Stepping into Your CEO role and Learning to LET GO for Massive Growth with Mia Paulus

MIA PAULUS [0:00]

And I always say we have this essential purpose to really become the best version of ourselves. We’re here on this Earth to become the best version of ourselves. But what that best version is different for everybody because we all have unique gifts and talents. And so, instead of comparing ourselves to everyone on Instagram or your neighbors or whoever, the more you know who you are, just the more powerful I think life becomes.

[MUSIC]

CAMILLE WALKER [0:34]

So, you want to make an impact. You’re thinking about starting a business sharing your voice. How do women do it that handle motherhood, family, and still chase after those dreams? We’ll listen each week as we dive into the stories of women who know. This is Call Me CEO.

[MUSIC]

Welcome back everyone to another episode of Call Me CEO. I am your host, Camille Walker. And today, we’re going to talk on how to step into your role as a CEO. It’s something that this show is called Call Me CEO, but what does it mean to truly be a CEO?

And Mia Paulus is here to walk us into the gates of that because she helps big-time business owners do this all of the time. Her business is called The Centr, spelled C-E-N-T-R. And she is a powerhouse that I met at a retreat with some women. And I have just been so impressed with her. Because really with her life journey and what she’s been through and how many people she’s helping, I promise you’ll feel the same way. So, Mia, thank you so much for being on the show today.

MIA [1:42]

Yeah. No, thank you. That’s an honor. If you don’t swear very often, that’s an honor.

CAMILLE [1:45]

I don’t. I’m like, how do I say this and really say how I feel? And that’s really how I feel because I know that you have been through a lot to get where you are. And it’s something where I think that those are the trenches of building a business that a lot of times, we don’t get to hear about.

So, I’m hoping today, you can take us into the behind the scenes a little bit of that because there is so much that you’ve been through and you’ve developed something that’s truly beautiful and helped a lot of people step into their best lives. So, please tell our audience about you.

MIA [2:17]

Yeah. So, I’ve been on this entrepreneurial journey probably almost 20 years, 18 years. And when I started, I was working at an accounting firm and I got thrown in meetings with business owners. And I was always entrepreneurial and I always knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur. But I felt like they had lost the spark in them. And I’m like, no, entrepreneurship is supposed to be fun. This is not the way it’s supposed to be.

And I just got this pull, that calling that we get as entrepreneurs to really find ways to simplify business for them. And so, I quit my job and embarked on this journey. And I’m doing a lot of backend done for you services for entrepreneurs for the last 18 years and the model has evolved over the years.

But really, it came down to how do I keep that spark alive? And I’ve got thrown into this not expecting it, but really helping entrepreneurs identify why are they in business. What is the reason that you’re called to this? And then, really, I realized my ultimate first calling with the people I work with is understanding that, and then it’s a lot easier to let go after that.

And then, we have a whole done for you team that we literally do 80% that’s the same in business like a whole backend operation, just like if you bought into a franchise or a network marketing company, it’s all done for you in the backend. That’s really what the company does now. And so, does that help?

CAMILLE [3:41]

Yeah. No, that’s awesome. I think what’s really cool about this is my husband is an accountant as well. And it’s funny because he has been working in the law industry with attorneys and he runs the operations of law firms now. But prior to that, he said, what we really need is a backend accounting where someone could just say, hey, I love being a business owner, an entrepreneur, but I hate all the behind the scenes, the numbers, the logistics.

A lot of times, visionaries, entrepreneurs, need that backend help and don’t know where to find it or how to source it or finding good quality people. And I love that you have found that peace of it because it just really frees people up to do the things that they love and be in their zone of genius.

MIA [4:25]

Yeah. And I always just ask the question, how do we solve the problems that we’re having as entrepreneurs? And so, just like you’re seeing this trend with software to have it all under one roof, ClickFunnels 2.0 launched all in one roof. You can get all different things done with one software. Salesforce is that way. Kajabi, it’s getting to where you can do a lot of things.

It’s the same thing with outsourcing. It’s like piece filling a bunch of the As together, it doesn’t really create a sustainable company. And so, that’s really over the years, I’ve realized that and evolved our model into I think 7 different departments now we have in our organization.

CAMILLE [5:00]

That is so cool. I was just saying before we started this call that I am on that very early step helping entrepreneurs hire their first one or two VAs and it’s been incredible. I’ve helped so many women free up their time and start with pieces of just letting things go. And honestly, that is a piece that I coach people on a lot is just those first steps of letting pieces of their business go so that they can have white space in their life and enjoyment in their life, and then the business does so much better because these women are finding some peace, some balance.

MIA [5:35]

I love that. And in those stages, virtual assistants are wonderful for that. And so, I think it’s great that you’re doing that. I recently created something called The Impact Equation where it talks about the different phases of business. And the first phase, which I call the foundation phase, they have ideation and validation where you’re just getting your business going and started. And the more you can start to learn and not do it all yourself and have that VA or EA to support you, I think it’s wonderful.

CAMILLE [6:03]

Yeah. So, you’re the next step. You’re above that. You’re helping big-time business owners that are growing multi-million-dollar businesses. What are some things that help people to step into that role of CEO?

And I’m going to pin that question because I want to go back a little bit more into everyone on this show that I interview is a mother, so I want to hear a little bit about your children and your decisions to create such a large business. So, we’re going to pin that question that I just asked because I don’t want to leave that one hanging. I think that’s an important part of your story.

MIA [6:38]

Yeah. And I think about my journey, I actually speak in my church quite a bit about this too, is I longed to be a stay-at-home mom. I wanted to just be home with my children. I got remarried. I have 7 children. I had 2 with my first marriage. My husband had 2, and then we had 3 kids together, which we blended all these kids together and I didn’t need to work when I got remarried. And I was like, okay.

And as I was struggling with some of the things in my business and I had to fire a whole team before and I’m like, this is a great time to shut down my business. And there were many times throughout my business that I had that, it’s a great time to shut it down. And I would pray about it and I was like, can I please shut my doors? And I got a firm no every time. And I felt like this calling that this was something that I have to do.

And so, it’s been a very imperfect balance of balancing being a mom and a CEO and really putting a lot of time and hours so I can give other people their time back. So, that’s really why I do what I do is to create you mentioned the word space, create space for other entrepreneurs to be able to have more time with their family.

And so, it was this constant for a lot of years before I had the team that I have now as I was trying to bootstrap it and build it. It was a constant struggle to get it to next level trying to invest all the money in. But when you feel called, I knew it was a calling that I needed to do. And I’m unique, I think people get visions differently.

For me, I had a very clear vision about what the company was being like 18 years ago. And so, I thought it was going to happen overnight. So, I thought, I can see it, it’s going to happen. And then, it didn’t. It was like, okay, one struggle after another. And I couldn’t shut my doors down because God said no. So, I kept going.

And where I think some people gather their vision over time, they start, I have this pull, but I don’t know what it means. Where for me, I knew it was going to be a big company, I knew I was going to really help entrepreneurs give them their time back and take over a lot of things that they needed to do. But that can be a little bit of a detriment in a way because, like I said, I thought it would happen overnight.

But I think if I didn’t have that strong vision back then, I didn’t think I would have had the fire, the fuel to continue to persevere through the trials. I got really sick when I was pregnant. I’ve dealt with a lot of things personally as well. And so, entrepreneurship as you know and people watching this show, it’s not for the faint of heart and that’s why you have to know what your purpose is and why you’re called to do what you do.

CAMILLE [9:16]

Yeah. I love that. I love that clarity of purpose and that calling. And for many listening and I know for me too, every step that I take in my life and with my family and my children and my business, I approach it with prayer because I feel like it is something that you want to do carefully where you’re making the right decisions for you and your family. And maybe there’s missteps and you have to start over and retrace. What was a time for you specifically where you had this vision and you were bringing it to life and it was becoming bigger and more impactful that you thought, this is shaping out, this is working? What was that time for you?

MIA [9:56]

It’s happened many times. There are many times, it’s like, this is it. I knew it was going to be big, and then it didn’t happen. But sometimes, I felt like God just strung me long enough through those times to get me to not close my doors. It sounded like, just trust me. And so, I’ll tell you the time that I thought that it didn’t work out, and then I’ll tell you the time what’s happening now. Do I need to give you both of those?

CAMILLE [10:20]

Yeah. I love it.

MIA [10:21]

Sometimes, we think this is it. This is the moment and we think it is. So, as I mentioned, I bootstrapped this company from the beginning and I always knew I needed the big client to stress test the model because we have a lot of different services and departments and it’s just a lot. There’s a lot of heavy lifting that has to go into managing the whole backend operations for companies.

And so, as we got this big account, they were scaling us to maybe about $180,000 a month, one client. And we all know that you shouldn’t have all your eggs in one basket, but when a client is scaling super-fast, you’re like, this is so exciting. And there was supposed to be this program that we implemented for them.

They came to me for an employee experience program for their company. And this is the large Fortune 500 client, just so you know, it’s not what I feel called to serve. They weren’t the people I felt called to serve, but it’s really comfortable when they’re paying you decent money. But this account, we had a project that was supposed to scale to about $3 million-$4 million a year in just that one program for this client.

And I thought, this is it. It’s going to happen. So excited and they’re doing all this stuff with us. And then, because we weren’t working with the headquarters that were in Spain, we were one or two levels down, we couldn’t control the chopping block when recession hit through different things. And so, it was the end of 2019, they made the decision to cut the program that was scaling us.

So, that account, they’re still a client today, but they scale from $180,000 a month to $20,000 a month overnight. And I remember thinking we had to do layoffs. There was so much pivoting we had to do. And it was awful to be honest. It was just an awful time. And I remember thinking, no, this is not it. I have a clear vision and this is not the way it’s supposed to go.

And then, I went to a marketing event one year and I thought, as I went to that, I got this strong impression that it’s time to get this out to the world. This client isn’t your purpose. This is not the reason you started this company. And I just have this rebut cap and gun and I have this really good relationship where we talk back and forth and rebuts. I say, “You promised me this. You told me you would always support me with making sure I covered payroll or different things.” But anyway, so I just got this impression that my calling wasn’t to service Fortune 500 companies. It was to service entrepreneurs, people that are driven by their purpose and their why.

And my goal is if I can simplify 80% that’s the same in every business so they can really hyperfocus on the 20% and how much more innovation can happen in the world? How much more time could they have with their family? That is what I’m called to do. And so, it forces to pivot. And so, that moment when I thought it was the greatest thing, this account scaling, God stripped it away from me really fast because it was his way of saying, no, this is not your calling.

So, we pivoted. We ran a funnel and we had really tons of leads coming in from that. Now, what that did is broke our system. So, it’s like whack a mole in business like bringing a bunch of leads, and then it breaks your systems. And then, we had to shut ads off, and then rebuild our backend. And so, for the last probably really couple years, we’ve been really beefing up our backend to support more growth and with some of the companies that go all in with us.

So, now, let’s fast forward to I just did a live event last week and my business coach has been telling me for probably months now, “Mia, you’ve got to do live events. You’ve got to do live events.” And up until now, we’ve organically grown from most of our company. We’ve done the ads, but a lot of my energy has been internal with our team.

Now, I have a really great team where I’ve actually been able to step away from the company and doing a lot of the day-to-day stuff. Fast forward, so we did this live event and it was crazy because we’ve created a new package where instead of clients starting with one service, they’re like, hey, for one price, you get all of our departments, all of our services. And the goal is to get them to let go and be like, I’m paying for that anyways. I might as well utilize that and get them to do that for me. And it was really amazing.

We ended up having 7 businesses there and the package, this package, was one of our higher end packages for a live event. We’re like $10,000 a month. And I think we ‘re going to end up closing at least 5-7 deals from that event. And so, the reason I say that is this is 18 years. 18 years, and it’s finally feeling like it’s going to happen.

And I think this is it now. I think we’re finally there. But it was 18 years of me saying, I think this is it. And can I get spiritual for just a minute? One of the clients that was there, he just had this impression. He’s like, wow, what if Mia’s company fails? I’m giving them all this stuff, what if they fail? And he said, he said a prayer and he got a distinct impression and he’s like, I will not let them fail. And that to me, I just had this rush of emotions because 18 years of just hell, lack of a better word, of just struggling of balancing mom, balancing business. And that’s when I’m finally like, I get it now. I was willing to go for the last 18 years to have that moment and that experience that I had last week.

CAMILLE [16:16]

That’s so cool. I love that it was trial and error, but also getting that outside validation too. I don’t know what it is about that, but when others allow us to see their trust and their faith in us too, it can sometimes hit us in a different way, even though we know we’re doing the things we’re meant to do and we’re being led that way. And so, I really appreciate you sharing that. That’s so special.

MIA [16:42]

We all have our own insecurities and that’s something I realized. The people watching, if you’re just starting your business out, don’t be intimidated by me in any way because I spent over $100,000 last year in just belief, just believing that I’m worthy of this and buying coaches and masterminds and other types of mindset coaches, just tons and tons of that.

Because every level you get to is a whole another level of belief. And so, you never arrive. You just keep levelling your bar to the next level like, wait, I can believe I can get to the next level, and then the next level. And maybe some of you don’t want to grow a business that big and that’s okay. That’s what you have to know what is my objective and who do I want to be? And be okay with that. It’s not about being the best or the biggest or making the most money. I think it’s important not to get caught in that rat race because it’s super easy to do that.

CAMILLE [17:36]

I love that advice. I think especially with what I do and talking with business women every single week that are mothers, you are so right in saying that the definition of what success looks like is so different for every single mom and every single entrepreneur that I speak to because we don’t all want the exact same thing and that’s perfectly okay.

And what I really love about that too is stepping into the role of CEO. I think all women are CEOs of their lives and their families and sometimes businesses too depending on what their goals are and really stepping into that and having that belief.

So, I would love to hear, that dovetails us perfectly into that what you are helping people do with your event is helping people to be willing to let go and being willing to really discover their objective and their purpose and their values, so let’s talk a little bit about that.

MIA [18:33]

So, I’ve had a lot of epiphanies over the last couple weeks of I used to always say, I only want to work with visionary entrepreneurs, people that are super high visionary like me. And then, as we started to dig into the makeup of different entrepreneurs, it was crazy to see how many people were in roles they weren’t necessarily good at and shouldn’t be doing.

But for the time, it worked, but I was like, okay, how do we now get you into the spot you are called to be? And it really started I think at the event we were both at, it was really cool because there were a couple people there, couple moms, that had the epiphany like, wow, my calling is actually to spend more time supporting my husband and his calling.

Sometimes, we put pressure on ourselves that we all have to be a certain way. And for me, I longed to be the stay-at-home mom. Stay-at-home moms longed to be me. And it was like, no, you don’t get it. You always feel like it’s greener. And so, that was just seeing that a couple of weeks ago was good to see people start to really understand, who am I and what is my individual purpose?

And then, it was really crazy at the event that I did. There’s a trend that’s happening. It’s really crazy to see where there’s a lot of men supporting the women in their roles and it’s really amazing to see these selfless men that are supporting so much of what the woman is doing from a CEO perspective.

And there was one guy. There’s Jennifer Rain. She’s like the woman Bob Ross and she works with all these women and works to help them paint and it’s the cutest thing ever. And her husband is again the cutest thing ever too. He is really the true visionary. She wants to be more of the attractive character, the one that’s just painting with the women. She doesn’t really care to be the CEO. And she’s like, I just want to paint with the women.

And so, then Matt, her husband, we realized he was playing this what we call an integrator role like we would have for a chief operating officer or operations manager kind of person doing all of the execution and work. And when we dug into what his purpose was and his skillset, we realized he’s actually a true visionary. He really helps with the vision of the company.

And so, what was cool about that is seeing that sometimes, we put ourselves in roles like he put himself in a role to support his wife as a CEO and that strength, it wasn’t his. And now that he’s working with our company, we’re able to take away a lot of the things that aren’t his strength and allow him to be the visionary. But tying this back, so what was your original question? I’ll tie this story back to that.

CAMILLE [21:16]

Yeah. Discovering purpose and values to step into your CEO role.

MIA [21:22]

Yeah. So, me as an individual?

CAMILLE [21:23]

Sure, or anyone in general. Yeah.

MIA [21:25]

Okay. So, yeah, at this event, it was just really amazing. In fact, there were two testimonials there sent to me. They literally said, “Mia, I realized that your calling is you help people identify their purpose, values, and vision.” And then, he says, “Your company, The Centr, they help execute on people’s purpose, values, and vision and how we take over the portion that they don’t need to focus on so that they can be true to their purpose, values, and vision.”

I never really thought about it that way because I wrote this book a couple years ago during COVID when everybody else wrote a book not because I wanted to write a book, again, I got that calling and that tug that I should write a book. And I wanted to write a book called Freedom in Business and I wanted to write a little section around Simon Sinek’s Start with Why about why they’re in business.

And so, I started to research about I don’t know what just everybody thought we should have as foundational things in businesses. So, I researched mission statements, vision statements, and values and all the different things. And my background again is accounting. So, I did a lot of the traditional planning stuff and started to really realize that they weren’t really valuable for companies. There’s a lot of busy work involved that maybe I think there’s a newer age business plan that is better.

And so, I did all this research and I started to realize that I didn’t really agree with a lot of what was out of there or a lot of people contradicted what the meaning of it all was. And so, I narrowed it down to purpose, values, and vision as being the foundational pieces of what people should do for their company.

But first, I realized they needed to figure out their individual purpose. Why is it that they’re even in business in the first place? Because you might find when you identify that you’re in the wrong business, you shouldn’t even be doing a business or you should be in a different position in the business. And so, I think we put pressure on ourselves to be in a specific role and do a certain thing.

But we need to really figure out our unique calling first. And then, after that, we figure out, okay, now, based on your origin story of yourself and your purpose, what is your company’s purpose and why does your company do what they do and how does that benefit other people, your individual purpose or your company’s purpose?

And then, what are the values that you live by no matter what? No matter what the outside or inside pressures are, what are the values you live by and stand by no matter what? And then, what is your vision for your company? How do you really plan to change the world through the lens of your company so that other people when they start to work with you and support you? Whether those are customers or vendors or employees, they can get behind your vision and help make it a reality.

And so, that’s really what the book ended up being about. And I didn’t know then 2, 3 years ago that that would actually be what everybody is giving me these unsolicited testimonials about is like, “You’ve changed my life. You’ve made me so excited to be in business again or to even start working next week.” And so, you never know. Life’s a journey. You never know what your true calling is. I guess it’s bread comes. Over time, you start to hear more and more about what it is.

CAMILLE [24:42]

Yeah. I think that’s a lot of becoming because the person you are today couldn’t teach and mentor the people the way you are now because you’ve had all these years of experience where you can now identify helping people discover their purpose and their value because you had to do for yourself.

So, listen. For those of you who are listening and are like, okay, cool. I want to figure out what my purpose, values, my vision is and everything, this is a journey that could take days, weeks, months or a really intensive mastermind like we both did together. So, we certainly can discuss this and discover this together, but what do you think is the best place for people to start if they’re like, okay, I want to find out first if I’m in the right position? What would be your first like, “Start here?”

MIA [25:40]

I would love to just give a copy of my book out to your people and they can go through the exercises.

CAMILLE [25:45]

Okay. That would be amazing.

MIA [25:48]

Literally, the whole book is about that and it’s really a book with a bunch of exercises and getting a really introspective of why you’re doing what you’re doing. And I always say we have this essential purpose to really become the best version of ourselves. We’re here on this Earth to become the best version of ourselves. But what that best version is different for everybody because we all have unique gifts and talents. And so, instead of comparing ourselves to everyone on Instagram or your neighbors or whatever, the more that you know who you are, just more powerful I think life becomes.

And so, in the book, I talk a lot about first starting with your individual purpose and I just deep dive into some questions about just really the past. So, think about your purpose. It’s really based on your past experiences so far. And your purpose will start to evolve and get clear as you start to have more and more experiences just like mine.

My purpose is to be true to my purpose and inspire others to become the best version of themselves. That’s what I feel called to do is for people to really know who they’re meant to be. And then, I do that through business, but that’s my purpose is actually it’s not even in a sense tied to business. I just know, hey, if I can simplify entrepreneurship, how much can I allow people to be their true self?

So, back to your original question of how do you do that? Really, I would just start writing your experiences you’ve had, your origin story about your business. Why did you start your business? What are the experiences that you’ve had in your life? What are your strengths, your weaknesses? Do a SWOT analysis for your own individual life of just getting to know yourself more or another thing you could do is what is something you could literally speak off the cuff about for 15 minutes about like, “Hey, I can talk about this all day long?”

Write those things down and just start going deep into yourself. Some people don’t spend that time to just start asking those questions. Those are a couple things, but at the end here, I’ll give everybody a copy of my book and they can deep dive into some of those questions.

CAMILLE [27:57]

What a nice offer. Thank you. That’s so cool. It’s really interesting because I very much am in line with you with helping people discover their purpose, chase their passion, establish a life, especially as a mother that they love. And so, we’re very much like, yes, that drives us.

And what’s really interesting is two weekends in a row, so one weekend I was at the retreat with you where the room was filled with these incredible women all who happen to be mothers and were building businesses. And someone in the room who said, “I’m at a place where my kids are out of this house. I’m ready to find something more. I’m not even sure what it is that I want to do.” I wouldn’t say that was the majority of the people in the room. Most of the people in the room had somewhat of an idea or were in a path where they were figuring that out.

And then, the next weekend, I went to a girlfriend’s birthday event and she was turning 40 and she had gathered all of these women from her life who were at a part of her life at different stages. But she did a round robin and she had the women share what is something hard, what is something good, what is something you’re looking forward to?

And it was so interesting to me that two different rooms of women, very similar stages of life, and many in this other room were saying, “I don’t know what my purpose is. I don’t know who I am. I don’t even know what I like anymore.” And many of these women were also saying that they felt very lonely and just like they needed a friend.

And to me, I’m just over there taking notes vigorously of these are the women I want to help. This is why I do what I do is I want to ease these pain points. And I love that you said that it takes time to reflect to go introspective, what do you love? What have you done? Who is that girl inside of you? What was she excited about? Because I really think that to discover that true self, it does take the time.

And so, I’m inviting everyone that’s listening to take me up on this offer of really taking that time to read the book and think about the things and give yourself the gift of time to discover who you are because I think that a lot of times, we as women, will put ourselves behind everything else.

And so, I’m curious, Mia,. for your experience of really discovering who you are and giving yourself that time, especially where you’ve said you’ve invested so much time in this year, is that something you’ve always been able to do or is that something you’ve had to learn to do to give yourself that time?

MIA [30:46]

I think I’ve always been purpose-driven only because I’ve had such a clear calling. But I think most people are not me in that I think it depends on how things are revealed to them. I think because I had literally gone through a divorce, bankruptcy, losing things, not knowing where my next payroll was going to come probably 50 times. I had a lot. We obviously don’t have enough time in this podcast to go over through the trials over the last 18 years that I’ve been blessed to have happen to me.

But I think it forced me to rely, for me, I’m spiritual, on the Lord for that and say, okay, I’ll go where I want you to go even if it's somewhere I don’t want to necessarily go. And so, I think for me the biggest thing that has been impactful for me is being willing to step up into faith more than fear and being able to walk off those ledges not knowing if there’s something there to catch you. And I think honestly that’s the linchpin of entrepreneurship is are you willing to step off those ledges because that is how you start to train yourself in this journey of entrepreneurship is not playing not to lose or playing based on fear. It’s stepping into that faith game.

So, I think I was forced into it because I’ve had so many trials and that I’ve learned to get good at it over the years. And so, when I wrote the book, actually I’m not qualified to do this. I’m not a business coach in the traditional sense. And then, as I looked at the culture I had built with my company by learning how to do everything the wrong way, the Edison quote of, I didn’t fail, I just found 10,000 ways it didn’t work rings true to me because I feel like that’s how I’ve grown the business that I have is by continuing to just fail and adapt and learn. And so, did that tie back to the question? I should write down the question you asked because I start going on these tangents.

CAMILLE [32:50]

No. So I love that you are saying that you’ve found that drive because you always felt connected to your purpose. And the other part of the question was, have you always been good at taking time to be introspective to invest that time into yourself?

MIA [33:07]

Yeah. I think I’m someone that loves quiet more than I think most. I don’t always turn on the music and noise really affect me. And so, I think because of that, it’s probably helped me to have those more quiet moments. But if I look at where I’m at now versus 15 years ago, I’m obviously a completely different person and I’m way better at it today.

And so, I think I’ve always been an optimist in a lot of ways. And so, I’ve always channeled into that like, okay, what am I supposed to learn from this? But I know that’s not everybody’s journey and I’m much better now at spotting it and understanding it and recognizing it. I guess I say that, but then there was a time personally that maybe not so much business, but personally, I was crippled with fear and I wouldn’t leave the house. And I didn’t know how to get rid of it.

And one day, it was just removed from me. It was this amazing miracle for me where I didn’t fear that and I think that was literally a gift that God gave me knowing that it doesn’t mean I don’t get worried or I don’t have some anxiety. That’s just human nature, but as far as that crippling fear, it was literally removed from me. And so, I think I was blessed.

To me, I don’t look at that as something I did and I don’t know how to give you a tool or a tactic to say, here’s how you get rid of that other than I was willing to channel into what is my purpose and my calling? And I was willing to act on it.

And I think that was really the thing that not a lot of people are always willing to do is I was willing to step off ledges probably more so than most people are willing to. Again, it’s 18 years of stepping off ledges to get to where I’m at. But not like you step off the ledges and it magically happens, but there always a miracle tied to it.

I can’t think of one trial I’ve had where I didn’t look back and then say, that’s why. That’s why that was supposed to happen. That’s what I was supposed to learn from it, especially in the business world. You don’t always get that confirmation of why something happened, but I felt like that was at mercy always giving me as I go. I always look back and be like, yeah, that’s it.

CAMILLE [35:40]

Yeah, wow. I think that that’s a beautiful answer because investing in your faith has really proven to give you that introspective and also the perspective of the bigger picture. And I think that that is a lot of times what can pull us through something is being able to take a step back and look at the bigger picture, which when you’re in it, that can be near impossible sometimes.

As we’re wrapping up, what would be your last bit of information or advice for someone stepping into the CEO role that you see hold people back a lot of the times? I know you talked a lot about that belief of I can do this. So, is there a bit of advice where you could say, this is what would help you to be able to believe that you can do the things or maybe something where you experienced that?

MIA [36:33]

I think belief all ties back to knowing who you are and why you’re called to do it. I want to skip over that, but after having this event, having done all that I do, it’s like when you know that intrinsically, when you know, hey, this is who I’m supposed to be and what I’m called to do, that is how it creates fuel and passion.

And otherwise, when you first start out in business, you have a passion because you’re excited about it. And you think of all the possibilities and that passion is there and you think it’s going to be there forever. And it’s not if you don’t have it deeply rooted in why you’re doing what you’re doing. And so, having a clear vision or a clear view of because you can have vision for your company, but if it’s not rooted in why you do what you do like your purpose, it’s not going to keep the fuel alive.

So, you might say, this is why I want to grow my company and these are the goals we’re going to set to get there. And that might be okay for a while, but eventually the fuel and the passion will die. So, when you intrinsically know why you’re called to do what you do, it doesn’t matter anymore if people hate you or you have naysayers or people on social media are hating at you, you literally don’t care anymore. We all care to a degree, but it doesn’t matter. You know who you are and you’re being true to who you are and that’s all that matters.

CAMILLE [38:01]

I love that. I love, love, love that. One of my favorite exercises that we did in our mastermind group was identifying core values and there are free resources online. I will look and see if I can find the one that I’m thinking of specifically, but reading through and picking your top 5 values. Do you have that?

Mia [38:22]

In my book, I have 20 pages of it, yeah, it’s in there.

CAMILLE [39:24]

Never mind. Forget it. I’m just going to link to this.

MIA [38:26]

If you want, yeah, it’s in there in the middle.

CAMILLE [38:28]

Hey, I am so excited to get my hands on this book. Please tell everyone where they can find you online and where we can take your steps forward of discovering our inner CEO.

MIA [38:38]

Yeah. So, you can follow me on socials @msmiapaulus. I’m on Instagram. I’m getting better at TikTok. I’m late to the party with influencing. I tried to ignore it for so long because we just organically grew, and then, I’m like, okay.

CAMILLE [38:57]

That’s not a bad thing.

MIA [38:58]

I know, but yeah, I’m a little late. Now, the algorithms don’t want work for me like they worked in the early days. So, I’m working on it. And then, to get to my free book, I have a free plus shipping, but I just want to give you guys the book for free. So, let me find the URL and you can just download the book. It’ll be a PDF version of it. And then, you can just download it.

CAMILLE [39:24]

Very cool. And if we do want to print the book, do you have it on Amazon or how do we get our hands on the printed version?

MIA [39:31]

I will give you the link to put below too because I don’t know what it is. I don’t know when we ended up talking about the book, so I don’t know what the URLs are. So, I need to go to my website. And I’ll get those and I’ll put them down below. And then, if you do want to order the book, you can do it on there.

Like I said, I didn’t really plan to write this book and I didn’t realize honestly real fast on that I really hated business planning. I was embarrassed I wrote a book about purpose, values and vision. No one wants to know about purpose, values, vision.

And then, I started talking to clients and I did this workshop couple weeks ago and that was the biggest thing they talked about. And that was the thing that they knew me as, the thing that changed their life the most. And I was like, okay. So, I went back to my team literally last week like, “We got to get ourselves on Amazon and Audible now.” And so, we’ll be adjusting and changing that, but still we put a lot of effort and energy to the book. I just was like, I felt called to do it, so I did it, but that’s as far as I went with it. But now, it’s time to get it out to the world.

CAMILLE [40:29]

Very cool. I feel so honored that we were able to be here. Usually, people reach out to me when they’re doing book tours. So, I feel like we are ahead of the curve here that we get a first sneak peek into it. So, thank you so much for being on the show today. I think that you have brought so much beautiful insight into discovering purpose. I feel bad that I swore at the beginning because now, I’m like, this was one of the more spiritual interviews and I started it that way. I’m like, oh no.

MIA [40:56]

No, that’s fine.

CAMILLE [40:57]

Please forgive me. And thank you so much for everyone listening today. I know that each of you listening has a specific purpose. There is a reason why you have stirrings to do what you do and that calling within you. And so, I hope you will take advantage of this free offering. And Mia, thank you so much for being on the show today.

MIA [41:15]

Yeah, you’re welcome. Thank you.

CAMILLE [41:17]

Hey, CEOs. Thank you so much for spending your time with me. If you found this episode inspiring or helpful, please let me know in a comment and a 5-star review. You could have the chance of being a featured review on an upcoming episode. Continue the conversation on Instagram @callmeceopodcast. And remember, you are the boss.

[41:38]