Vicki 0:05
Do you consider yourself resilient? And what does that even mean to you? In this podcast resilient entrepreneurs with Two Four One, we chat with business owners about what resilience means to them. And we go deep.
Laura 0:19
What we've learned running our own business is you're never alone, even when it feels like it. So tune in anytime to this podcast. We're always here for you celebrating resilient entrepreneurs just like you. We're Laura and Vicki from Two Four One, a marketing company for early stage business owners who want to launch grow and be resilient.
Vicki 0:39
As a business owner, a builder and creator, a change-maker and entrepreneur have you ever noticed how things can be great for a time, you're nailing it, you're meeting and exceeding goals and then something small shifts and you're just not as much in flow? You know, when you feel like maybe you've lost your mojo, we've experienced that too. Which is why speaking with Mia Munro was so reassuring, and pretty intriguing. Mia is the founder of the Human Reinvention Academy, and a Mentor and Business Strategist, Mia is an Amazon Best-Selling author - three times, not just once, and an international speaker. She's created leading edge methodologies for the reinvention of humanity. And we go into some of that in this episode.
Laura 1:24
We also spoke with Mia about tangible ways to be resilient, including how to thrive on every level. Her book, The Human Reinvention Formula is available on Amazon. And in the show notes we've included a link to a free ebook version just for you. In this podcast, Mia shares real life advice and steps to thrive. She talks a bit about biohacking, brain detox and other things we can do for our mind, body and spirit to really be the best version of ourselves.
Hello, and welcome to today's episode of resilient entrepreneurs. Over the years, you may have followed us at Two Four One. And you may know our previous podcast; Level-Up Your Marketing with Vicki and Laura. We help brilliant business start-ups to launch and grow and we know that to be successful, it takes resilience. We hope these conversations will inspire you to stay the course, to grow into your goals, and to live the life of a resilient entrepreneur. So let's get right into it.
Vicki 2:17
So we have Mia Munro in the house today. And it's so exciting to have you here, Mia, you've become a dear friend and I feel blessed for it. And although we haven't known each other for a long time, it feels like we've known each other for a lifetime. It's funny how some friendships are like that. And so Mia Munro is a founder of the Human Reinvention Academy. She's a mentor and a business strategist. She's a best selling Amazon Author three times, not just once, international speaker. And she has created a leading edge methodologies for the reinvention of humanity. And I can't wait to hear more about that. And there's so much more that Mia is and has done and is still doing for humanity and in the world. So it's wonderful to have you here Mia on the Resilient Entrepreneurs podcast.
Mia 3:12
Wonderful to be here. Thank you.
Vicki 3:13
So we like to start with a bit of an icebreaker and we want to know, what was your first job? And how old were you?
Mia 3:21
Ah, well, I could go right back to when I had a pretend restaurant where I used to do toad-in-the-hole with rocks and serve it to my parents, but I'll go to a real job!
I think most people have had something like that when they were little! My first job would have been as a nanny, but the job that I, soon after that one, the job that really meant something to me was when I was 15 years old and I decided, I went to the local hospital, like a medical hospital sort of aged care, and I decided that I wanted to be the first nurse aide in New Zealand, who was 15. And apparently that's illegal, you're not actually allowed to work and get a job at 15! So I waited, I created a proposal, I believe I don't remember a lot of this but Mum tells me and the second it was the first of March on my 16th birthday, I had the chance to go in and become the first youngest nurse aide in New Zealand. So that was working alongside the nurses. So that was a pretty exciting story. And I guess kind of set me up for my whole life as an entrepreneur. I think if you start doing that stuff that young, it's a bit of an indicator that you're not really prepared to follow the mainstream but you're probably gonna be a little bit of a rebel which has turned out that way and quite accurately, actually. But yeah, amazing experience to go in at such a young age and start to, you know, this is my mind, start to shape the future of the medical system at age 16!
Vicki 4:52
I love that tenacity. And that speaks to vision, right? And I guess that's what entrepreneurs really, that's the basis, that's the foundation of being an entrepreneur is having a vision and wanting to make it real.
Mia 5:05
Yeah, I've always had vision from a little girl, I'm sure, like many of us, I've always seen, it's like I was plonked on this earth and it was like I was here to see some of the biggest problems in the world and then spend my entire life, you know, finding solutions to walk through it. And and it's not an easy path, because, you know, sometimes I think it would have been easier, I actually did go on to become a nurse, and then a clinical teacher, and then I was managing a private hospital at the age of 24, 25 years old. So you know, that would have been in many ways a career where I could have at least had some sense of stability, although I don't know if nursing really is stability, but there was a part of me that always looked for more. And I think when I was in the medical system, and I started seeing so many patients come in and then we would help them, you know, they'd become well again, and this really links to where I am now, then they would come back like a year later with the same illness. So nothing was really changing. And that's where I started getting really passionate about like, what, okay, this is this is wonderful we have this system, I'm not sure if I can call it a healthcare system in New Zealand and Australia, from my perspective probably it's more about, you know, medicating or treating disease rather than helping people be healthy, and I became you know, really passionate about how do we, where does health start, whereas, you know where does it end? And how does this have an impact on us being super resilient human beings, you know, because no matter what as humans, I think no one has a sweet, sweet ride. I mean, we have sweet ride moments, so we have the sweet ride and then we have the realities of the crash or the loss or the burnout. And then we have the sweet ride again. And I used to think that maybe if I worked all this stuff out one day I would just have nailed it all, well, I'm 48 years old and I've come to the understanding that that's not the way life rolls and that this is going to be part of life. And that's what I love about what you guys are doing with Resilient Entrepreneurs because I think if we can understand resilience, then we can really enjoy the journey when we are on the up, also when we're on perhaps some of those big expansive learning opportunities as well.
Laura 7:14
Oh, I like how you put that like a learning opportunity you know, or some people might say it's the speed bump that hits you or the failure. You know, was there any of that? Like, where were some of the, the lower points, the harder parts about being an entrepreneur for you?
Mia 7:29
Yeah, There's lots. I'm a very positive and optimistic person, but it hasn't been without pain, real pain. I think one of my biggest, I can't even call it a failure now because it's not how my mind sees it, right. But it could have been perceived as a failure, was many years ago I built a wealth coaching company on the Gold Coast in Australia. It was like my baby, it was the first big kind of empire I built, I got investors to back me, everything about this business just happened. It was, you know the wonderful thing about entrepreneurship is that creativity you get to play with. So this was a creative business. We built a technology that was used around the world for helping people assess where they were at and then we were able to basically track and coach people and mentor people and see, you know, the beginning of six weeks, and six weeks later, you know, where they'd come to with things like congruency and authenticity, and intrinsic motivation. So we're actually able to assess, which is an amazing thing for human beings because we often don't see the changes that have happened in our life. So if we have an assessment tool, we can go, Ah, okay, I've gone up, you know, I've gone up 20% in my level of authenticity in my business. So that was my baby, I was absolutely flying in this business and I was in a business partnership, which was with a silent investor and we were just starting to take all these wealth investor clients to the level of clearing everything up and just moving into my favourite part of all, which was the philanthropic side of it. And really, my entire world is about legacy and philanthropic impact projects. So we took some leaders across to Asia to walk the path of a trafficked girl and see how we could give back into communities in Thailand and Cambodia, and it was just thriving, you know, that feeling when your business is just like, wow, this is my dream come true. And I'm, you know, I'm only young in my career, and this is many years ago now, this is 2013. And then boom, Friday afternoon, I get a email, not a phone call, from my business partnership, basically just say we're putting the business into voluntary liquidation. And I sat there and I remember the piece of cake that was sitting in front of me, my friends across the table and the hot chocolate I was drinking. I remember this moment vividly and I thought how can someone put me into voluntary liquidation? It's my company. Then it just sunk. Hold on I'm in a partnership something corrupt is happening here. And I lost everything overnight. And at that time I absolutely felt like a failure. I thought What did I do wrong? I'd gotten the best support to go through the books, we were that one company in a group of five, we were really the only profitable company, but they had been taking money out of our company and I'd been seeing two different books. So it's one of those things where you can't help but question yourself, Is that me? What did I do? You know, this is my company, it's my responsibility. It broke me, without failure. But I'll tell you what broke me the most and this is where I was determined to turn this crash, this failure into something incredible, was that I had all of these events around Australia, New Zealand booked out, I mean I was booked out, or something like 45 weekends a year, and I had all of these amazing human beings that were paid to be at these events, and they wouldn't let me they run the events. To me, that was the biggest sense of crush, and I had to let my team go, so the failure and the wounding that came through that was massive. So what I did was, basically lose everything was get on a plane to Asia, and go and work with the traffic girls, and actually decided I could either become a huge victim of this, I at that time, you can imagine my head, I just really didn't understand it. Or I could actually seek out the next level, you know, I could level-up. And I did, and my level-up wasn't about making more money. my level-up was about doing the right thing. So I went and worked as a volunteer for Destiny Rescue, which is an organisation I still champion, that rescues young girls as young as six years old. Gosh, every 26 seconds a child is sold into sexual slavery. And so I was like, right, I'm not going to be a victim of this, I'm going to turn this into something great, and then ended up living in Asia and turning my business around, starting a new business, went through the courts to fight for my technology because they stole it, and I was able to get my technology back and continue to make a difference. But you can imagine the wounding that that can cause and the self questioning and the self inquiry, it was a brutal time, it honestly probably took me a good 10 years to really release that experience. I look at it now and I'm proud to say I paid off every single creditor, I refused to go into liquidation. Some advisors say that was stupid, for me, it was a heart thing, it was a thing around standing tall and to this day, I've been in the field of transformational coaching and mentoring for 18 years, I've still got clients coming back from those days to see me, you know, these days, where my practice is open, which is a really great outcome of a really tough situation.
Vicki 12:39
I have to say that's quite the story. And it speaks a lot to your integrity. And I feel like integrity is one of those things that can't be bought. I'm not sure if it can be learned, I guess it can be but I think it is one of the cornerstones of resilience, too. Because if you feel like you're doing the right thing, then what can really stop you. Would you agree with that kind of thinking?
Mia 12:59
Absolutely. Your integrity is, every single business I've done since, I'm still human and I haven't done it perfectly and I've made mistakes without a doubt. And most of the time, mistakes have come through being busy, so hence why one of the biggest principles I live by now is my Thrive principles which is in my book, The Human Reinvention Formula, and making sure I'm remaining grounded, making sure I'm continuing to detox my brain on a regular basis, yes, there is such a thing as detoxing your brain and making sure I'm biohacking my body so that I'm actually sleeping properly, I'm grounded my energies, right? I'm not running on adrenaline, and then also being really clear on my identity. So those three things are actually how I maintain my integrity, and resilience because without that the world, you know how the world can feel in a spin sometimes where everything speeds up? Well, I've had to consciously, particularly being a visionary, like most entrepreneurs that we see such big visions and we feel called to them, and sometimes the seeing and the calling actually can get a little out of hand, that's the truth. And because integrity is so important to me, because I've seen so much corruption in my lifetime, both personally and professionally, it's a huge value, but it's not as easy as just saying I'm going to be someone of integrity. I do agree it's something that's built through life experience, it is a decision though as well, but I think the biggest decision is about how am I going to, it's like resilience, how am I going to become a woman, a business leader who practices resilience, who practices integrity. The other one for me is a huge one, which is congruency. You know for me it's very difficult to run a congruent business if you don't know who you are and if you haven't done the work around identity and who you are, and what your true purpose is for being here. So these things are all important, I believe.
Vicki 14:57
Yeah, I wonder if you could tell us a little bit more About the biohacking and mental detox that part of it, because it is tangible ways for people to be resilient. It's very nice to sit around and talk about, oh, we're resilient because we've been through this but what about going forward? And how do we ensure that resilience stays with us and it's a practice that we can build on.
Mia 15:20
Yeah, absolutely. So I've been running Thrive programs for a couple of years now and the main reason for that was, like I said I've been around 18 years doing this work so it's quite a long time. And I've watched the transformation of technologies through that time as well and actually, a couple of years ago after a big life change personally, I started challenging my own teachings. So I think you get to a certain point where you're taught by a coach or mentor, or a trainer, and you're trained into something and then you start to get to a level of maturity with it and then you start to challenge it. And one of the things that I was really challenging was around how do we be thriving human beings, and that's thriving on every level. And so that's when I wrote the book, actually in about six weeks, the Human Reinvention Formula that we launched, actually in Australia, at Uluru in a beautiful part of Australia, very sacred land, it was very amazing how it came about. And then also in Noosa in Queensland, and then that went all around the world which was really cool. But that really started to have me getting to a point where it was like all of my teachers and mentors were fabulous pieces of the puzzle but there was something new I was being called into and it was this concept of thriving, of what I call today, and I've opened the Healthy Humans Hub. So that's where we do this work because I started to see that these short-term projects weren't really building people for the long-term. So you'd go and do a development program, perhaps working on the mind and you'd have people there and they do really great work on their mind, or clearing their mind or stilling their mind, opening their heart, connecting to higher self, all this stuff, but then they'd go home and then they would have chips and chocolate and coke and their entire system and biochemical system would be out of whack. They wouldn't walk, they wouldn't move their bodies, so we were seeing a real correlation between the mind the body and the spirit, and people have talked about this for years but it's incredible how many people say they want to be their best version, but they're not prepared to look at potentially one of those, okay, mind, body or spirit.
So it became, I put a set of contexts within my community that it was important we looked at all aspects of this. And through that I had to do that too. And I think my my world started to massively change. I'm talking really like in here internally, when all of these lines up, when I lost 18 kilos of weight, where I, when I started realising that brain detoxing is a constant thing, if you've had trauma or tough times we tend to be told that you can clear it once and it's gone. The reality is we've been exposed to thoughts and ideas and programs every single day. I'm personally off of media and everything like that, I try and stay away from it, so I'm getting less programming than perhaps the mainstream. So if you think about every time we get exposed to anything, a photo, a thought, an idea, you listen to a song, all of this is influence, and there's a lot coming in. And you know, one of our biggest issues out there is burnout and overwhelm so we actually need to learn how to detox our brain. And we do it in a process that's gentle, that can be done over 21 days, with the Healthy Human Hub people can actually come on board long-term and they actually are doing brain detoxing every second month. I mean that's commitment, that's commitment, and that's the sort of level I believe entrepreneurs need to be at to be actually able to survive and thrive through the realities of being an entrepreneur, which is often solo, not always, but often solo. Often we're pushing boundaries that's not been done before. Often, we've got a lot of people kind of like trying to make us mainstream, but we're, you know, we're sort of going through the jungle with them. So yeah, brain detoxing is a process I believe now I'm backing 100% in all my future work. I've been educated through a woman in the US who's a neuroscientist, and so there's science behind this and it also links beautifully to my spiritual beliefs as well.
And biohacking is so cool! I had autoimmune disease and six viruses and over two years I biohacked my body. I got told that there was no cure for autoimmune, i.e. stress, and I have cleared every single indicator and all of those viruses through biohacking and brain detoxing, so I'm a really healthy woman today because of that. It hasn't been easy, now that's your reality there, it's been a real commitment, but I know now I've got another, easily another 30 or 40 years in me because of it.
Things like infrared saunas, I might be having three to four a week, they are basically constantly regenerating my cells, you can do kind of the radical stuff but you don't have to, you can jump in ice baths, you can do incredible levels of fasting, you don't have to be radical to biohack, you can do the finer tune points to start gentle but what seems to happen as you start to build such an incredible feedback system in your body, you want more, and it's a nice thing to want more of rather than reaching for the chips, the chocolate, the coke or the wine you're reaching for, I might have another sauna, and pump some music out and feel deep, deeper and more connected to spirit. So that's the biohacking. It's about hacking the smaller things and sleeps a huge one. Sleep is a huge one, you biohack your sleep and your rhythm, it's like you become superpowered, you're able to sleep when you need to, you're able to rest when you need to, you're able to roll with the different dynamics of life. So yeah, super advocate for that. And the through-point is we always look at identity, if someone's unsure or they're playing on the fence or their beliefs or faith, beliefs have gone misguided, there's no right or wrong way around spirituality or faith, it's just what you believe that it's about being clear on it, and not being misguided on it being really clear so you are able to tap into something bigger than yourself. I don't believe any of us can do the work we're doing without tapping into something bigger than ourselves on some level. So super, super powerful stuff.
Laura 21:29
Oh Mia I love everything you've just said and I think especially for like you say entrepreneurs, because we're often in that solo space, there's often that need, that drive to keep going and to do better for ourselves. And taking care of ourselves is so important, whether it is just getting more sleep or going the full gamut, Hey, I've just started cold showers in the morning and that's like a really big deal for me, because I never used to be able to even stand the thought of it. And now it's my daily ritual and I can't live without it. If I forget, and I try to get out, I'm like, oh, no, I've forgotten my cold shower! Yeah, it's funny how little things can really have a big impact and I think as an entrepreneur when you want to build a business, you want to build a legacy and I think that comes at this age too where it's like I want more and I want to be around for a long time because I want to build this into something great. So I need to be my best in order to do that. So definitely, I love everything you're saying. So we have a question for you just to switch it up a little bit. So if you could jump into a time capsule right now and go back about 20 years or so knowing what you know now, what advice would you give to yourself?
Mia 22:39
Ah, gosh, the biggest piece of advice I would have is I guess, I kind of wish someone would have said to me, this is going to be a roller coaster, ride it with all your life, like just ride it like a surfer rides a really adventurous wave. The other thing I'd say is look after your body, look after your mind, because the ride can be so fast and so exciting and then the crashes come. And the biggest thing that can slow you down is when you're not clearing the mind of the experiences that are challenging and when you're not looking after the body. I mean burnout and overwhelm is a major major issues in entrepreneurs, major serious issues.
So yeah, I wish I had that wisdom back then perhaps I wouldn't have gone through doing major tours and then ending up flat on my back being diagnosed with autoimmune and that type of thing, I perhaps would have asked for more support, and more help. So that will be the second thing, is I think sometimes we think that we're meant to know what we're doing but most of us are building stuff that's never, like sometimes never been done before, and I think I did have a pretty strong I mean, life has definitely knocked this out of me, which is great, but I did have a very, very strong determined attitude. And I think if I had perhaps understood that it was okay to not know what I was doing I would have asked for a lot more help through coaches, mentors, facilitators, guides, experts. And the other thing I know there's a few, you only asked me for one, but I'm giving you one more, do not do it alone. I know the world circumstances have thrown a lot of us into isolation and it certainly happened to me. I launched my best-selling book in 12 countries and then boom Covid hit and I couldn't leave my house for months and my tour got cancelled. I had worked for 15 years to get a top promoter to say your stuff's great and then it didn't happen. So don't do it alone. I think there's amazing communities like Resilient Entrepreneurs or like our Hub that can support you and I think support goes a very, very long way, authentic and genuine support goes a very long way.
Vicki 24:58
Geez to me I would say that's resilience bottled up. But I guess resilience means different things to different people, so what would you say it means to you?
Mia 25:07
Yeah, I want to share really vulnerable here. I used to think that resilience meant being a superwoman pushing through not looking like I was struggling, and keeping a smiling face no matter what. So everyone would be so I'd be a role model for for everyone watching me. And the truth is, that was a fake resilience in a way because the truth is inside I needed help, I needed support, and I wasn't looking for it. So the sense of life was challenging and I must be a resilient entrepreneur was a persona that I carried, then I got it.
And actually for me now resilience is about being able to ask for help, being able to say, Guess what, this is my skill and my expertise and my genius, and I'm going to keep going no matter what, and there's nothing gonna stop me, but I can't actually do it on my own. I need to be complemented by other amazing people. And resilience to me is a commitment to my health, my brain detoxing, my biohacking and my identity work. That's what it means to me now. It's a commitment to being human and accepting all aspects rather than kind of masking the things that didn't quite suit the way I was meant to be showing up. So it's this deep, genuine commitment to myself. And I think without vision, and without strong legacy or spiritual leadership in some way it would be challenging, but because I have those aspects it gets really challenging sometimes, but I never seem to give up no matter what. And I seem to have those aspects of reaching out now that I, in fact, Vicki, I reached out to you a while back, I said, Hey, my mojo is wavering you know, can you help and you know, as an amazing peer you did, which was awesome, super grateful for.
Vicki 27:04
Hey it takes guts, it takes courage to be an entrepreneur and to ask for help along the way and it's just amazing that we have communities that we can, communities and people, individuals that we can lean on. And we encourage our community to lean in to that support and to lean on other people because you know, when you're leaning on someone else, they're actually also leaning on you, right? And we just learn and grow from each other and that's what it's all about. So we're very strong on community and you know encouraging people to choose their community wisely, so that they are in the right company, we truly believe that is an essential key to success in business, is to choose your community wisely. So thank you for being part of our community. It's very easy to see after hearing you speak even for this short half hour or so, how you became a three times best-selling Amazon author and international speaking all around the world and the creator of so many fantastic beautiful things that have helped hundreds, 1000s of people around the world. And of course, we know that you're going to keep going and being resilient from the inside, as you described and we look forward to all the great stuff that is yet to come from Mia Munro. Thanks so much for joining us on Resilient Entrepreneurs.
Mia 28:29
Thank you, Vicki. Thank you, Laura, and everyone listening today. Wonderful to connect.
Laura 28:37
Thanks for joining us on Resilient Entrepreneurs. We're Laura and Vicki from Two Four One. We love supporting entrepreneurs, especially with mindset, marketing and motivation, which is why we built an incredible community of business founders who meet weekly in the Level-Up League. If you'd like to know more about it, look us up at @twofouronebranding on social channels or www.twofouronebranding.com
