and see just how much care and love and storytelling and thought went into hyper sizing something sort of a product and so that again was a great training ground for me as a young sort of production assistant interpreter manager to really understand all that goes into the storytelling of a business of a product of the service and so so going for Investment Banking from the business side the spreadsheet side into the storytelling advertising side it was again just a wonderful business school for me yeah yeah and then I mean I opened a restaurant with my sister at 25 almost 12 years ago now over 12 years ago now and and that was our first foray in entrepreneurship was taking you know what we learned in in the space of production and applying the same skill sets to the restaurant business instead of having a production assistant you need prep cooks right instead of right see all the different things that you need in production you can fully apply that to anything if you build a team I think what you're doing right now is am team and so for me you know you can't build anything about the team behind you so 150 breakers very much it's it's it's an absolute team effort and you know if you pan the camera right behind there's an incredible I name it was it was absolutely the backbone of of Daybreaker and of the growth of this movement and so it's never just one person it's a community of people and I mean everything that we are in Daybreaker we we have two community producers to what we call community catalyst in every city so we have almost 40 producers all over the world who who shine a light on their cities who bring brings where the cultural nuance into their cities setting this is so so so that's that's a big part of of building any business is not just the single individual but the collective so yeah so that was the beginning of that the restaurant business then into super sprowtz my my starts I ran for five years and and that was a very big learning for me just around who to take money from and I raised five million dollars for that business but really worked with misaligned investors and again no harm no harm no foul on on them you know they I think when you're working with traditional investors and we're building a non-traditional and company and in a non-traditional environment it's really hard to mix and mingle and so I always tell you know funds I meet with that we are very unorthodox you're not the type of company that you typically invest in it's going to scale and focus on the bottom line that we're we're very much about people first and organic growth and um and the profits will follow you know if we get to be patient yeah sure you know and I think that so often um you know you have these and I'm not even joking oh I'd sit in these investor in meetings and guys will like put their hands behind their backs like this tell me about your business and what and I'm just like what is your posture why are you talking to me like that yeah so no it's a Power Move yeah and and it's just like the issue system that she's low behind investment investing needs to be overhauled completely because believe it or not more women are starting businesses and men now there are 500,000 businesses every year being opened by women now more than men and there are more women graduating college than there are men now go ladies and and yeah and so it is the future is absolutely female the present is also female not just the future and so it's our time now to show and teach investors is to teach business leaders how to how to emphasize yeah with with with sort of this really that's really difficult endeavor which is building anything anything anything of value requires you know so much effort so much sort of wearing many hats right like I am you know I have meetings my accountant my bookkeepers I mean my tax guy my lawyers I've beatings with my creative team and talking about design and copywriting teams with bizdev and partnership talking about new city grows and interviewing new candidates for new city is just non-stop right writing a book yeah all while reading but although reading a book and all while thinking about okay how do we stay on top of the game the competitors don't come in solo so all this up so I have so much respect for my mentors like John Mackey who founded Whole Foods and what he's building and and how he's dealing with haters and and sort of encroaching competition and being a public company in dealing with investors and just all the things that one has to deal with it's it's just not easy and it you know it's easy to on entrepreneurs it's easy to on a female jurors especially because there's so many what my twins which are called hate hers not just haters but hate hers Wow and and so much criticism comes from women on women it's so true and it's just like you know so many of these of these crappy you know kind of negative article that I read about both sinks and Daybreaker come from female reporters Wow and and it's just like why don't you shine a light on each other yeah exactly you're not living in my shadow you're living my light yeah you know and and and I'm living in yours you know and that's the thing it's like if we can just live in each other's light and not thinking like other shadows we're merits for one another right and shine to reflect our light onto one another every lighting we're gonna have yeah city Monaco they're going to happen like that's called light coating to enlighten them with the help of one another and transcend through and then be able to stand in our light I mean Babic you yeah and just forgive each other every day I didn't have to cry with one another and be able to have these vulnerable memorable moments you know I am Valka who standing behind the camera over there I was talking her about this the other day if there's some days where we you know where I'm in a good movie and she's in a good mood and it's great and it loves that Iran and there's some days where I'm in a good mood and she's in a bad mood and I'm I'm going to protect her and make her feel better there gonna be some days where she's in a great mood and I'm in a bad mood and she sort of what can I do for you happy to help and those days where we're both in bad moods how do we deal with those days and how can we respect one another in those two and and it's always it's always an experiment every time it's always a moment for us to grow exactly I learned from those moments and and it's those moments that you grow sort of you know what's the opposite of a hair on your chest if you grow you know sort of wires are very hard yeah yeah and we just paired to hair to higher get sexy examples waxing yeah exactly exactly so with everything that we just touched on what would you say was one of those darkest moments that propelled you forward yeah you know um sometimes you don't think those moments will propel you forward until well done in Lyon but something you know something I always um sort of grabbed onto and held on to the idea that things aren't happening you know at either happening for you or happening they're not happening to you they're happening for you and and so for me yeah actually a year and a half ago I was sitting in a board meeting I guess it's two years ago now I was sitting in a boardroom meeting four men in suits and myself and I'm the CEO of my company and um and the founder and they're sitting around me and they said rod are you stay here boys let's go outside and talk business Wow and this happened to me a year and a half this is like knock on shoes and maybe my blood play boys let's go science on business and I remember sitting there in shamed silence actually I was too ashamed to say no I'm coming with you or I was too ashamed to to to even just talk about it for months and months and months afterwards I just kept quiet about it because what do you do in those moments exactly you know we are we are ashamed as women we are ashamed in our silence we are we are taught to we're taught to be inferior to men from the moment we are born we live in a masculine world and so we're constantly thinking of the other first and that's that we're comparing ourselves so we take that other nough serve the other but then begin judging ourselves comparing ourselves in that serve of one another animation that that's a vicious cycle so it turns into this egocentric experience instead of the experience of actual authentic other nuts anyways so I'm the dark moment for me happened when when I had to when I just I had to drop the mic and walk away from super sprowtz after five years of building this this baby that I cared so much about we were reaching a million children around the country we had just opened up a program in schools in Compton every single school in Compton it was the first ever salad bar program in these schools 125 schools we we brought in to solve our program to get these schools to offer salad for children vegetable circle and healthy a program because it took a curriculum whole really colorful salad bar that we created with these like bright colorful characters around it and yeah and then we launched in 250 schools in Puerto Rico and Spanish and and we were just building and growing and and that momentum was there and it just we had internal strife we just that's what happens in most businesses not the external side of it it's it's that there's egos and and and jealousy and just so much stuff on the inside of these businesses that we that we end up eating each other we end up imploding because of our inability to see the bigger picture yeah you know and and and in this case the bigger picture was helping children right you know helping kids eat more vegetables reducing the obesity epidemic that's plaguing our country but instead we were riddled with power struggles and and and it just it broke my heart and continues to break my heart that I had to walk away from this project that what I know was making a difference for for for self preservation I could have fought for it I could have I could have done a lot around it but I just said you know what good luck and and I have so much more so many more ideas to offer the world I have so much more energy I don't want the energy to be plagued by this that she's know and is and and this inability to communicate what what I want our end goal to be and what you want your end goal to be and and yeah of course we all want to make money of course we want to scale and make profits you know but but ultimately the goal is is to do both a double bottom line give good and do well if you actually when you're going and dine your grave like what do you want to have a pile of cash on top of you or do you want to say hey I you know I helped to I helped to inspire so many hearts so many spirits I helped to get people out of their comfort zone out of their out of their shell and into their part into their bodies and dance self express into their into their bodies and feed it feed their feed their temple nourish it and so and so yeah so that's that's been the darkest part for me is just like navigating this crazy world of investors and and some boards and and then having to manage up and manage down to your team and and having all of the press and media want to get you with clickbait you know and and all these people who want to see you fall because not because they don't love you but because they're in this visual cycle of judgment and perfection so that they may want you know succeed but secretly want you to fail and because it makes them feel better it just if so takes a lot to be to be sitting here both of us and to be any any one who's sort of taking a stand because everybody wants to knock you down yeah so that's the hard part to sort of kind of and come to terms with you know and then and then take have that interest remembering a book right now it's called unshakable confidence everybody read it it's a it's for women can I should actually show the book because it's really an amazing book my boyfriend Eli's mother gave it to me yesterday and it's called unshakable confidence and it's the freedom to be our authentic selves it's call it's mount mindfulness for women and it is it really is a tremendous terrific book and it just talks about how how just yeah how much we judge each other how much we live in the sort of realm of other news yeah of how we're so conditioned to be sort of comparing and wanting to to sort of serve the other and forget all about our own authenticity or our own selves and it's a beautiful book and I've anyways I just I read it yesterday and it's already tended to many friends to read and I recommend all of you out there to to to read it and yeah and my book also is about community building and basically open sources every single thing I've ever learnt about what we did a Daybreaker how I built communities with zero dollars in marketing from zero to 300,000 community members with our team you know sort of all that goes into building a community from scratch and all the thought and the intention the sort of core values think about the constraints the the rituals the aesthetics the you know sort of the language there's so much that goes into creating community and movement and it's in it yes it's in think yes it is a movement but anybody can do it yes if you have the tools and my goal is is sort of my number one kernel that I might focus my why in life is belonging I really believe that if every single Kingdom felt belonging and thought they had a place in life there'd be no Isis there'd be no Trump there'd be no war there'd be nothing because we'd all feel belonging we'd all have this place to call home then we can that we can crawl into and say uh-uh I just you know I just feel safe here I feel seen here I feel authentically myself here so the goal of the book is to help you kind of go in first see all of your own colorful spectrum of judgement perfectionism and ego and all the things that we deal with before we go out so you have to go in to go out if you're really my sensitive my main point and and then before you go to build your dream community let's just take a few create your own manatee design your exactly your own how a relationship with yourself how it really - put your inner child right how much do you love yourself exactly I'm willing to take care of yourself right exactly it is it's the inward journey first before you go in the plane you know you have to put on your own mask total you're a child exactly and exactly but we're taught to other entities before we're like wait a minute what I want what do I care about what do I want - you know what what light do I have to show have you know no matter yeah yeah so your book is called belonging it got belong belong yeah I belong how to master relationships and build community okay yeah and I'm illustrating the whole book myself as well so it's a really and again exciting books for me are very hard to read and I just I have a hard time finishing anything any book because you're visual person I'm a very visual person I'm pretty ATD about books and I I learn best by conversation and totally and and connecting with people and so I really want this book in the same way rapers an experience I want the book to be an experience yeah so when you read the book you're like wow you know we call our moments of Daybreaker wow moment oh and so every you know we actually invite Wow moment so our horn section our fire dancers our aerialists our you know sort of our dueling sock shows you - all Wow moment yeah this seriously is so we really want I want every page to feel like a WoW moment yeah what are you going to see next like how are you going to experience this book and and all my crazy thoughts which are wonderful because I mean look at everything you've created and we had the pleasure of seeing some of your sketches and I literally I it's rare that I get excited about books but thank you I'm literally I am pre-ordering that one oh my gosh awesome seriously well one thing I'm most excited at the book is that it's actually you know I talk about this in community building its participation yeah it's a very participatory book where you actually write draw pages out you know kind of really participate in the books and not just a one-way conversation where I'm talking at you yeah but we're actually having this two-way experience together so when you read the book it's not just yeah me talking it's really hey let's do this together hey let's cut this out and put some your mirror do this or do that it's a very participatory experience yeah everything happens for a reason right and you said like things happen for you not and just looking back on everything you shared it's you know starts like the sprouts the super square super sprowtz didn't work out because now you're probably going to do something even more incredible with your book and go into schools and help them throw it away right absolutely absolutely honestly I also think that and Daybreaker wouldn't be here when it went when when I had to you know drop the mic and walk away from from super sprowtz and you know I thank God I had Daybreaker as my side project and a passion project because you know I was able to just dive in and we went from three cities to four cities to 15 cities in one year you know because you know when you when you're in pain and you're you know you can really channel you can channel that to something else and and I was so just so um yeah I was just so inspired by that pain in some ways and one of my girlfriend Leah said this to me she said I said you know what are you grateful for and she said I'm grateful for fear and I thought that was a really beautiful thing I think about how power yeah I'm grateful for fear and I think that so often we think of fear as something that is painful and negative but actually something to be grateful for so that was a moment for me of realizing that I can channel all that into Daybreakers see this movement grow you know feel the love back and feel sort of and we have no investors this company it's fully it's fully for the people by the people and that feels so good we don't have any good douchey Airy responsibility to report to anybody and we can grow it as quickly as we want or as low as you want and it just feels so right yeah and I think yeah I think the key learning that I'm going to put in the book as well as just like to build community it's um it's a very slow and thoughtful process and I think that um you know what I really want to inspire you know business is out there and anyone watching any brand manager watching that um that this isn't you know you shouldn't just think about a community manager as a lows in the totem pole person that you hire out of college and pay the minimum wage to do social media I call it community architect and community architecture is actually a very thoughtful thing it should be in the same level as a CEO CMO CEO achieve community architect yeah is actually a vital vital role in any growth of any organization I think should be thought of as important as a marketing officer marketing and community are sort of in the same world but we have continuously put all of our efforts of the marketing vain feeding that vain yeah instead of focusing on a slower growth more thoughtful growth more attentive growth but ultimately more sustainable we spent zero dollars in marketing and advertising Daybreaker maybe twenty dollars I'm like I'm boosting a Facebook post here and there you know but but but really you know our goal is to show that you don't need marketing if you have a beautiful community who believes and understands and feel the authenticity because they will they will share it for you yeah and and that's really what what we want inspire on both on college campuses now and in cities because we and lonelier and more I play than ever before so this book again and everything we're doing everything in life for me is about you know helping connect humans and and eradicate isolation and bring us to it all to a sense of belonging yeah yeah ah Rana you're the epitome of a standing light little person and what what you are living is the epitome of a light style as well you know you're just shining your life so brightly and I honor you so much for that and the final question is what does light style mean to you you know I think life style is is a is a and I guess an aspirational space to play in I think to really get to the light style you have to go through the dark style as well and so and I think we're dealing with that sort of lifestyle dark style every day in our own heads in our own world and and to be human if the feel a spectrum of always emotionally so you can't feel the light sky all if you can't you can't get to the lights Kyle unless you go through all of the the two most of all the colors in between and but I think lifestyle is an aspirational place and and one that we all continue to strive for every day but I think embracing again all of our colorful spectrum is what actually ultimately wake makes the white light is all that color Absalom and so that what that looks like means to me I love that thank you for thank you for that and it's so true it's we have dark and light we have night and day it's everything and yeah and then the earth our planet is our biggest teacher of that hundred oh yeah yeah so I'm to be honoring honoring the earth with - something better so yeah thank you so much Rana Thank You bruiser piece about you Oh hopefully didn't so much for my if you like this episode of the lifestyle interview series please share with your friends and family and don't forget to hit subscribe

Channel: Standing Light

Views: 1,435

Keywords: radha agrawal, miki agrawal, Daybreaker, dybrkr, love and mischief, nyc entrepreneur, inspirational story, young entrepreneur, standing light, lightstyle interview series, lifestyle interview series, high vibrations, conscious entrepreneur, she boss, feminism, thinx, leyla salvade, inspirational

Id: n10CbgHWCLk

Length: 31min 35sec (1895 seconds)

Published: Wed May 03 2017