Naked at the Top

The Truth About Automating Your Life |  Mia Bauer

• Aleyx Ward • Season 1 • Episode 2

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Mia Bowyer doesn’t lead the way most people expect. She blends AI with authenticity, automates systems while holding space for real connection, and built a thriving business without fitting into the traditional CEO mould. In this episode of Naked at the Top, Mia opens up about what it really takes to automate your life without losing your humanity.

Named Young Entrepreneur of the Year and founder of Automate Social, Mia has worked with global brands and led a fast-growing team while staying grounded in creativity, vulnerability and humour. We dive into her journey from PR at Ogilvy to remote business building, breathwork circles and even a stand-up comedy set. Her honesty is disarming - and her insights into leadership and life are deeply refreshing.

You’ll learn how Mia uses her “automate, delegate, eliminate” model to scale sustainably, why raising your standards starts with yourself, and how tech tools like Notion and Make.com are reshaping the way we build businesses. She also gets real about people-pleasing, team feedback, and what it takes to stop hiding and start leading with clarity.

This is a conversation for anyone feeling overwhelmed by digital tools, unsure how to delegate, or stuck in the belief that leadership has to look a certain way. It’s a reminder that real leadership isn’t about being perfect - it’s about being real.

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Aleyx:

Hello and welcome to Naked At the Top. Today's guest is someone who refuses to stay in her box. Mia Bowyer is the CEO of Automate Social. She's a keynote speaker and was named Young Entrepreneur of the Year. She's worked with Fortune 500 brands, built a scalable AI system that automates ads and still finds time for yoga, cold plunges and comedy sets. I saw Mia do stand-up last week, which sums her up. In the short time I've known her. She really pushes herself out of our comfort zone, even when she's petrified and she does it with a smile on her face. She's a true testament to the leader that she is, and I can't wait to unpack more of it in today's episode, so for everyone listening, AI is here to stay. It's already shifting how we run our businesses, but most of us are still scratching the surface. I know I am, but Mia's built her entire business on ai. So if you've been curious about how to bring AI into your world to free you up, this episode's gonna be from you. So Mia, welcome to Naked At the Top.

Mia:

No, this is one of the best intros ever. Yes, I have a tendency to just embarrass myself in as many ways possible. So yeah, I think it's so much about leadership and entrepreneurship is going for it, and you just have to push through the cringe and just accelerate forward.

Aleyx:

And you did so well. As we're talking about it now, like how did you, feel, doing that? Do you wanna give us a little, everyone a little insight and to what you did last week and how did, you feel after you did it? Because it was pretty daring. Not many people would jump up on stage and do stand-up.

Mia:

Yeah, so I have a bit of a bucket list mindset with a lot of things. I don't get embarrassed easily, and I. Just love putting myself out there and going for it. So there was a bunch of things I was doing this year where, yeah, I wasn't particularly skilled at it. I wasn't a professional, but I thought, oh, I'll give it a crack. And it ends up turning out to be such a. Amazing experience'cause you learn so much about yourself every time. it started off where Aleyx and I met at Speakers Bootcamp and we were learning how to give our keynote speeches and then morphed into, I started writing poetry and then I started getting up and performing poetry. And then, yeah, last week was a bit of a crescendo moment where I thought. I would try and stand-up and it was a whole week of learning how to create a set, create your own jokes learn joke structure, learn how to integrate annoying or funny moments from your everyday life into a joke. And then we had to perform on the Thursday night and. Yeah, there was a little part of me that was like, okay, this is a, lot, going up and doing standup is probably one of the most embarrassing things you can do. And there's that fear that you were gonna bomb and you'd be really bad. But it ended up being fine. And I think think people wanna have a good time. They wanna laugh. They, wanna enjoy what you're doing. So if you can just yeah, work hard in a sense, which sounds counterintuitive with comedy, but you have to actually put in the work to create coherent structures. So you work harder there. Yeah. You put yourself out there and. It just was so cool. It was remarkable that people even laughed at it. I was like, oh, it's probably gonna be completely silent. And yeah, so I'm really proud that I could just do something like that and have a little group of friends now from the comedy course. So we're gonna go and do open mics and yeah, it'll be fun.

Aleyx:

That's awesome. And, so this is a PO podcast about leadership, but what would you say that you, learned from that, that you could take into, how you run your business?

Mia:

Yeah, so business and play is something that I appreciate so much. Everyone can get quite serious in business and they're like, you have to be professional and you have to be someone Is, only one flavor, but I really think the more I've just let go and realised that we're all gonna die one day, it's not such a big deal what you're doing today that you are embarrassed about or you think that you're not good enough. Nobody is really even thinking about you. So it's really important just to be yourself and. Yeah, try out new things and mix, mix enjoyment. And I know that, yeah, you and I both share this view that getting up on stage and connecting with people and changing the energy of a room in a positive way is one of the most thrilling things that you can do. So the keynote world and yeah, be able to really step out of that, the computer, the digital, and into these rooms where. People wanna learn, they wanna connect. They're human. they're excited. they're at an event. they've spent their time to be there. So yeah, just, serving them as a community, And so you can do that through humor, you can do it through education, you can do it through so many different things. So yeah, I'd say play and work. You've gotta make it fun, otherwise you lo you lose steam really quick. So the only reason I've been able to do business for four years is'cause there's been a lot of fun within that journey as well.

Aleyx:

Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, you're right. It's all about, it's all about connection. Being able to, connect with your team, connect with your customers, and that all stems from, how we show up and how we can have a conversation. And I think the more you can bring your personality and just have fun with it, the, the more enjoyable it is. I think you touched there on it, You've been building automate social for four years, is that right?

Mia:

Yeah. Yeah. It's been a really, cool journey because I was never someone who was the typical archetype of a business person. I don't think there really is one, but I, my main goal of having a business was so I could travel the world and have my little business in a backpack and have all these epic adventures and have some way to generate income. Without needing to get a full-time job or do the traditional ways of work. And through that process, I ended up not caring as much about travel as I did about business because business is its own travel journey in itself. There's all these people that you meet along the way that become your, tribe, I hate that word, but they become your crew. And then you have all these adventures, even just in Melbourne, like stuff that you and I have done since meeting each other that help us in our businesses. Like breath work or we were Yeah, going to comedy or going to these networking events or yeah, you ran this really fun event where everyone was dancing and we were all talking about business and then we're all dancing together there's yeah, it has been going on for a long time now, and sometimes I think, oh, I should have this, different type of business or I, should be in this more other way. But I don't think it could have been any other way. It's

Speaker 3:

hard to

Mia:

be mobile remote. It's hard to be this. This mixing of the two worlds of the fun and the business as well.

Aleyx:

Yeah. And has it always been built on, the back of AI or has that kind of evolved over time?

Mia:

Yeah, it's always been tech focused, so I was I started off my career working for this PR agency called Ogilvy. And they're an amazing organisation They do the PR for lots of different businesses like Microsoft, and they were doing Netflix at the time. And I started off working with those guys and that they were at the forefront of every sort of marketing and and tech trend in a way. So they were like pushing the boundaries with social and with PR and all these different things. And so just having exposure to such smart people as my first job, I was like, oh, this is amazing. This is what, you do in marketing. So I took that experience. It was quite brief. I'm, yeah, I, my life moves very quickly, so I was briefly in corporate and then I took that experience and. Tried to implement it with these organisations in developing countries or villages or or, like completely under resourced areas. And it was such a cool mix of the two.'cause I wasn't coming at it from I'm gonna save you or I'm gonna help these communities. I was, it was never like that. It was like, how do we make this. Program seems so exciting and fun and interesting and marketed in a way that connects with what's trending in the world. yeah, I always forget what the question was, but

Aleyx:

yeah. So was it always built on, ai, but

Mia:

It was always built with latest social media and marketing tech and using all of the different platforms and as the, as new trends would come out. And then two years ago I Yeah. Was really, went all in with AI and Just completely started to automate the business. And the way my business mentality works is you automate. You delegate or you eliminate. So you automate as much as you can. And that's often the administration tasks or it's really simple stuff like note taking or adding things to your notion board or yeah, writing like proposals. So there's all this stuff that you do. Automate, and then you still need a team. if you're doing proper marketing, you still need a really good, solid team. Because people know what it's like when you ask chart GPT to do something. It will come up with the basics, the good ad administration, but the real creativity and strategy of. Social media needs to be done by a small nucleus of people. And then from there you eliminate as much as you can. So you look at the tasks that are not revenue driving or not serving your business, and you learn how to cut those out, just very hard to do when you're first in business and you think everything's important and everything's urgent. But yeah. So much is not.

Aleyx:

I love that and I love that you did say being a, marketer and a creative myself. I love that you did say, you still need, a team to do that piece. You still need the humans, but, using AI for where it can help you. And then, building, the teams. how, many of you got in your, team now and, how have you found that process?

Mia:

So right now there's five of us and they are, all really good at their. Own specific skillset. So before I used to have more generalist and people doing lots of different roles, but since implementing more of a systems mindset when it comes to business, each person has their own specific role and their own area of expertise. And that actually helps with the with that mindset of automate, delegate, and eliminate because. If someone has something that they're repeatedly creating, and I always say deliver the post on time. So we, you have the right product, you deliver it on time, and then it can be sent off. Whereas I found when, you are having more of a generalist team. It's really great when you're growing a business or you're developing ideas, but if you have one service that you're repeatedly creating You just need to put the right people in the right roles for that. And then it's scalable. Yeah.

Aleyx:

Yeah. Fantastic. So if you had to, if you had to say, one thing that you do differently as a leader now to one year ago, did you clearly move quite fast? What, would you say that's changed? What's changed for you? In the last year,

Mia:

this has been a tough one for me because I am a people pleaser or maybe like recovering people pleaser. And so I would always try to not give people feedback or I would, just say near enough is good enough or they're trying their best

Speaker 3:

and

Mia:

I would accept, a bit of a lower standard of work because I didn't wanna hurt people's feelings. And that's not a good way to operate because yeah, you are, people are trusting you with their businesses and they're trusting you to do the best job you can. If you're trying to help people, make people feel good or, try to mitigate people's emotions, it's actually not your responsibility. Your responsibility is to produce a High as you can, standard of work while being polite and and kind as well. But yeah, so I had to make a bit of an adjustment to my management in that area. And even now, sometimes I'll be giving feedback or I'll be sending it back for another edit round, sending it back. And yeah, I sometimes feel bad about it and I, don't want to do that, but I think at the end of the day, it makes them better. It makes the clients happier. But it's always been a huge challenge for me. And a part of that was knowing. What the end goal is, knowing what's important and overall that's producing a really good service and making sure you are like decent to people while doing that. And then the rest of the stuff, it's really up to people to manage their yeah, manage their emotions and regulate themselves. It's really not up to the leader to manage that. You just have to try to be kind and firm and, yeah.

Aleyx:

I can completely relate to that as a, fellow people pleaser myself. And I was speaking to somebody about it and because I like blunt to the point feedback, but often when I had a team around me, I'd be, I'd, I'd. walk around in circles'cause I didn't wanna upset anyone and the person I was speaking to said it's actually more kind to be direct and give them the feedback because then they can grow as well. And yeah, like you say, we can't, it's not our. Our job to take on everyone's emotions. But it can, be difficult,'cause you don't wanna hurt people's feelings, but I like that you look at it from the perspective of the client, the person that's paying for the service. And if you keep them in mind, then I imagine it makes it a lot easier.

Mia:

Yeah. And if I didn't care, I wouldn't give them feedback. So if I didn't care about them, and if I. Just thought, oh, this is not worthwhile. I wouldn't try, I, think it's the most helpful thing you can do is try to help improve them. And I respect all of their skill sets. I respect everybody's different. I. do also try to say, highlight the good as well, so when something's good, I won't brush over it. I'll say, this is really good. This is a good example. But yeah, it, I know what it's like. It stings when you get feedback. You just wanna do a good job. You want to keep people happy. And I think most, like most people I've worked with, they. Have a tendency to like really want to do a good job and they're proud of their work and they are doing what they can. They don't like, they're not lazy. They're not like trying to mess anything up. It's just hard. Like really good marketing and really good ads is a very difficult thing to master. There's, it's such a competitive landscape. Everybody's vying for all this attention. So even something as subtle as not writing copy in the right way, or using something that's like off brand or off tone. All these things matter so much. So yeah, it's, the feedback stings in the moment, but then you see the impact of having a higher standard of work later on. And it's so cool to see that. and it's, also really exciting to see people's growth as well. yeah.

Aleyx:

Yeah. Yeah. And then they can be proud of proud of that work and, happy and celebrate with the, client when the client's happy too. And I'm sure for everyone listening, this is probably a really common issue that leaders find. So was there anything in particular that. You've flicked your, in your mind or, how you were able to go from that? Oh, I don't wanna upset them to, okay. No, we've just gotta deliver. Was there any, kind of tip that you could share if other people are struggling with this?

Mia:

I think it's it was, came from raising my own standards. I had a lifestyle business. For Mo I say lifestyle business, I was also like extremely like serious about making a business. But I did have a lifestyle business mentality. I was for a long period of time I was thinking, okay, I want to have this business that helps me travel. I wanna have this business that gives me freedom. I wanna have this business that helps me like live this fun life. And then I think it clicked that. I one day realised I want this business because I want a good business. Like I want to create something that is strong, impactful, that provides a good service, it's scalable. And yeah, I started to raise my own standards and my Focus and I rewrote the business plan, obviously in chat GPT and ai it and put that into a bit of a, more of a system and realised that okay for me to match up to the standards that I have in this business plan and the standard that I have for the work. I also need to make sure I'm like. Going through things with a fine tooth comb, making sure things are looking good, making sure that we're fulfilling to the best extent we can delivering on projects. And then, yeah, so after that it was like very clear that, My, like chilled mentality was coming to an end, and I'm still pretty relaxed, but it's just like if the quality is there, I don't complain. Like I'm Yeah. Completely fine. I, won't try to like, nitpick things. Yeah. But until it's like there across the board then yeah, I'm quite, I've become a lot pickier than You do that as you get older, right? You become more picky. Yeah. Yeah.

Aleyx:

Because you know what you're looking for and you know what's right. And I think yeah, I think that's a, great tip for anyone listening. Like when you raise your own standards, then, the rest will follow.

Mia:

Yeah, because you can't tell people to do something while you are not doing it. So I think also as. Yeah. As a founder, you can absolutely run the business in the way you, want to run it, but, if I'm saying I want the, clients to do well, and then I'm not actually looking through the ads or I'm not like saying Hey, we need to update this. We need to make sure this, when it, then it yeah. So you need to yeah, once you're clear about your expectations, then everybody else can follow suit. But it's similar, like if there's a business and everyone's like drinking in the office and like having fun and just it like, that's also a fun style of business too. But yeah, you just need to choose what yeah, what standard and set it and keep those expectations strong.

Aleyx:

Yeah, exactly.'cause it comes from the, top down, doesn't it? All right, great. I've got some I've got some quick fire questions that I wanna ask you. So I'm gonna ask you them and you can either answer. Oh, you can throw it back to me to answer. And these are more AI specific for you Mia. So have you got your, have you got ChatGPT Open?

Mia:

Yeah,

Aleyx:

I do. I'd love to know, what was the last thing you asked? chatGPT

Mia:

yeah, I bought my first property last year and you have to move into it as a first homeowner buyer. But like I'm living in Brighton and I love it, and I don't wanna move. So I was like, how long do I need to stay in this property for? As in, do I just, is it okay if I visit it once a week or something to live in the property? So yeah, that's what I, that's what I did. I was like, and it said, yeah, basically said, yes, you need to live there. You need to. Sleep most nights there and track this in your account anyway. So it's telling me that I need to go and live in Brunswick now, yeah.

Aleyx:

Awesome. Love it. What are the, top three AI tools you used last week and how did they help you? Okay,

Mia:

so I have my meat and potatoes AI tools that I use constantly. And I think people can overcomplicate their tech stack and they don't really realise what they actually need. So the tools that I use, like my meat and potatoes tools are like fireflies, IT records notes I use Notion, which has all my knowledge management stuff and Notion has an AI tool where you can add things into your systems. Of course, I use ChatGPT and opus clip, which takes a long video and turns it into short little clips. Yeah. And I love Gamma, which takes you can say, create me a proposal for this and it will spit out like a really like high quality proposal with all the images and photos and videos really quickly. So they're the five that I, yeah, I just I love them. And then there's all these like funky cool ones. I like how to clone how to clone. My clients and myself in Hagen the other day. So you can pretty much upload a single video of yourself and then it turns into this AI clone that you can create infinite amounts of content with. So say, you can say the ChatGPT generate 50 scripts in the AI space, talking about social media and ai, and then your clone can go and do that, and then you can get like really funky and. Start to glue those things together with automations. the AI tools are really cool, but sometimes it's can feel a bit disjointed.

Speaker 3:

And

Mia:

the next thing that people will see a lot more of is you start to glue them with an auto automation. So if if someone. Feels oh, they're logging into this platform and then they're doing this repetitive thing, then they're doing this repetitive thing. You automate one part of that, so we'll use fireflies. A notion for an example, this is a really simple automation. You use a program called make.com and it adds Lego blocks or little sticky things to your tools. For instance, fireflies records the stuff and then you say to the automation, I want the notes to go straight into notion under this client's account. So then it saves it there every time. So you think of that, people call that an agent. Oh, not really, but people could call that an agent or like a helper or something. But it's just changing, like it's just connecting that one. One repetitive task and then you think of, okay, like after the call I also need to make sure with certain calls I need to make sure that gets sent as like a proposal or as something else. So you can glue make onto ChatGPT onto Gamma, and then Gamma can Chachi, PT can write it with a custom GPT and then Gamma can turn it into a nice presentation. And then you can even send that off you can add another sticky automation on with make, and that can send that off to the client, like within, minutes of the call itself. I think right now a lot of people are starting to master the tools quite well and they're starting to refine what their tool stack is and what they enjoy using and what's helpful for their businesses. And then probably in the next year or so. That adoption will move towards automations as well. So people are still quite green with automations. They're like, what? Like it, it looks cool, but it's still, people are still just using tool by tool. Yeah. Yeah. I would definitely predict in this year, if not next year people are gonna start to adopt more of the sticking blocks. Yeah. Creating teams of agents, et cetera.

Aleyx:

Amazing. If anyone listening is like me, which I'm sure there will be, I dabble and I use all these, like what you said, I use all these different tools, but I, when I'm using them, sometimes I'm like, one, I'm like, I'm probably spending more time Yeah. Than I need to.'cause I'm trying to figure out. But two, yeah, I'm at that stage where I'm like, okay, wait. how do do the automation part to put it all together seamlessly. hearing about that make.com I was looking for my notes to tip, but I can listen back to the recording. But that's, so helpful. But even for, me listening to you, I'm like, oh, it sounds complicated. Is it complicated to do all this? Oh

Mia:

yeah. people don't realise how simple they need to create it. So it becomes complicated when you're on LinkedIn and everyone's this is how I automated my whole business and this is how, and you think that you need to do that. But you actually just need a few really simple tools that you use regularly. I don't know, it's like the. People are going a bit too crazy at the moment, which I definitely have my like time where I'm like, oh, I'm using this and that. A lot of it you don't need. You need, minimum five, maximum maybe 10. You need tools that automate your regular processes. And sometimes if you. Can half, can we go deep into this topic? Yeah,

Aleyx:

please. let's do it.

Mia:

I'll start from the start. pretty much everybody has a way that they record their to-do list. So some people do it by paper, some people do it online. So what you do is you collect as many to-do lists as you can. So you have, Yeah, you just dump, a bunch into chat, ChatGPT. You can take photos of your to-do list and upload the photo and then you say this very simple prompt to ChatGPT saying, looking at all of my tasks. Write me a list of the repetitive tasks that I need to automate in order of how I usually do these tasks. So chat, GPT will come up with a bit of a timeline. Me, I was still like really simple stuff. I was still recording the notes on like my laptop and then I was putting the notes into a. A presentation and writing the presentation in Canva to tell people like how we could help them. And then I was either sending or presenting that. And then, so there was all these things where I was like doing these things on a regular basis and I just started step by step to automate those things. And it's so much it's a lot quicker than you think if you simplify it in that way. So you just do one thing at a time. You're like, okay, like today I'm just gonna I'm, aware of my, of the time that I'm wasting on presentations, so that's gonna be what I'll focus on today. And you start to tick off like these automations bit by bit until before you know it, you have at least one tool for every like large, repetitive task. Then you're feeling confident to move into the automations of blending those things together. yeah. So do you have maybe like a couple of tasks that you take a lot of your time and maybe I can suggest a few things for you?

Aleyx:

I, think for me right now, my pet peeve is I use notion for everything. I love notion, but I've now realised I've made notion cumbersome because I've built it in such a way that it's, become quite clunky. I suppose that's not really a process as such. I think that's me just trying to learn notion a bit better. Okay. I'll tell you, I'll, I've got one, So obviously this is a new podcast. And I'll speak to people on the phone if they wanna come on, and then I'll send them the email with the jot form and then the notion calendar to book in. And then I go and, set it up and give them the link. Then I'll email them to say it's coming up. So I know that I've made that process really manual, but I don't know how to. So I can't figure it out. Yeah.

Mia:

Yeah. This one's I have a, yeah, I had a client who wanted to automate their podcasting system, so pretty much you can set Riverside, I'm telling you, is like the most, the easiest because Yeah, of course the sound stuff, but then also you can set up. Like regular tasks in there. So you can set up a reminder message, you can set up a calendar link, you can set up all this stuff in there. And then they have an automated system where. You just like type in, I don't know, notes or something, and you type in what you want, what you wanna say to that person. And then they can even send the reminder message. They can send the meeting link, they can send all of the stuff. So they they're big into mixing AI with podcasting. And they're big into automating things. And because they. To have a lot of capabilities within one tool. You don't have to go like from tool to tool and try all these different things out. You can just go straight in. Yeah. So yeah. So yeah, I'd say that's probably the best one. And then there's what I love doing after like recording an interview like this is. the long video, you upload it into something called Opus Clip. And it creates like 10 30 of those, like short little clips with the subtitles. And then it creates your your caption and you can upload those and schedule those on social media. Yeah. You find a platform that has the automations built in. So you're like, okay, I wanna send a reminder message, I wanna send this invite, I wanna send like a meeting link and it has all those automations booked in and you can just put in the person's email and write notes to them. And that's done. And then on the other side, it's once you have the recording, you can chop it up really easily.

Aleyx:

Amazing. Amazing. Thanks Mia. I'll ask for me, but also people listening because that's just, that little snippet was really valuable. Do you run like workshops or things like that where you kinda,'cause I know your businesses automate social, but do you do workshops where you talk about, AI more general and, how it can help your business? Because I think that would be proper. I'm just selfishly asking for Yeah,

Mia:

I was running. Mini conferences in Melbourne. And then now I'm like speaking at different business events, so I find it's, people are still really, even though everyone's got like AI mania right now. Very few. There, yeah, very. There's, not a lot of. AI education in the way that's still updating to the level of what's happening in the AI world.

Speaker 3:

So

Mia:

there'll be people that are like, how to save time with ai and you can do this, and you can do that. But they skip out the fundamentals of okay here's the way your business is operating. How do we set up something that has longevity? How do we not just dump a few AI tools on you and move over? It's like, how does that work? As part of your business. Exactly. Yeah. So I'm speaking at event next Friday. I think I can yeah, send you the details where I'll be like running through how to buy yourself from social media using ai. Yeah. And then that's going to be yeah, taking out, like you basically pluck out all of the. Biggest and most annoying tasks Create like a tool and an automation around each of those things. And then by the end of it, people will be able to have a bit of a simple system that if they plugged it into their business, they'll be able to Yeah. Reduce like a huge amount of social media bandwidth.

Aleyx:

Awesome. I think we all want that. So anyone listening that wants to save time on social media, you follow, Mia and you can check out that, next event. I think I'm going to that one. Anyway, we got side sidetracked on our quickfire questions, but that's okay because I enjoyed that, a AI workshop. Who was the last person that you messaged and what did you see?

Mia:

Ooh, this is really cool. I like questions. I messaged my friend Dan, who works at another marketing agency, and he sent me a a photo that he found online of some. Someone wrote a bio, I know someone wrote a bio about me and, I was like, lol, visionary. That's like crazy. Yeah. It's so funny when I'm, by the way, like keynote speakers and people presenting on stage, they just, there's people are like, oh, visionary, powerhouse, all these things. And I think it's like really nice, but it's just not. It's not real, life because yes, they have found like a certain way to educate people and they found a certain helpful thing.

Speaker 3:

But

Mia:

yeah, I think everybody has that knowledge within them. It's just keynote speakers are a little bit more like. Wanting to share and wanting to present. So then people are like, visionary. I'm like, yeah, not particularly.

Aleyx:

And it's also those words, like my pet peeve is like buzzwords. It's also like it becomes words that don't really mean much like you, you know me, I'm all about the kind of the real, and it's just speak how you would normally speak. would, I normally say that Mia is a powerhouse, maybe not in my language. So it's just use, use the language that you would use to your friend, I think, and it,

Mia:

yeah. I, grapple with this because I think, yes, each social media platform has their own language. And yeah. Part of me is oh, wow speak normal and everybody should. But then again, like maybe that is the normal of corporate or maybe that's the normal of like other platforms. Yeah, I just find it like, it's like cute and funny. Yeah. Because it's it's, it is not true.

Aleyx:

Oh, I don't know. I would say you are a bit of a powerhouse man. Yeah. I've

Mia:

got a lot of energy, but, yeah.

Aleyx:

Alright, great. So I'd love to like just hear a little bit about, the week before. So could you tell me a little bit of, what was a high moment for you last week and what happened?

Mia:

So this year has been so cool because I started to get into things that I just didn't expect. I started racing yachts.

Speaker 3:

And

Mia:

we, yeah, it's just been a really amazing teamwork in action and learning how to do something that's out on the water. And that's been an amazing thing. And then I think this, the business like hit a new milestone that That I hit in a way, like sometimes when I'm like pushing really hard for something or I'm like, oh, stressed about it, it seems to go the opposite, I've just been like like sys systematically working towards certain things. So it's been really cool having new, yeah. New clients start and yeah, like people entrusting their social media to us has been awesome. So yeah, while I was managing the business is at a point where the team is like, They're, good and competent so they can do a lot of the like, actual ads management retainer work. So I'm working, I'm still working towards getting all of the accounts up to a point where I can like, oversee the strategy and then have everyone working in a way that they're really I look at the work, I'm like, yep, good. That's a really. Send it off to the press type thing. So yeah, so last week was a lot of that. It's a lot of yeah, getting the business to a point of of good, a good standard. And then and then, yeah, last week was learning comedy every night. we run the business. In the day and then go. And every night I would be learning how to like, create a comedy set and learn how to tell jokes. And it was like, I'd be, you'd have homework, yeah. Or I would be learning with everyone in the course and then afterwards. Be going home and trying to learn how to write jokes. And this was all came about because I wanted the keynotes to be a bit more fun and exciting.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Mia:

And then now I was like, now we're gonna open mics. And it's just, yeah. I love how things just like places just take you new areas. Yeah. Yeah. So that was a week.

Aleyx:

Was there a particular moment that stood out for you in terms of a hi? One moment.

Mia:

Oh yeah. Definitely performing the first,

Aleyx:

yeah.

Mia:

Comedy set. That was absolutely amazing. And then yeah, another high was realising that this is the furthest I've ever gotten in my business was this week. And yeah, that's like kind of this weird feeling of okay, like the progress.'cause with, the agency model things go up and down and It's, never really stable, so sometimes you can be like, making progress and then you go back a little bit making progress, go back a little bit. So yeah, it was really cool to yeah, to realise that this is the furthest I've gone. And then also this is the most confident the team has been to manage the execution of the work as well. Yeah, it feels like things are happening. Fantastic.

Aleyx:

That's amazing. you must feel fantastic going when you realise that all, all that hard work and you is paying off and'cause it is hard, like there is like a roller coaster, isn't it?

Mia:

You never feel, complete though. This is like the cruel thing of business. And the most amazing part of it as well is yeah, I, do celebrate wins and I'm like, I try to be like a. Someone who's got in my own corner type of thing. But yeah, there's so much left to do that I'm like, okay, great. That's good that it's progressing in the right direction, but there's, so much I need to execute on still that yeah, it's like, all right, celebrate for five seconds and then let's, yeah. Let's move on to the next thing.

Aleyx:

yeah, It's good to, to celebrate those wins. I'm, the same. It's just okay, what's next? But yeah, to be able to take that step back and look back at how far you've come, it puts it into perspective and, yeah, makes, it, makes life a little bit easier. before we, recorded Mia I spoke with someone who's been in your corner for a while. He's your business mentor and thinking partner, which I thought was pretty cool terminology. He used Andy Rook. And you two first met a family dinner when a HD literally invited him to sit down with you and your family, and you've been working together ever since, which I thought was was a lovely story and. I just wanted to read out something that he what he told me about you. He said, Mia is dynamic, excitable, creative, and high energy. She brings this infection, op infectious optimism that lights up everyone around her. The serious side of what I do is to help her shape that energy and channel it towards a clear, focused structure. Can you tell me a bit more about how Andy brings structure to your life and why it's needed?

Mia:

Yeah. That's so nice. I have two sides. So one of them is just go for it. Try out things like jump from thing to thing. It's almost like a. Like a hamster or Guinea pig energy when I'm running around everywhere. But then I also have this other side where like I wanna build something meaningful. I want to contribute to the world. I want to have a stable and strong business. And sometimes the other side, because it's like very excitable and almost like tantalising Oh, sometimes I lean towards that side a bit more and wanna jump from area to area. Andy meeting Andy coincided with this shift in my business where I wanted to create something that was, very tangible, solid, strong and not leave behind the excitable sage, but channel it into something meaningful. So he's basically helped me realign my vision. He's helped me move into more of like a. Fun but serious business mode. He's helped me understand like what roles I need in the team and then from there what, like revenue I wanna get to by the end of the year.

Speaker 3:

And

Mia:

how that's all plays out. And even just like a huge part of that at the start of the year, her saying I'm doing this and I'm doing that and I'm running this workshop and I'm doing this and I'm trying this. And he was like. What, like what, where does your business make money? I was like, oh, on ads, yeah. Running ads. And he was like, all the other stuff is fun. Hobbies. Let them go. And and then so he helped configure. My business in a way where we have like ads retainers. We run the those through this AI program and we use a lot of AI to help support the pro, support the ads. And then from there he was like, okay, obviously like you still need to do something you're passionate about. So then I started to hone in on the speaking and the, that, that path as well. That they both work as complimentary forces. Every time I speak like something, something great will happen from it. That yeah, my business and every time my business is operating smoothly it means that I can go after speaking a bit more. So they're both like working hand in hand, whereas before it was this, like a exciting mess and also across so many different countries as well. So I would feel like running, my business from an airport or from India or all these places, which was so fun. And I wouldn't have it any other way. And I was still growing up. I, started my business really young and I was growing up as I was growing the business. But yeah, this year I turned 30 and something just happened. I just was like. let's still enjoy life, but let's yeah. Make this a really tangible and strong thing. And since choosing one core service and having one complimentary service Everything's easier now. Like my life is so much easier. I don't have all this chaos. I'm not saying yes to everything I've got. Yeah, I've got the right people to do the right things. I've got simple systems. I've got. The simple tools to support it and I'm a lot clearer with what I offer. It's we run ads and we do that through this AI program and this is how we can do it. Whereas before it was like, and I'm doing this and this.

Aleyx:

Yeah. It's all about simplicity, isn't it? And I think I'm laughing because I relate, because I think when you're passionate person, you wanna do all these different things, you can go off in lots of different directions. It sounds like. I needed an Andy in my life. I guess my. My husband is my may and tries to keep me grounded. And he is yeah, but remember what it is you focus on because you can

Mia:

chat with him. Yeah, he's the best. But yeah, you need someone like that. You can't do business is not something you do alone. You need, yeah, you need clients, you need friends, you need colleagues, you need all these different people to make a business operate. And I don't like people telling me what to do, but I love when people I respect gimme really good advice. it's something like, is this yeah, rebellious trait in me where it's like if someone's you have to sit down and do work, I'll just wanna regret that. But if someone's look like this is what you can do and this is what's gonna happen because of it and that conceptual. Wait. Yeah, it's so funny. It's like we're all just kids in human bodies, basically like adult, class.

Aleyx:

I'll, wrap. Oh, we'll wrap up, we'll wrap up very shortly, but I just, one other thing that Andy said, he said that I should also ask you about the time that your car got stolen in Richmond.

Mia:

Oh. He, I, he always throws me under the bus. Yeah. So I am honestly my mind is like working a hundred miles an hour all the time. And so like you think if your brain is like completely full with good things and bad things, it's just always full.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Mia:

Like. Things like directions, things like knowing where I put something is very long on my priority list. I'm like, what about ideas? What about all this other stuff? So anyway, so I was like coming back from a business networking event. It was really fun. I was just that was awesome. Met such great people. And I was like, went back to this street called Wellington Street and I was like. My car is gone. It's completely gone. So then I called the police and they're like, oh, okay. Yeah, we'll put a report in. that's terrible. Anyway, two weeks later, the police called me up again after I, and I was devastated. It was like my, I love my converted. I was living my best life. And they called me up like we found it, and I went back to the place. And I was like, gosh, this looks familiar. And I realised I'd parked it on like this street next, to it, also called Wellington. I was like, that's so embarrassing. And the police was so nice. I was like, I'm so sorry for wasting your valuable resources. They're like, you know what? Like it's okay. Like we're just happy. You got a good news story. Yeah. So like calling the police on myself is yeah, it's not ideal.

Aleyx:

I was laughing because, so he didn't tell me, he didn't tell me. He just said Ask about, but I should tell the story. I was like, I think where this is going, and I reckon a lot of people listening could relate because I don't know, I was the amount of times I've parked my car and then forgot where I parked. I haven't gone to the extreme of phoning the

Mia:

police,

Aleyx:

but

Mia:

I can see how

Aleyx:

that could

Mia:

happen. Honestly, like I just went from zero to a hundred with that one. I was like police and now, okay. For all the people that lose their car, like I have a hack, so

Aleyx:

Oh, brilliant. Please tell me. Yeah,

Mia:

basically like on Amazon you get something called a tile. They're like 20 bucks. You chuck it in your car and then on the Find my iPhone up. You can. You can track where your car is now. So now I never lose my car. I can like, it's tracked and I can just walk to the street and walk and, find it.'cause yeah, even the other day I was like. Thought I'd lost it again. I was like, no, look at the app. Just look at it.

Aleyx:

So a tracker for your car.

Mia:

I think there's 70,000 cars missing in Melbourne at the moment. So it's really, yeah, it happens. It just didn't happen to me. It's,

Aleyx:

I've got one last one for you. And this one is a closing gift for all the listeners. So if I am, if there's one insight, truth, or reminder from your week, from your past week that you think someone else needs to hear, what would it be?

Mia:

you just have to create your own little boundary of like yourself and you need to like, put yourself in this little, quite nice little glass box. And just keep building up your boundary and within that space you treat yourself well. You give yourself PO positive self-talk. You like drink water, you exercise you every time like someone tries to, like a lot of, the time people's emotions or their dramas or their things will try to integrate into that. But. You just have to like, allow it to bounce off you as much as possible because there's so many instances in my life, like I'll be managing like rental properties or I'll be managing stuff, or I'll be managing like, even like personal relationships. And so much of the time it integrates in, it's when I don't have the right boundaries or I'm not like caring for myself enough. And then It will come into my space and corrupt my whole day. So yeah, like yourself, like your people, places, or empath, whatever you wanna call it. It's not healthy. It's it's not good to as soon as you catch yourself overthinking about another person's drama that's when you know, you just gotta build a boundary again. Get back in the little. Thing and just, yeah, I if I ever got a tattoo, it would be like a picture of a duck with water coming off the duck's back.

Aleyx:

I love that

Mia:

because If you can realise water off the duck's back, you like, you create this like really strong self-worth within, then everything's gonna be okay. Because as soon as you let someone get into that boundary in that personal space. Then they start to have you take on their own problems, which you can't do. Like it's actually the only, the main corruptive thing of someone trying to build a business is like allowing every, everybody in to screw you up. Yeah, you need to, yeah, you need to have a layer of bubble wrap around you.

Aleyx:

I love that. I love that. I'm, like seeing a, bubble, a protective bubble around you. Because it does, it really drains your energy. I'm reading the book by Mel Robbins, the Let Them Theory. It's very similar because if you try and control everyone around you or let them affect you, then you leave nothing for yourself. So I think that's a really beautiful message for people. Listen, just to have that nice little bubble around you and just. Just protect your space.

Mia:

Yeah. And in your bubble, you can do whatever the hell you want. You can do stand-up comedy. You can start a business like,'cause it's your thing. It's You like, and it comes from like your own heart. Yeah.

Aleyx:

Oh, lovely. that was a lovely, message to end on. Mia. Thank you so much for joining me. I've loved this session and I got my own little AI workshop. where can, if, people wanna hit you up and find out more where, can they reach you?

Mia:

Yeah, I would, I actually love LinkedIn, so you can just find me Mia. Bowyer On LinkedIn or automatesocial.com.Au online. But yeah, if you, yeah, I just wanna educate people about ai. I'm just finding it really fun and interesting, so anytime someone needs any AI education, just let me know. I'd love to come into teams or into conferences and yeah, it's just a fun world, and there's lots of wild stories to keep it entertaining as well. Love it. Thank you Mia.

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Aleyx Ward

Host

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