On Boredom, AI, and Closing the Loop of Wonder w/ Mia Kiraki

So welcome to Sacred Business Stories. This is our weekly Substack Live where we have really just have an honest conversation about what it looks like to build a business that aligns with your deepest truth. And today we are excited to be joined by Mia Karaki. And actually, side note, I have a note to myself to ask you the story behind the name because you said to on your about page. But for those of you who don't know Mia, she is the creator behind Robots Ate My Homework, which is a publication here on Substack. It's probably one of my, well, it's definitely one of my absolute favorite, or she's one of my absolute favorite voices in AI right now on Substack. And yeah, her publication, she describes it as the place where AI meets brains, tastes, and an unreasonable amount of depth. So yes, welcome Mia. We're very excited to have you.

Hi, so nice to meet you. Thank you for having me.

Yes, thank you so much for being here and welcome everyone. Joining us right now. We want to make this interactive. So if you have any questions, please put it in the chat and we're going to try our best to get Mia replying to them. And I always like to remind ourselves, our guests, and you watching us why we do Secret Business Stories. And it's purely for inspiration. So when we see people doing something that's cool, that we feel is from their heart, that it's meaningful for them, we like to bring them here and just guide this conversation through like the behind the scenes. Um, so people like don't just see where you are and the cool things that you are creating and just like, oh, I'm, I'm far. It's kind of like a way of connecting to where I am is the perfect place to go where I want to go. I just need to start. So just on that, Mia, just tell us about like what you do and maybe the story about your publication. And I'm also curious about your name. So you choose where you want to begin.

Okay. So let's start with the name, I guess, since I put that out there on the about page. Okay, so it's two stories actually. It's Mia and Kiraki. Mia comes from one of my favorite characters from one of the novelas I watched when I was a teenager. So I was like, everyone needs to call me Mia, you know, because it's Maria Cristina and nobody would speak the entire name. So they would call, my family would call me Chris. And then I started calling myself Mia and we would do like play roles and stuff like that. So that's where Mia comes from. And then Kiraki means Sunday in Armenian. I am half Armenian, half Romanian. I was born on a Sunday, so Mia Kiraki is kind of like my online name. So it's, it's so much easier to pronounce and so much easier to remember. Uh, now again, thank you so much for having me here, uh, to tell you a bit about me. So I was always a creative person. Uh, I grew up around artists, entrepreneurs, so I was always making stuff. And since the internet, obviously I had to put myself out there. Uh, that's a lot of my, my childhood was a lot of creative stuff and that's probably, I think, why I've never been good at anything that looks like a tutorial, which is a bit weird since I'm in the AI space, but as you maybe If anyone here reads my publication, you will notice that I don't really do tutorials. My husband actually jokes a lot that whenever I vibe code, the, like, half the time the code just fights back with me. So I'm on the creative side of AI. A bit of a backstory. I did film studies in London. I lived there for a while. I learned a lot of stuff. It actually shaped I am today because it taught me like how to build narratives and also how to engineer how someone feels. And that way of thinking, I brought it with me in everything I did since then. Um, after London, I did two master's degrees, one in marketing and one in security and diplomacy. And I guess the thing that came out of that and really, really helped in my career was that every time I stepped into a different field, I picked up different lens of things. And I started noticing patterns and how this stuff talks to each other. And throughout all that, uh, I was always writing too, both fiction and nonfiction. Uh, funny story, but I actually wrote my first book when I was 10. Uh, unpublished, obviously. Uh, but probably, I think, incredible. And I'm still upset that nobody wanted to publish that one, but I mean, there's still time, I guess.

Yeah, you should try again.

Right. It's still here in my wardrobe, so I can try again. Yeah. Um, after like my studies, I moved into marketing work. So for the past 10 years, I've been doing marketing, especially content marketing and bringing narratives and storytelling to people's, especially B2B, you know, cuz everyone, uh, there was a saying back a few, a few years ago that B2B is still human to human, you know, so I always tried to bring that storytelling even in the most technical of topics. And I built a content agency with my husband and then around 2022 when AI came along, a lot of clients started asking us, okay, so how can we integrate AI into our work? And since then it's been a wild ride because we started building our own products, our content AI products, um, and then we pivoted, uh, kind of like 80% of the time on software. And then we also started helping businesses, the businesses that we worked on content on with AI implementation as well. So the work we do in terms of AI, it's a more holistic one. So we help you implement AI, but it always starts from a strategy like building you a knowledge base. And on top of that, I come with the content, my husband with the product building. Uh, so alongside that, I also have the Robots Ain't My Homework newsletter. And, uh, it started as just me documenting whatever work I was doing in terms of my products and then just building the frameworks and all the AI work I do every day, just putting it out there.

Cool. And yeah, I would love to hear a little bit more on your vision of that. Like what, well, first of all, like kind of what made you decide to jump in on Substack and then is it, are you looking to kind of create that into its own kind of brand and business or do you see that kind of just complementing the work you're doing, you know, with your clients or yeah, I'm just curious like how that all, how you see that all fitting together for yourself as you're moving forward. 'Cause it's, yeah, your stuff is awesome. Like I love, Thank you. Yeah.

Yeah. So the Substack thing, uh, funny story on that one as well. Um, last summer my husband was like, let's start building a kind of an inbound engine where you can reach out to people on LinkedIn, uh, invite them on, why not a newsletter, you know? So like make connections. So I started doing that. Okay, I'm gonna build a newsletter, try to do outreach and be like, do you wanna be a guest on my newsletter? But that vanished a lot of, like, quickly, you know, because Substack was a different kind of beast. It wasn't just a newsletter platform. So I kind of loved the community part of it and it became something else. In my first, like, 2 or 3 posts, I was speaking about my products because I wanted it to be a newsletter of my product, you know, um, even though it wasn't the name of my product, but I was like, it's, it's complementary to my product, so I can use it to do outreach. And then slowly but surely, I started making friends here. I started sensing how the community moves, what Substack's all about. So I kind of moved away from that. I stopped mentioning like my product as in I'm doing marketing for this product, you know, and I started talking about my work and what I do. And if I mention a product, that's fine. That's just, look, this is what I learned from doing this. It's not the central part of the newsletter anymore. Uh, so it was less a decision and more about where I wanted my work to live. And I'm so glad I made that decision because I can do a newsletter for my products in Brevo or Mailchimp or whatever else, you know, and as part of integrating Substack to my work, Um, so I do the agency part, like I work with people and narratives. Uh, and I also write this newsletter, which is kind of, I, I never, I never sat down to strategize, uh, a connection between the work I do with my agency and the newsletter because it's kind of, it's not that, uh, well put together, you know, it's not, I can't sell, in my opinion, I can be like, hire me. In my Substack posts. So I don't have a strategy for that yet. I have no idea how to do that. I'm the worst seller, you know, I'm even surprised I turned on paid, you know, but I, I don't have a strategy. Maybe you guys can help at some point, but I can see how it can be connected to the work I do, you know, but I'm, I do a lot of work, so I don't just do writing. That's the thing. Uh, my biggest issue and my biggest fear with all the work that I do is that people would put me in a box, you know, so she does AI or she does content. And the issue with that is that I don't just do AI or I don't just do content. So for me, the hardest part, even though I worked in marketing for 10 years, is positioning, messaging, and actually finding ways to sell myself as a person and the services I offer. It's, it's much easier for me to sell a product. That makes sense, you know? So I need to find that connection and maybe I can use Substack as part of my services offering. Not sure. We have to see that. Yeah.

Well, um, two things I love that you said there that I totally resonate with is One, something we talk about with our clients all the time is just kind of like, just get started and you're gonna learn kind of your approach and what feels good and what resonates with you through the doing, not kind of through the intellectualizing or like strategy fully, like just in your head. Right. So it seems to me that that's kind of the approach you took. You like, you came in maybe with one idea, like you're going to talk about your products. And then as you kind of found your footing and saw what this community was all about, you're like, no, there's a, there's a different path I can follow. And so, yeah, I really think that that's really good for anyone that's listening, just to know that you're totally free to change at any moment. And it's often through the doing that you're going to find the way. And then the other thing I love is that your writing and your approach and everything you're doing is just so incredibly creative. And it seems to me that, yeah, there's probably a way that you will, if you haven't already, find a way to connect those dots. One of the things that you really have going for you is that it's not like a need. This publication, to me, it feels— and please correct me if I'm wrong— like, it feels like it's such a creative outpouring of kind of yourself and your way of communicating and expressing. And because you have this other agency and this work that you know, pays the bills, so to speak. It kind of gives you that creative freedom to express in the way you're doing. And I think this is an incredible advantage for growth as well, because you don't have to put yourself in a box and deliver what, you know, you perceive that the market needs right out the gate. And then ironically, I think the paradox of that is because you're bringing such an authentic approach, that's the actual thing that resonates and lands and fuels the growth. So Yeah, I think you're a really great embodiment of that as well, at least the way I've experienced your work. So, uh, yeah, anyone that's watching and wants to kind of see what that looks like in practice, I would definitely encourage checking out Mia's publication. So I don't know, uh, tell me if I was wrong on any of that. That's the way I see it.

Yeah. So you are a bit wrong because part of that creative freedom is also the fact that, okay, I'm not 2,000 subscribers. So, and I'm a sucker for metrics. I'm also an overthinker. So this is one of my biggest disadvantages. I overthink every little thing, which means that naturally if something doesn't work or if something is off, I start analyzing that and I go, okay, what did, why didn't that work? What can I do to improve that? Should I change my CTAs? Should I change my headlines? So every time I post a new post, I change something. And that's the overthinking in me. And about this creative freedom, yes, sort of, and no, because I am using Substack and LinkedIn as well. I spend a bit of time on that platform as well. I'm using them as ways to grow my personal brand. I hate that word, but it's, I don't like brand, but it's like my personal, I don't know, online world, so to say. So I do need to always, I feel the need to always portray who I am at that very moment. So if I, I don't know, if I lose my, uh, my sense of self or something, or if I post about a topic I'm not 100% sure about, everything goes wrong in my world. So I always need, I'm, I always need to perfect things until they're not perfect anymore. So they're at the point of a ruin, if that makes sense. So there isn't that much creative freedom. The creative freedom and the things you see on my newsletter come from the fact that I always connect stuff from around me. So given my, I do a lot of things. I play music. I used to act. I write fiction. I did film. I, I do a lot of stuff and I bring all of these together. And if I'm reading something today, I note it down. You know, I have a lot of notes and maybe 5 notes per day, 6 notes, or I aim to that. And I note them down. And when I need topic ideas for my newsletter, I always take those and connect them to what's new in AI. So there isn't a lot of creative freedom in the sense that you mentioned it, but there's a creative freedom because I try to gather a lot of resources from around me. I am not stuck in the idea of, okay, um, new Claude just launched, I need to write about it. No, what I do is let it sit for a few days, a few weeks, let the trend go down, observe what people are saying about it, and then connect it to one of my observations from the world. So what I use, I put down on paper about my day-to-day, and there is always something that comes out of it, you know, and it's for me, it's much more liberating because if I were to write about technical AI, and watch benchmarks and connect the dots and let's do a tutorial. I can't do tutorials. Like if you ask me now, how do I build an agent? I need to check my NotebookLM, uh, uh, chats to see and actually ask it, okay, so how do I build this again? You know, because my brain is 99% stuck on the creative part, the building part, not so much, you know.

But I do like what you said, and in a way, like, I see a connection with at least what I see or what I understand about, like, uh, creative freedom, because it, like, you allow to express yourself from a very authentic space. And even though, like, it, I don't think creativity means that you're going to be writing about anything, but like within the limitations that you created, like you look around and you see connections that it's not everybody can see it, you know? So that in that point, like, I think that you are very, um, I don't know if that's what Phil was, um, what he meant when he was sharing, but when you share and he shared, I'm like, oh yeah, it feels to me that it's almost like the same thing. But, um, I, I, I, I'm not a big AI fan. Um, but I do love the way you write and I like, and I don't, I don't even know how to put that in words. Like, I think you help people how to think to relate to the tool. So like, was that something you did on purpose? Like, do you think about like, how is your mind behind the way you write? I'm curious about it.

Yeah. So my newsletter sits on a few pillars. So I like to talk about AI in relation to how our mind works. So how do we think about AI? How do we still use AI and not give up our brains. Then taste, uh, how do we look at an AI output, an AI image, an AI piece of text, and determine whether or not that's good enough for us to work with and to start working from it, not use it as it is. Again, judgment, building things. Do we want to build 20 agents that do all the work for us? No, we don't want to do that. I tried to build a lot of agents. I tried to build agents that read my emails, that summarize my Substack articles, that a lot of things that I spend hours on, and at the end of the day, I still like to go, for example, to Substack and go through the articles myself. I like to watch the titles along with the featured image and match them and see, okay, this is interesting. I should read it. I don't want to allow an agent to tell me what to summarize, so what to, what to read. Sorry. So I think this is what I try to convey in my newsletter. How do we keep our smart brains? How do we learn how to, how to judge output? How do we move towards a new life, essentially, when AI is right next to us? Like, do I choose to go pick up the phone and use AI for a question that I might sit with for 10 minutes and find the answer myself? Or do I use it for things that help me, uh, with certain tasks and save me time for the work that actually matters. You know, I think this is, this is what I'm trying to do. And, uh, most of my articles are concentrated on this part of the brains, you know, thinking. I, I like to take studies and dissect them and hopefully speak in a very approachable language because sometimes I don't even understand these myself, you know, and I try to dissect those and analyze them. And what does this been for me that I'm trying to build a simple agent to help me day to day, because you notice this stuff months later when you realize that you can concentrate on some, on some tasks, you know, and you realize that you overuse AI for some stuff. So this is what I'm trying to achieve, to help you not reach that stage where it is just AI everywhere, because there's people that love it, there's people that hate it. We need to find like a middle ground, you know, I'm, I'm not in love with AI. I don't hate it. It's just here. I need to learn how to use it, you know, basically.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's funny that you, you mentioned that something that came up for me. I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on this. Like one of the things that I think drives Carolina nuts is like, we'll be on like a car, a road trip or something like that. And we'll be like having just conversation and a topic will come up and and it's just an interesting thing that I'm curious. I'm like, oh, I don't know, I don't know the answer. And in the past, it would be the kind of thing that I would just like drop. I'd be like, well, I don't know the answer to that, and I don't probably ever really need to know the answer to that. But now it's— I'm always like, I don't know, let's ask, let's ask Gemini, or like whatever it is. And, and it's— and I'm curious about that because sometimes I feel like I'm making myself smarter on like topics that I would have never explored so deeply. And then other times I think I'm just filling up my cramming my brain full of like useless knowledge. That's, uh, really not— yeah, there is, there is a limit to that capacity on, on some level. I haven't really studied that, but I'm sure there is. So yeah, I'm just curious how, how, how you feel about that, that situation.

Do you ever sit down and there's nothing going around you and you are not getting bored anymore? You just pick up the phone or there's like, oh my, oh my God, I have to post about this. I have to call this person. I have to do this and that. This is what happens with AI right now. So everything we do every day, we can tie it to AI. I want to drink a tea. Okay. What tea should I drink? Let me ask AI and tell it, okay, I like this one. I like this one. Can I do a combination? Uh, what TV show should I watch? People used to scroll, like I still do that, but I, I watch old TV shows now just because of that. So people used to scroll and think about, okay, what should we watch? What should we do? No, just ask, give AI your preferences and it tells you a recommendation. So there's this thing that AI gives us access to more information, which is amazing. Like we can all get the chance to be smarter and learn about a lot of stuff. But did anyone ever ask themselves if our brains can catch up with that? Because it come with a lot of information, like you used to pick up a book and read the definition of words. Now you can just read the definition of words. You can ask AI, give me 100 synonyms for that. Okay, you could Google that as well, but now it's just so much easier. You can automate that. Give me a digest every day about all the latest tweets that appear in my niche, or give me a digest about all the news that happen, and you feel like you keep up with everything, but in reality, I think you just You just fill your brain with a lot of mush, you know, and I think we should, we should get bored of it, you know. Yeah, I agree with that.

And the reason why I tell him, I'm like, not only you're accumulating information that's like useless because you know now, but like in maybe an hour from now or like in 2 days from now, like that thing doesn't even matter. I think this constantly like asking AI questions. Closes the loop of wonder like before we would just sit down and like I see this, I don't know what it is. And then I'm kind of like wondering what that thing is. And then my brain is going all over with like imagination and maybe this is that, this is that. And it doesn't matter if I get what that thing is. What matters is my process of like going outside and like oh, I see this and they have this shape at this color da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. And then now it's like, I don't know something. I cannot sit with the unknown, which is a very bad thing to not be able to. And now I need an answer. Then you label that thing and it's closed. So that subject, it's over. Don't talk anymore because now you find out the information.

Nothing else matters.

Exactly. And then you, you know, and, and if we do it the way you were saying, like, yes, like, then we do that for a conversation when we're driving, or then you do that when you're like asking for like what tea you want to drink and then what you want to walk and then you lose your ability to just be with yourself. So like, I think there is a healthy way that you can ask questions and get answers. And it's so much easier than like opening a book and trying to find, uh, but just accumulating information. Um, I, I call that like, I have a term, it's like mind entertainer. We're already full of that. Like people taking 10,000 courses and not doing anything with that. And also AI is just amplifying that in a way that's just unhealthy.

Yeah. The courses example is actually a good one because, uh, it's like all about this learning. We are the learning phase we are at now. You can learn anything, you know, you have access to anything. Um, but do you want to do it? You know, because you pick up a subject and in 10 minutes you can be like, okay, but I can do the other one. Nothing's gonna stop me. And you don't learn anything in the process. You know, there's, only so much you can do. And there's so much information coming at us and that's fine. Again, nothing against it, but you need to learn how to protect yourself and be and adapt yourself to the new AI age as well, because we need to integrate it into our lives. But how do we do that? That's the question, you know?

All right. I feel like I put myself in the hot seat sitting between the two on the screen. Yeah, there's a lot of things I think I'm doing healthy, but yeah, that's one that I've been questioning in myself is the utility of that particular habit. So yeah, thanks for sharing your perspective on that. I think we probably have time for one more question. I know because we need to keep this one a little shorter today, but, and then I also want to leave some time for just sharing a little bit more about how people can learn more about your work if they're curious. But the question I wanted to ask you is, You know, for a lot of folks that find themselves coming onto Substack, or really online in general, not, not just Substack, um, one of the things I feel that they, they struggle with often is how to make meaningful, authentic connections as they're sharing a message, and especially if that message is really important to them. And so from my observation, you're, you're pretty masterful at that, and I'm just curious, like, how do you— what is your approach to connection and What advice might you have for someone who has that desire to share more of what they offer consistently?

Okay, so I'm an introvert. Maybe it doesn't seem like it, but I am. I'm a much better— I'm much better in writing than I am in lives or calls or stuff like that. And I feel like I mostly connect with people through text and through the work I do. So I write a newsletter and people respond to it because they can tell that I've been there and I did the work and I just come, I come naturally to them and show them what's possible. And I think what I learned from that is that connection, uh, people feel when you're being real and when you're performing, you know, so a lot of advice out there is about consistency, just show up, automate comments, uh, post 10 comments per day, engage with that, restack 3 times. I think what helps me and what I try to do on every platform that I pick up is just at the end of the day, ask myself, can I tell my husband something fun that happened today on Substack? Or can I note down a story from today? Did I have fun? Did I, did someone challenge me? You know, did someone make me think differently about stuff? And what I'd say to someone trying to make connections on Substack or any other platform is try to be, try to have more fun. You know, don't take it so seriously. Uh, we are all here to learn. We are all here to have fun, to spend time, to not get like LinkedIn level automation and AI slop. So try to, try to have fun. And at the end of the day, try to think about your day and be like, did I have fun today on Substack? Did I, make a new connection. Uh, can I name someone that just made my day better? You know, this is like my top advice.

I love that. And we are like, fun for me is like, um, it's a measurement of success. So if you want to know if you're successful on Substack, you know, just measure by how much fun you're having it. I love it. I, for me, this is a business measure. Like if you're not having fun in your business, which is exactly the same for Substack.

So I love that. Yeah.

Cool. Well, yeah, if anyone is— so we will be sharing a recap of this after the fact. And also for anyone that's listening live, if someone's heard something that has kind of stoked some curiosity in them about your work, what would you suggest? Of course, they can find you here on Substack, but is there anything that you would direct folks to that you think would help them get a better sense of how they could plug in with your work?

I mean, just reach out, DM me. I don't know. Let's collaborate. Let's have fun. Do not spam me with spam comments, please. So if you, if you want to learn about how to integrate AI in a mindful way, with brains, I have this slogan, use AI with brains, taste, and no circus tricks. So if you're in it with the circus for fun, it's fine. You can come in. If you're in it for this, with the circus for like pure tricks and AI slop, just, it's okay. So yeah, I'm, I'm just waiting to make friends and for all of us to have fun together.

Cool. Good, good answer. Good answer. I love that. Cool. Well, thank you so much for being here with us and taking the time. I know, uh, yeah, I was on you for many months to, uh, yeah, I mean, not that many, you know, a bit like 1, 2 weeks.

Come on. Okay.

I didn't, it was 2025 when we started this. It was, it was not the same year that we started this conversation. Yeah, I think it was probably around October or November, but you said yes. Um, it was, you said yes pretty quite a long time.

It just took us a long time.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

So, yeah.

Well, now I'm here.

Yeah.

Cool. Yes.

It was very nice connecting, Mia, and, uh, getting to know you.

Thank you so much for having me.

Yes.

And I can't wait to come to Rio.

Yes, please.

Yes. Yeah.

Open invitation. Yeah. Cool.

Okay, no.

All right. Have a good rest of your day.

And thank you for listening. Thank you so much. Bye-bye, guys.