Together Digital Power Lounge, Women in Digital with Power to Share
Digital is a demanding and competitive field. And women are still grossly underpaid & underrepresented. But we are not powerless; we have each other. Together Digital Power Lounge is your place to hear authentic conversations from women in digital who have power to share. Listen and learn from our amazing guests along with host Amy Vaughan, Owner and Chief Empowerment Officer of Together Digital. Together Digital is a diverse and collaborative community of women who work in digital who choose to share their knowledge, power, and connections. To learn more, visit www.togetherindigital.com.
Together Digital Power Lounge, Women in Digital with Power to Share
Empowering Moms and Caregivers with AI
Are you interested in how AI can empower moms and caregivers? In this episode of The Power Lounge, host Amy Vaughan talks with Sarah Dooley, founder of AI Empowered Mom. The episode, titled "Empowering Moms and Caregivers with AI," explores how generative AI can ease the mental load for parents and turn stress into creative solutions. Sarah shares practical examples, like transforming a broken gingerbread house into a "gingerbread graveyard" and using AI to calm morning meltdowns. The discussion highlights tools like Microsoft Copilot and ChatGPT that enhance productivity and creativity.
Listen for an inspiring conversation that reveals how AI can enhance daily life and transform caregiving.
Connect with Sarah:
Sarah Dooley
AI-Empowered Strategy and Business Operations Leader
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-dooley
Instagram: Instagram (@aiempoweredmom)
Website: aiempoweredmom.com
Episode Timestamps:
00:00 - Introduction
01:00 - AI Tools Alleviate Caregiver Stress
03:19 - Tech Enthusiast Uses AI for Parenting
12:54 - Creativity vs. Life Interventions
15:01 - Generative AI Reduces Parenting Decisions Stress
16:50 - Morning Meltdown: AI Calming Solutions
23:57 - AI Skills Prepare Careers for the Future
26:32 - Boost Small Business Efficiency with AI
40:56 - Collaborate with Tech and Compliance
44:31 - AI Frees Time for Human Connections
52:10 - Regret for Not Using AI's Full Capabilities
55:57 - A Balance of Insight and Inspiration
56:23 - Outro
Quote of the Episode:
"Utilize the resources available to boost your productivity and achieve success." - Sarah Dooley
"Digital tools are essential for navigating life's complexities and maximizing success." - Sarah Dooley
All right. Hello everyone, welcome back. Happy New Year. We are kicking off season four of the Together Digital Power Lounge, which is just kind of mind-blowing to me, but I'm really excited about today's topic. This is your weekly power lounge. It's your place to hear authentic conversations from those who have power to share. My name is Amy Vaughn and I am the owner and chief empowerment officer of this amazing community. That is a diverse and collaborative community of women who work in digital and choose to share their knowledge, power and connections. You can learn more about us and join the movement at TogetherInDigitalcom, so this is such a relevant topic for today.
Speaker 1:You know, I recently came across this brilliant quote that many of us may have seen in some of our feeds on social media and it perfectly captured our conversation for today. Artist Joanna I'm not even going to try to pronounce her last name, it's like Medzikowska. Okay, I tried, but it wasn't great and I'm sorry, joanna, it was probably wrong, but she had this quote out there that is just getting like. So it's getting memed all over the place and it says I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for AI to do my art and writing so I can do laundry and dishes. And it's just like all the rage. It's on fire right now on the internet and it relates. It's understandable why it's relatable. It's relevant and while AI can't let our dishwasher yet, our guest today is going to be showing us the next best thing how to use AI to free up your mental space for what truly matters.
Speaker 1:So today we are joined by Sarah Dooley. She's the founder of AI Empowered Mom, with three degrees from UT, austin and MIT certificate for AI business strategy. She also has three daughters at home. Sarah knows firsthand what the juggling act is that we are all performing, but she's here to help us because what makes Sarah special is that she has taken a deep tech approach and love taking that expertise that she has and transformed it into practical solutions for busy caregivers. So since founding AI Empowered Mom in 2023, she's been on a mission to help mothers and caregivers slash their mental load using AI tools that actually work for real life.
Speaker 1:It's so great no coding required, no tech overwhelmed, just practical strategies that'll give you back some time and energy. So, whether you're a mom, a caregiver or someone just simply looking to work smarter in this new year. We are here. You're all in for a treat. Sarah is going to walk us through how she turned AI into her secret weapon for crushing goals while maintaining her sanity. Sarah, welcome to the Power Lounge. Can't wait to dig into all of this with you and learn how we can start 2025 stronger together.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, Amy. I'm so happy to be here.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. It is going to be such a fun topic because I think in our space we love to nerd out about all things AI, ai and it's all been very practical in the ways of marketing. But I just get really excited. Not only do I love new tech, but I love when we find new ways to implement it and use it. So I'm curious what was your first aha moment that led you from kind of focusing leveraging AI and tech as a tool for corporate and then founding the AI Empowered Mom?
Speaker 2:Well, for me, it all started with coloring pages and bedtime stories. It all begins with bedtime stories in my household. I'm an early adopter and a real tech enthusiast, so I started trying out ChatGPT early, when it was announced maybe in late 2022 or early 2023. And because I'm so busy with my three girls and really want to maximize the time that I have with them, I loved experimenting in just different fun ways that I could use chat GPT at home, and I started getting custom bedtime stories written for the girls when I wanted to send a help enforce a lesson that we were working on or battle a little fear that maybe they had going on incorporate their favorite characters, and I was doing the same thing with coloring sheets.
Speaker 2:Fast forward to my time in corporate tech. One of my responsibilities working in strategy for an AI and automation team is to encourage the adoption of AI and automation technologies for people to use in their workflows, and one of the ways that I found that I could really encourage people to adopt these tools was professionally was by sharing ways that they might adopt them personally. So I just started anecdotally sharing these stories about the bedtime stories that I was writing for my kids, or the coloring sheets, or how I used AI for my yard sale to power up my sales and it was really connecting with people. And then, once I figured out that it wasn't just fun and it wasn't just kind of breaking down the barriers or reducing the stress around trying a new tool, that it could really help with the mental load that comes with parenting and caregiving, I thought I have to spread the word, I have to share this message and that's what led me to found AI Empowered Mom on the side, on top of my work with corporate AI technology.
Speaker 1:That's so amazing and I agree with you. I think sometimes we get overwhelmed with all the newness that's out there in the world and sometimes it makes us want to shut down. But when you get to kind of take it and use it more practically and see those results more immediately, it makes it a number of ways. Where do you recommend they get started? If they haven't touched it yet at all, or if they're starting to look for using it in maybe a different context, where should they begin?
Speaker 2:Lately I've been hearing from a lot of moms and caregivers that they might have touched it for professional reasons. They might have tried AI at work, but they haven't tried it at home, and I'm really recommending two paths to start Either start with something really fun or start with something really draining and try one of those two ways using any tool, any tool that's available to you, and it doesn't have to be a paid tool. It can be a free tool. So taking something fun like a trip that you have coming up I'm thinking a lot about what's coming up for spring break for my family, so I've been having fun getting in AI and doing some research. We're going to a couple of places that we've never been before and I want to make the most of that time that we have together, so I've been having Generative AI act, as my travel agent recommend stops for us.
Speaker 2:Also, you know it's never too early to start thinking about what to pack, and we're going to be going somewhere warm, and I think the girls will probably be grown out of their swimsuits and warm clothes by then, so I'm already trying to think about what's my packing strategy. So, starting with something fun like a trip, and making it even more fun is one great way to start. The other great way, I think, is to think of something that's really draining, something that you're carrying on your shoulders or in the back of your mind. That's like I do not want to deal with that. For me right now, that's summer camp planning here in Austin, and I can't believe it's already time to start thinking about summer camps. That's a good point.
Speaker 1:Mental note made. I was like I totally put my stress on you, it's fine.
Speaker 2:So I've been going into Gemini and just I love using Google Gemini for research, where location matters and where I'm curious about reviews, and I'm just asking Gemini to help me put together a little plan and look ahead to when camps that I'm interested in are opening up and when I need to be thinking about registering, and already I feel my shoulders like going down a little bit thinking about that summer camp.
Speaker 2:So if folks have not yet tried AI at all or haven't tried it for personal reasons, I really recommend they either think of something fun for a way to make it more fun, or think of that thing that's carrying you down and try and delegate that to generative AI.
Speaker 1:I love it. I love it. So you mentioned Gemini. Are there any other platforms or tools that you find helpful as far as AI goes for specific types of like tasks or work or prompts?
Speaker 2:Yes, microsoft Copilot is my go-to for all things work and professional. You know I live in PowerPoint and Outlook and Teams, both in my corporate technology role and for AI Empowered Mom. So much of my work is happening there. So I really rely on Microsoft Copilot for my work for fun. I'm pretty loyal to chat GPT when it comes to researching where location matters, like I was mentioning, where I want to know ratings or where I want to do a little shopping I find myself leaning on Gemini.
Speaker 2:And then Anthropics Cloud is also a wonderful tool, especially for those who are quite focused on privacy and security. It's a responsible and ethical first AI tool, so that's another great tool to use. I use all of the tool technologies. I'm tool agnostic and love to try them all out.
Speaker 1:I love that and I think you're 100% right and I love how you called out how, like, Gemini does a great job because it's being fed more, a little bit more data possibly on like locations, because I think I have tried to use I love clod. I use clod probably most routinely for work, but sometimes I do find that, like if I want to have recommendations, uh, about a city that I'm visiting or something like that, it's a little bit hard sometimes to kind of get like accurate information. So I think that's a great idea to kind of try them all out right and see, like based on what they're, how they're being fed, what their language model is like, where they're pulling from. You might get different or even better results based on what you're trying to kind of achieve from an outcome standpoint. But I love this because I mean birthday parties can we just say, oh my gosh, the stress of birth and my son's birthday.
Speaker 1:He's God, he's turning eight in one month. It's literally a month from now and I'm like I haven't even started. I mean we've talked about it but we haven't like put plans into place. And I agree, I think, for creating and generating lists. I used it last year for our national conference planning a little bit to say like what kinds of things I need to make sure that I take for the day of, and things like that, and it just comes up with stuff that it's like oh well, yeah, I know these things, but there's a couple of things in there I would not have thought of or considered. So having like that additional input and brainstorming partner super helpful, Love it.
Speaker 2:Love it.
Speaker 1:I'm so going to use some, some AI after this work on my son's birthday party ideas. Oh, birthday parties. You're right and graduations, like family events, like all that stuff, like why and it's? It's? Oh, who was? Who was always the one doing it? It's the.
Speaker 2:It's the care person sitting in the caretaker role, right, right Um and you know that used to be that advice, um, and it's still great advice Like if something's worrying you or troubling, you, just write it down. But to me, this is taking that to the next level. Like, if I have these, like I've got to make a plan for the birthday, I need to be thinking about summer camp, write it down, but that's. I can go one step further by putting it into a generative AI tool and delegating a little bit of that mental space that I would like to free up for something else. So we're right in the same wavelength.
Speaker 1:Love it. Yeah, I think I used it this year too, for well, I'll give them a quick plug. My husband works for a small startup company that's AI, and they integrate all of the different platforms, so they pull from like Gemini, chatgpt, claude, and then Imogen, and what's the other web? Or the other image generating one another, one of those image generating ones? Dolly, there it is. I was like it's a D and it's great because they it's called Verve and so you can create verbs. They have an app that you can create a verb and it's like an agent, and so I created myself a little elf agent for Christmas. I love this. Sarah's writing this down already.
Speaker 1:V-U-R-V-E-Y. It's so fun and so like. I created basically a little AI agent for myself to come up with Christmas presents ideas for my family, because I don't like to go to everybody and be like what do you want? What do you want? I want to have ideas, and so I know their interests, I know their hobbies. I want to have ideas, and so I know their interests, I know their hobbies. But sometimes it's just like again, the mental load. There's just no space in my brain for this brainstorming. And then I had also gotten my nephew's games to a football game and I wanted to find a creative way to give that gift to them other than just handing them tickets. And so my look at the name. Now I'm going to open up the verbs app and it's v-u-r-b-s is the app. And, um, I created. What was his name? Hold on, it'll come up here in a second. Oh, jolly Jingle. I even show you like a pic. I want to show you a picture of Jolly Jingle. I know I'm sorry podcast listeners.
Speaker 1:You're like I can't see this. Um, oh, and you can't see her very well here either. Oh, there she is. Look, there's my Jolly Jingle. Oh she's so cute. And she's like I'm your personal gift giving guru here to sprinkle holiday magic on your presence with a jolly expertise and I'll help you find the most heartwarming and thoughtful gifts for your loved ones, making every occasion feel like Christmas morning. I was like, oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:Yes, jolly Jingle, come to my house.
Speaker 1:Right or now.
Speaker 1:And, like some of them, I kind of thought they were hilarious because I would push her right to kind of come up with more and more creative, and so some of them got really silly and outlandish. But what it did do was give me some really cool ideas. But then life kicked in and my brother entered some contest. He's a former Army vet and they have like some kind of drawing they do every Christmas and so he went and won tickets to the game. I was like dude, me and Jolly have been working on this whole plan. It's all right, it's all good. But yeah, she gave me so many fun ideas I was actually on the hunt for. I wanted to they're both teenagers and I thought it'd be so funny to.
Speaker 1:One of her ideas was to find, like or make a football pinata and have them like beat it with a stick until the tickets fell out. I was like that's fun. So that's kind of what I was thinking of doing, because they were going to be like why in the hell are you giving me a pinata for Christmas? And I'm like it's a football pinata that you need to hit and then you'll find your present. So I was really excited to do that. So I'm so mad at him when he won his tickets, but you know it's all good. So, yeah, it's not just about the gift ideas, it's also like maybe how you give the gifts again. And I think you're so right, once you start to play and look at it as play almost, and just kind of test the platforms for what it could possibly give you in the way of thoughts, ideas, organizations, then all of a sudden you just you do, you start getting real creative with it.
Speaker 2:I just know there's going to be another pinata opportunity coming up.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely. I mean, what teenage boy doesn't want to take a stick to something? So, yeah, might as well just find another way to bring that in. Oh, I love it. So yeah, I mean I think that you mentioned this earlier one of the biggest benefits of leveraging AI in this way is about reducing the mental load, and you know, we talk about a lot of that in the Together Digital community with our caretakers, with our working parents, because we're trying to do it all, be it all, balancing motherhood and ambition. It's a lot. What is one AI tool or strategy that has the most dramatically reduced your mental load? And if it's not like a strategy, maybe it's like a couple of like prompts or ideas that you've started to lean more heavily on to help with that, or ideas that you've started to lean more heavily on to help with that.
Speaker 2:So, for me, the mental load that I need the most help with is making the parenting decisions. I'm not an expert parent. I'm just learning this as I go, like all parents and caregivers, and as soon as I've got something figured out, it feels like another curveball is coming to me. So I've used a lot of different ways to automate different tools to help me improve my life, but the thing that is really making a big difference in my mental load is using generative AI to serve as my like on the spot parenting coach where I feel my blood pressure going up and or I feel stuck, like I'm backed against the wall and I don't know how to handle this.
Speaker 2:And a couple of times that this has come up recently, like one fun one, was fun for me. My kids, my three daughters, worked so hard, like for an hour, to build a beautiful gingerbread house and they wanted to. Each wanted to take a picture holding the gingerbread house and, like you could see this coming before I could, they dropped it in the handoff. Between the two I have twins. They just did the handoff and it was completely destroyed and they were beyond distraught, you know, just like screaming Because they're five, right, they're five, the twins are five. They're in a scream, crying mode right now. They were so upset and at first, you know, I'm like trying to suppress a giggle just because it's so crazy that this happened. But you knew it and in the back of my mind I'm like don't dismiss their feelings, don't just throw it in the trash, it will hurt. I'm like what do I do? So I go to chat TBT, like what can I do with a gingerbread house? And I got ideas to turn into gingerbread graveyards. We were just like, oh, it's a gingerbread cemetery, just pretend. You know, could throw it out and move on.
Speaker 2:And the other one that happened recently with my kids, where generative AI helped me reduce the mental load, was just my older daughter, who's six. She was just having one of those meltdown mornings, you know, where everything she's extra sensitive and everything was causing tears. And I'm okay, I'm doing fine, but I'm trying to get us out of the house on time and then I can feel myself like getting snappy and I don't want to start the day like that. I hate it when I send them off to school and we haven't, you know, we've all left things on a bad foot. So I stepped away and I just went into generative AI and said it's a meltdown morning, it's a windy morning and I'm getting frustrated. Give me five ideas on what I can do to turn this morning around.
Speaker 2:And one of the ideas that came out was to write my daughter a note. And okay, of course I could have come up with that on my own if I had the space in my mental load to think of those ideas. But I didn't think of that and I wrote her a note and she wrote me a note back and we went back and forth a couple of times and it totally turned our morning around. So these aren't groundbreaking ideas, but just knowing that I have a partner in my pocket in my phone to help me reduce the mental load and try and be, you know, do my best at the most important job that I have, which is as a mom and a caregiver and a wife like be the best that I can with my family. That's where generative AI is really helping me with these strategies, and the tool doesn't really matter. Any of the tools could have given me those ideas, but just having that to help me calm down and make a better decision or give me some more options has really helped my mental load.
Speaker 1:I love that story. I love how you slowed it down because, yeah, you're right, as a parent, you feel that moment. You're like I see it, it's coming, it happens, and then you're like trying not to laugh. It reminded me of a time my daughter and I went sled riding together. I think it was one of our very first experiences in sled riding and we the sled we had was like probably seven or ten years old. It's like, you know, cheap plastic, and we used to go down the hill and we hit a huge bump, go flying in the air and we land. The thing just shattered and I'm like, with the hill, it was so busy, that whole place was so packed with all these people, and I just started laughing right away because I just look and it's like literally in shatters, and I looked down at my four-year-old daughter and she's just crying. Oh, I wish I'd had some air to pull out of my pocket at that moment. I just took her to Starbucks for the hot chocolate. I was like, well, no more hot chocolate time.
Speaker 2:We'll see what's with some sugar and chocolate.
Speaker 1:But you're right, like the, it's not just the mental load, it's also like that moment of you know we're, when you're, when your kids are in some sorts of despair or argument, like you go into fight or flight mode, and so I think it's so cool that even in that moment for you, you took a beat, you know, and so I did more than just help you come up with an idea. It reminded you to take a moment and like, kind of go to something, versus straight to react mode, which is sometimes really easy to do when you're tired and your kids start kind of going crazy over stuff or something happens that you know gets everybody upset. I love that. That's such a sweet idea. I love that you guys did the letters together. That's so cute, so so cute.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's helping me respond versus react, and that is my total goal right now, at this stage in life, yeah, and it's such a good model for them too, right, yes, I hope so, because I want them to feel that their feelings are fine. You know those feelings are okay, right, dismiss their feelings. But also you know the big questions and the mental load like am I coddling? Am I giving too much? Am I meeting them in the middle? So just having that partner to think through things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was so productive in that moment. You know, I think that that's cool. It was I don't think it was coddling at all because you were giving her the moment and the opportunity to maybe articulate, kind of how she was feeling and what she was thinking in writing, which you know definitely forces us to slow down. So such a great process. Look at that. Ai for mindfulness even let's go. I love it. Oh man, our live listening audience chat. Sarah, I don't know if you've had a chance to look over, there is on fire. Everybody loves your gingerbread graveyard.
Speaker 2:I think we had the same with my nephews. We turned them into zombies.
Speaker 1:And then, all of a sudden, the red icing got real popular.
Speaker 2:I love it.
Speaker 1:It's such a great way to kind of again take something that feels very negative experience-wise and helping your kids look at like the issue or the challenge or the hurdle as an opportunity to do something else, do something creative. I love it. So, yeah, it's great modeling for your kids.
Speaker 2:I love it.
Speaker 1:I love it. All right, let's get to the next question and also live listening audience. If you have a specific question you want to ask, sarah, please drop it into the chat and let us know. That's why we love having you here. We want you a part of the conversation. How would you recommend busy professionals evaluate which AI tools are worth their time versus just another thing to learn? Because, again, we are trying to help alleviate overwhelm, not add more Right, sure.
Speaker 2:I have two recommendations. First is, if you're a working professional or you're a student or both, look to see what tools you might have access to through your workplace or through your educational institution or wherever else you might, because not only is that a great way to get access to paid accounts, paid access to the tools, but also if your employer is funding those tools, then it's likely support and training or learning resources and references come along with it. So that's the perfect place to start, because you know trying to learn it on your own when these things are changing so rapidly. So my first recommendation is just see what's available to you and what support you can get access to and second, if you don't have maybe you work in a place that's not adopted AI yet, or you're between roles and you're looking I would encourage folks to look at their own workflow and the technology that they gravitate to the most.
Speaker 2:You know, one of my sisters is like Apple loyal. She wants everything Apple and now she's very excited about trying out Apple intelligence, some of the just a new phone, and she's trying out some of the new features there. Or a lot of people live and die by their Google calendars and do everything in Google workspace. So if you're a Google person, then Gemini is the right place to go. Or, like me, where I am working all day in Microsoft tools, and, rather than feeling pressured to check out all of the tools, figure out which technology you already gravitate to, because so many of these different companies are creating their own AI tools and embedding them in applications or hardware that you might already be using. So those are my two recommendations on where to start Thinking about the tech that you like the most, and think about who might already be paying for you to use an AI tool.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, no, that's great advice because, yeah, it can get overwhelming fast and I think, just knowing that, you can kind of take baby steps towards it. Look at, yeah, what are the platforms that I use the most, because you want that integration right. So maybe start with that and then play and I've been quick to do that too. I'll pick up something because it's like, oh, this is fun, this is exciting, this is new. I'll give it a try, and if I find that I'm just not defaulting or going back to it, I don't give myself the pressure of like, this is the tool I have to use. I will keep making sure that the ones that I use are the ones that work best for me, and I love the idea, too, of making sure that you're working to get paid accounts too, because you know, again, like accuracy and information privacy, things like that are some concerns within the AI, but I'm wondering, are there any other like big misconceptions about AI that you find yourself having to debunk for caregivers and moms?
Speaker 2:Yes, well, professionally, the biggest misconception that I'm talking about with folks is that you know whether AI is out to steal our jobs. But it seems like that message that professional rather than AI coming for your job, that professionals who use AI are the best qualified for roles and are future proofproofing their careers. I think that message is starting to break through. But with moms and caregivers, I still find a lot of folks that I'm connecting with who are considering AI to be just a fad or another trend and just another thing that they can push off learning because this will be gone in a year or two.
Speaker 2:And I have built a 20 year career in digital transformation and I believe in my bones that this will be the most transformative technology that I will see in my career and maybe, hopefully, in my long lifetime. And you know, folks say, okay, be bigger than the internet, but this is built upon the internet, so it's building upon something that has already transformed how we work, and I think AI will transform how we live and how we interact with technology. So my mission is to try and find easy, low stress ways for people to interact with this technology, because I think AI can either build bridges or increase inequality, and my hope is that it will be a force for equality and that we all come along. So I am passionate about debunking what I believe to be the myth that this is just a flash in the pan. I think AI is here to stay and going to transform the way we work and live.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's already done so much and yeah, it's too big to be a flash in the pan if you kind of look at the timeline of it. But it is hard, like, how do you bring that into like almost layman's terms for people to understand, when you haven't been sitting in the digital space or if you're not digitally native, how that is such an important thing? I think a lot of ways I have helped people understand this is explaining to them that AI has been around far longer than they realize, right, so you know it's about machine learning as well as the AI. You know it's all the same thing, essentially no-transcript. And then I think once you start to look at like image generation and workflows and agents I mean obviously that's for probably those who are more steeped into like what's going on I am with you. I think the possibilities are really endless.
Speaker 1:And I would also caveat to say any of you listeners who are small business owners that haven't embraced AI yet, oh God, please, like process can be in place of people. Like when you have limited resources and can't afford to hire four and five people, you could easily work like four or five people if you've got the right systems, automations in a little bit of AI on your side to help, and so actually embracing these technologies could help your small business work like a medium sized business, which I think is a great democratizer for a lot of folks who, you know, maybe don't have all the tools and resources that a big company might have. So, yeah, I think I'm right there with you, sarah. I've had a number of reasons that it's just, it's worth it and you're right, I think if people are fearful of it, the best way to alleviate that fear is to understand it is to learn it.
Speaker 2:You know, just to try it out. You know, sometimes in workshops that I have run, we've spent some time visualizing like what is the best thing that could happen with AI and what is the worst, and people can come up with some wild ideas of the worst thing and the best thing. You know where we work one hour a week and AI does all of our work for us. But, just like most things, in all likelihood it's not going to be the best nor the worst. It will be somewhere in the middle. And you know, letting your mind imagine those possibilities is one way to move forward and, you know, move past any fears. But the best way is just roll up your sleeves and give it a try.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. I mean honestly, it's pretty, I feel like it's when you're playing around with it and using it experimentally. So I'm going to join legal stuff. It's like it is. It's kind of fun to sort of see like how could what could I, what could I have it help me with? So, on that note, could you walk us through maybe your favorite AI prompt that our listeners could possibly use today?
Speaker 2:Yes, okay, here we are, beginning of January. I love we were talking about this before we got started here that we love a fresh start and the new year. This time of year is so wonderful to think about the possibilities and what might bring. So I have been having so much fun using AI to help me set my intentions for this year and whether you're an attention center or want to put goals down or like resolutions any of those things because I'm an active and frequent user of ChatGPT and we have developed quite a relationship I have really enjoyed putting in the prompt, saying knowing everything you know about me based on all of our interactions ChatGPT.
Speaker 2:What would you recommend my intentions be for this year, if I want to set three intentions? And then the intentions were spot on. They were about how to connect with my family, how to grow my business, how to be an active member of my community while I'm pressed for time. And then I asked for a monthly plan to make those intentions a reality, and as soon as I did that, I felt overwhelmed. Monthly is too much. So then I backed it out and said, okay, how about a quarterly plan? Give me a quarterly milestone so that I can work for so that I can be thinking about these things.
Speaker 2:So if folks would like to try that prompt out today, that would be a fun way to start the year and think about what you might be looking forward to. And if you have not been using generative AI as closely, or you think AI might not chat GPT or Gemini or Copilot or Cloud might not be able to set your intentions for you you could also just spend a few minutes sharing a little bit about you and what your life is like, could also just spend a few minutes sharing a little bit about you and what your life is like, what your day-to-day is like, and then see what it comes back with. Given what you've shared, what would you suggest for goals or resolutions? And I love that as a way to start the year and use AI to help us make this our best year ever.
Speaker 1:I love it. Yeah, I'd recommend. I know a couple of listeners said that they were going to download the Verbs app. There's one in there.
Speaker 1:Look for a agent called mind mirror and it does kind of what you're explaining where it prompts you. The AI prompts you instead of you prompting it so that it can learn more about you. And because what I did was I essentially used the mind mirror to then basically kind of get to know and understand me, my values, my motivations, my background, my history, I think I even uploaded like my LinkedIn profile, my resume, I just kind of fed it a bunch of stuff, and so it all gets self-contained in there. And then I actually created an Autobot, amy. So I have like an Amy agent. So it's like when I'm doing my travel and things like that, I, you know, the Autobot Amy knows everything about me. So it's like when I'm going to San Diego for this trip, what are the restaurants I should check out, what are the sites that I should see? It's like, okay, I know that you're vegan and you love hiking and yoga, so here are the places and the things you should be doing.
Speaker 1:And so finding a way, I think, to train a certain chat or that chat, gpt, you can create projects, I think, in Claude. I think it's such a great idea and it's a great tool for coaching. Honestly, like you were talking about parent coaching, I think even a little bit of career coaching to some degree, because it can really come out of left field with things that you would not normally consider in the ways of roles and opportunities. I actually just had the idea I really want to create a guidance counselor. I want to give it to my high school age nephews, a guidance counselor, and I want to give it to my high school age nephews, you know, because it's like I grew up in a small town and are like I always joke about this. But he basically told me there's like you can be a doctor, I know he said a nurse. He didn't say a doctor Cause I was a woman. So you know, I can be a doctor, a nurse, a teacher, I don't even remember the other two two other things that were very kind of commonplace.
Speaker 1:And then a wife. He literally listed wife as number five and I was like ready to flip the desk on him. You know and again because depending upon I don't even know if guidance counselors still exist Maybe they do. My kids are in elementary school, so we're not there yet but just having that whole world opened up to you because it's got the input and information there are so many types of jobs and careers and opportunities out there you as one human, even with Google as a search tool, will not be able to summarize or find out what those things are and it can really take juxtaposed ideas and philosophies and values for you and put them together and find one role that actually fits all those things. Which I found was really interesting because I kind of use it as like a career coach too.
Speaker 2:I love it, I love that and, amy, you know what else I did. That kind of help could help with. A career coach is like um.
Speaker 2:Over the years, in various roles or different trainings that I've been to, I have gotten to take a lot of those different typing tool like disc and what color is your parachute, and I have all of those results saved in a file on my laptop and I trained my own little bot based on here's all this information about me. This is my color of my parachute. I'm yellow. Whatever these are all my results and I'm not nervous about putting that information into generative AI Sharing that type of information about myself. I'm not precious about that, but I put that all in and made my own little bot and then asked a lot of questions about, like preparing for performance reviews, you know, setting goals at work, thinking about time management and with a bot that knows all of this about me, it could give me some really good, even scripts. You know scripts on down, how to respond to things. So that's a fun way I think to use to train your tool to learn more about you use what other tools have said about you oh, 100%.
Speaker 1:Yeah, now that you mentioned it, I'm pretty sure I'm going to put in Myers-Briggs and my Enneagram and a bunch of other things in there too, cause, yeah, the more you can kind of feed it, as long as you're comfortable with it, the better. And, like you said, none of that's like all of that's on the internet, for the most part for me, so I'm not like it's already out there.
Speaker 1:I'm not super nervous about it. I love it. All right. We did get a question from one of our live listeners, so I do want to, I do want to make sure we ask. Linda wants to know do you have a recommendation for a tool that can help manage your to-do?
Speaker 2:list. Yes, okay. So my to-do list lives in two places, linda. One it's in my notes app and two it's in my calendar. And I love to put things on my calendar to block time from my to-dos. And lately I've been using this great tool that for calendar management. It can do a lot of other things, but I use it mostly for calendar management. It's called Ohai O-H-A-I Ohai. You can download it in the app store and it integrates with your calendar. So if I have a to-do, I can text Ojai or I can communicate with the Ojai app and ask it to put things on my to-do list and then, if I don't have time to get to it because so often, you know, I have like block time to write my social posts or block time to answer emails, and then something comes up then I can ask oh, I move that to tomorrow or move that to another day, and it will prompt you in the evenings to ask do you need me to block time for anything for you to do?
Speaker 2:So, if you're a manager to do list through your calendar. Oi is a wonderful tool to use for that.
Speaker 1:That's wonderful. I love it. I'm going to have to check that out with our goal getters because our members if you're listening we've got 50 people registered. I hope everybody shows up for our authentic ambition and goal setting workshop we have.
Speaker 1:We often recommend reclaimai and it integrates with Google and Google calendars and it'll do something similar where you can take emails and make them tasks and it'll block time for you. I am the same way, like if it's not on my calendar, it just doesn't happen. And then it actually gives you reports on how you're spending your time and it's really looking for work-life integration and balance in the sense of like how you're spending your time. So it'll like category as the things that you're doing to really make sure that you're just not burning yourself out. So it's like it's almost like another coach in a way, right as looking at your calendar going yo, amy, you've been on 12 hours of phone calls, you've been doing 10 hours of deep work a day, like you need to just slow your roll and get kind of more and it'll make recommendations and it'll always find time and, like you said, it'll kind of like if you miss it or you don't get the task done, you can move it ahead in your calendar and it is brilliant, brilliant brilliant, brilliant.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of good list working here of things.
Speaker 1:I know we'll definitely include all the links inside the show notes as well. Um, for some of these tools Cause yeah, it's, there's a lot of good stuff out there, I think sometimes just finding, like we said earlier, what works for you. But getting recommendations from others is also just really helpful, right, Cause it cuts through the clutter.
Speaker 2:You don't have to look forever and ever and ever for the right thing, because that's also part of like the rabbit hole right, yes, and when you subscribe to something or do the free subscription and then it turns out that you're you have so many tools and you're paying for tools but maybe not getting the value. So it's wonderful to hear what's really working for others.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely All right, let's see. Our next question is looking ahead what excites?
Speaker 2:you the most about AI's potential to support working parents.
Speaker 2:Okay, amy, you mentioned agentic AI earlier and I am thrilled by the prospects of agentic AI to change the game for parents and caregivers.
Speaker 2:Agentic AI I know you've discussed this on the podcast before, but agentic AI is AI that can act as an agent for humans, kind of like the bots that we've been talking about here.
Speaker 2:Ai that can actually take things off of the plates of caregivers and in my discussions with moms and caregivers about the mental load, generative AI can be transformative, you know, to have that thought partner to help you come up with ideas, generate strategies and coaching. But I think agentic AI is truly what can change the game for folks whose time is the most compressed, and that's parents and caregivers those who are looking after others. So I am so excited about what's to come and you know, automation has been around for some time and, like you mentioned, ai has been around for 40 years, depending on how you count the beginning of it. But we're just at the beginning of uniting those two things and seeing the power of how automation and AI can come together in the form of AI agents, and I just can't wait to see what the future will bring for those who care for and look after others.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I love it, I 100% agree, and actually one group I'm thinking of right now is parents or those who are caring for kids with like special needs, because that can be such a big, heavy load and daunting and it can take up a lot of their time and energy and effort to find the resources, I think, for resource searching and things like that, for tools and things, that which you know you can find, either help, support, for yourself or for your kid in that situation is so good, because it can also be a very isolating experience to be the parent of a kid with, you know, special needs, whether they're physical or mental or learning.
Speaker 1:That's a heavy, heavy load that a lot of my friends, family, neighbors have all kind of come up against and I think it could be a really exciting way to help them find those resources. Because, again, it's like you know, most of these nonprofits or they're usually nonprofits, right, and they're not super tech savvy companies themselves so even just trying to find the right places and the right tools is hard. So to have that information gathering ability is just, it's wonderful. I'm excited for that.
Speaker 2:So to have imagining a future where an AI agent or an AI assistant can help do research, whether it's health research or special needs research, make calls act as your advocate when you are needing to.
Speaker 2:You know, advocate on behalf of yourself or your loved ones that you care for, whether it's kids or, you know, elder generations, parents yeah, helping navigate things with insurance, just giving you the strategies or do the research for you. The idea I mean the future vision where AI can support and help people and give some of their time back and empower them to advocate for themselves and others is so thrilling to me. Agreed.
Speaker 1:Agreed, because everything we're talking about there, whether it's raising kids or taking care of aging parents, it's such an emotional roller coaster on top of everything else. So to have to take on the information and I don't know about anybody else that's listening but I feel like when I'm under pressure or stress, I retain less, I feel a little bit dumber, I'm like I have to do what where it's so easy to kind of run into that wall of overwhelm. So I agree with you I think this is going to make, I hope, a lot of people's lives easier, and those are the kinds of tools between that and healthcare too. I'm really excited to see where AI goes in the realm of helping with our healthcare system, because, oh my, I do take care of my mom and it's just, it's a nightmare. So, yeah, I love it All right. What advice would you give to someone who wants to be innovative with AI but works within maybe a traditional or more resistant environment?
Speaker 2:Okay, there's so many folks who are finding themselves in this challenge and the folks that their team, that they need to connect with, the folks who are going to be their best friends in taking small steps towards innovating with AI, are going to be those who work in technology, who work in compliance and who work in legal, because we're not going to get anywhere trying to adopt AI without the buy-in of those folks in a professional environment. And I would really encourage people to do two things. One is to start small. Start small with a pilot or a local program that's low stakes, that doesn't involve customers, that's internal, that's operationally focused and identifies tasks that are repetitive or manual in nature. So, in creating that small pilot in a safe space, it's something easier to say yes to. And then, second and I am seeing the pain myself personally from running pilots without clearly identifying how you're going to measure your success at the beginning, identifying what is the goal. Is it time saved? Is it more throughput? Is it employee satisfaction? What is it that you're trying to achieve with your AI pilot? Setting that out at the beginning and then measuring throughout the pilot so that at the end, if it's successful, you can use that to make the case to scale with your new partners in crime working on this, the technology, compliance and legal folks.
Speaker 2:In my professional world and in my personal world, I've run little pilots or experiments using AI but haven't been so clear about what success looks like and how I'm going to measure it. And, being an early adopter, sometimes it's easy to just roll up my sleeves and jump right in. But now the pain on the back end of running what I think would be a successful pilot but not being able to scale because I can't prove that it was successful oh, that pain is so real, so sharp. So if folks are in an environment where they're looking to innovate and would like to bring this into their professional world, I really hope that they can partner with technology, with compliance or with legal, start small in a safe space that doesn't involve the customers, that's operationally focused, and that they know what they're going to measure and what success looks like so that they can plan that on to scale. On the other end, that's brilliant.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much. I love that. That's great. That's a great little outline there. I hope all of you are taking notes. If not, guess what? You can watch the recording or listen to the podcast again. No, that's great.
Speaker 1:I love that framework. I used to do a lot of work with a massive CPG company and I learned early on, even as a creative, that like test and learn. You know, safe space to test and learn is always a great way to get buy in on kind of new emerging ideas and tech. That might feel a little risky. It's like how can I mitigate as much of the risk as possible but then still prove, like you said, the outcome? I think that's an important lesson. So thank you for sharing that and not being like oh, then you get the data. You're like no, I kind of forgot that. That was the important part to basically prove to people that this was a worthwhile endeavor. So I think that's great. I love it. All. Right, let's see how do you balance being an AI advocate while maintaining authentic human connections, because I mean, that's one thing we haven't touched on yet. It's like okay, but now we're just talking to machines all the time. How do we approach that?
Speaker 2:topic. Okay, two ways. One is I use AI to give me time back. I use AI to write draft content for me. I rarely, if ever, anymore, start with a blank page, whether it's for AI Empowered Mom or my work in corporate technology. And AI saves time for me so that I can build those authentic human connections at work, you know, having meaningful interactions with my peers and colleagues, or at home, spending less time doing the first draft or editing my work or speaking the thoughts of others, and instead just working with my AI tool. So I save time using AI so that I can spend it on authentic human connections.
Speaker 2:And then the second thing and I asked some of the folks in my advisory board, including my husband yesterday how do you think we're doing with all the AI in our lives and does it get in the way or does it enable us to have authentic connections? And his compliment to me, which I thought was kind and funny, was that I don't talk about AI all the time, and it's a challenge. I'm so passionate about AI all the time and it's a challenge. I'm so passionate about AI, but I know to build up into human connections, the best thing to do is to connect with humans in a human way. So I use AI to save my time, so that I can spend more time connecting authentically with my husband or with my friends, or meeting my friends for lunch and coffee. You know, I could spend this afternoon today drafting up my social posts for this week or writing up some product research, but instead I have AI do that for me so that I can spend time connecting with my friends and not talking about AI all the time.
Speaker 1:Don't worry, it's hard in this household too. He's my husband's the head of AI at a company and I'm running a digital community, so but yeah, I do. But I love that and I have said that from the very beginning as well that I really want, I like this. I'm like I want the robots to show up and do the work of robots. I don't, I don't want to be the robot, I want to be the human. It kind of brings the full circle back to our like the opening quote right.
Speaker 1:That was all over the internet. It's like I wanted to do the things that will free me up to do more art, more writing, more creative, more quality time, be more present, because I've learned how to make life and the things that are more automatic automatic, you know and so I get to spend less time being the bot, which I kind of love. So, yeah, all right. Well, we're going to go into our fun little power round of questions, so it's kind of like our lightning round, but before we do that, I just want to get a pulse from our live listening audience. You all have been so engaged. Let us know if you have any questions. I want to make sure we get those in before we wrap up. I do want to call out Linda's question. This is so true, I feel this. I have mentioned that my husband and I need a wife many times. How true is that? This is what happens when you create an auto bot.
Speaker 2:You you just found that life. Finally, yes, I need that bot to carry the mental load for me. That is what I need to be. I can delegate all of that worrying and get a partner in the decision making. So I love that?
Speaker 1:Absolutely I do. I love it. It's so fun. I mean, I think I've even gone to chat because, like my husband and I, of course, like after a long workday, one of the things that will trigger me is you ask me what I want for dinner, cause I'm like I don't want to think about it. I don't want to do it, I don't want to think about it, and so sometimes we'll just like pull a bay. I've also used it for meal planning as well in the past, for helping me come up with meal plans for specific dietary needs and then a grocery list from that as well. So that's another fun little tip trick that you all can use meal planning and in your grocery list. Those are two things that I'm always like I don't, I want to do this but I don't want to do this.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean. I want to have some say in it, but I want it done. I don't want that. They can take a picture of what's in their fridge, they can take a picture of what's in their pantry, or they can use voice to text, so you don't have to sit there with your thumbs and type it all out. You can use that Take advantage of the multimodal nature of generative AI and share what's in your fridge or pantry to get some ideas on what you can do so fun.
Speaker 1:I feel like there's some smart fridges that do that are already out there, which I'm just like.
Speaker 2:We're not there yet I have a young fridge in my house, though Do you, I love it.
Speaker 1:I love it. It's amazing. I mean again just about making life a little bit easier for us so we can just sit down and enjoy and, like you said earlier, be present. I think that's something we struggle with in general as a society is being present, and I think that's one thing I've enjoyed that it has allowed me to do Again, like you said, do more time-saving measures on like the more rudimentary routine, mindless, robot-y type things, so I can just show up, be present and be human, all right? Well, our listening audience has no further questions, it looks like, but you know, don't be shy, pop in. We still got a few extra minutes when we wrap up these lightning round, power round question. So, all right, you ready, sarah, I'm ready. Okay, what is your go-to AI tool for a crazy Monday?
Speaker 2:morning Copilot all the way. Crazy Monday morning. I want to use Copilot to tell me what's coming up on my calendar for the week. Catch me up on or help me prep for my meetings. Draft meeting prep summaries. Think back to what I wrapped up on Friday If there's anything that I left undone. Um, co-pilot is the way that I get things going in the mornings, especially on Monday mornings, to help me get ready for the week.
Speaker 1:I love that. That's fantastic Great tip. All right, what is your favorite prompt starter?
Speaker 2:My favorite prompt starter is write me a prompt, um, I use you for that People don't realize that.
Speaker 1:that's like you're just like wait, what I thought I was supposed to prompt. No, no, no.
Speaker 2:AI right. You know I spend my days encouraging people and teaching people how to write prompts. There's millions of prompt frameworks. There's huge prompt libraries. I built my own prompt library on my website but guess what? You don't need it. You can just ask generative AI to write a prompt for you, and the prompts that I get out of generative AI are better and you can run A-B testing. I love to ask prompt starter write me two prompts to do what I'm trying to do and then run both prompts, see which one has better results. And I'm often running. So my favorite prompt starter is write me a prompt.
Speaker 1:I love that so much. I'm right there with you. When I learned that it was like it blew my mind. I think using the Mind Mirror the first time did that for me as well. And then we've got another group that we partner with a lot called Narratize. It's a woman owned AI company here in Cincinnati. I check them out, Narratize happy to make an intro to if you want.
Speaker 1:They've created a platform and a large language model in which it prompts you to create, to answer questions, and so it's meant to kind of help people who are developers and researchers, those who aren't fantastic storytellers to learn how to create pitches and write grants and stories that will help them get funding money that they need whether it's grants or sponsorships or capital by basically using the prompts and it'll generate like pitch decks for you and everything. It's amazing. So shout out to you. Katie Trapp, Taylor, we love you guys. Yeah, They've been at our conference the last two years too, and they do great workshops on how to just leverage this, and I think they even created a new tool that's more specific for marketers on creating like a press release and all kinds of different things. So it's all about the knowing what is for like what it might be for maximum. You know output. It asks you for that input and data, so you're the one being prompted versus AI, but I love using AI for prompting.
Speaker 2:You know that same style works for job seekers as well. You know, for interview prep, to think of all the questions, get the responses, go back and forth, get coaching. So that same, just that same thinking. That doesn't have to just be, you know, I submit a prompt and I receive, but instead we work together and take advantage of the collaborative nature.
Speaker 1:So, so exciting. All of a sudden you're in there for so many things y'all didn't even think about, right All the ways. Now you've just like tripled your AI capacity and abilities in one hour long conversation. I love it. What AI? On that note, I guess one AI tip you wish you had known a year ago.
Speaker 2:You know we talked about it a little bit, but I wish I had started taking advantage of that multimodal nature of AI earlier. Multimodal means that I can communicate input data in different modes, whether it's photos or talk, my voice or video. And I spend so much time with my thumbs my tired thumbs chatting with the chat GPT app or the Copilot or Gemini app or thinking that this is a big task so I need to go open up my laptop. I think that's like elder millennial thinking that I'm like OK, this is a laptop task, I need to go sit down and type it all out, but instead I can use my voice or use photos photos worth a thousand words. I wish I had known that a year ago and had been putting photos in just to get a leg up and make things move faster.
Speaker 2:I tried that yesterday with my scary craft closet. I had the day off, so I was like, okay, it's a new year, I'm going to tackle this, but there's no way I could have accurately described the terrible mess that was in there. Instead, I just sent a picture of my crazy craft closet and said look at this, how do I organize it? And then got the tips, not only how to organize it, but also how to talk to my kids about keeping it that way, so that hopefully, maybe this is the year where we have a cleaner craft closet and we enjoy our crafting more. There's no way I could have described it with words, so using that multi-level nature is what I wish I knew before.
Speaker 1:I'm going to give that a try and then I'm going to also explore that. How do I help them keep it that way, Other than like threatening them to see it? Look at it now. Give it that way, Right.
Speaker 2:The tip that came out was, which was I should have known, but, um to, my older daughter can read and my younger two are just learning, so labeling things clearly in ways that they can recognize. Sure, yeah, I should have done that, but then? But now I'm like you know where all of these things go, so please use labels. We'll see Fingers crossed, we'll fingers crossed, but that was a good idea that came out.
Speaker 1:I love it. That's great. Yeah, cause it's one of those things Sometimes you think it's just lackadaisical and other times it's just a lack of information.
Speaker 2:Yes, right.
Speaker 1:So which one is it? Which one is it? I love that. All right, complete the sentence. The future of AI and parenthood is Full of potential.
Speaker 2:It's full of potential, it's untapped potential and it's so exciting. I'm I'm just thrilled by the possibilities of using AI to empower parents and caregivers to give us back our most valuable commodity, which is our time time for those that we love and time for ourselves. So I'm so hopeful for the AI empowered future of parenting and caregiving.
Speaker 1:Me too, sarah. Thank you so much. I love what you're doing, how you're kind of infusing the work that you're doing within the professional environment and bringing it out and transcending it into the parenting and caretaking environment. It's such a much needed tool in that space. And, yeah, it's just, I don't think it's a space anybody's talking about our owning, so I just I love.
Speaker 1:thank you, member Ellen Cox, amazing Ellen, who connected us and making this conversation possible, cause this is going to be the first of many conversations in ways. I hope that we get the chance to work together, because I think there's just so much opportunity in this and whatever we can do to help support you and what you're doing at the AI Empowered Mom, we're excited to do it All right. My last question for you is going to be what is your? Because you're super inspiring and I love all your energy, sarah. What is your personal mantra for 2025?
Speaker 2:My personal mantra for 2025 is to be intentional with my time. I've spent 2024 finding ways to be more productive, be more efficient, and in 2025, I want to be thoughtful in how I use that time that I'm saving. So intention is my word for this year, and I intend to be intentional with my time, the time savings that I get from AI, and to make the most of this exciting place in time and technology, of this wonderful time with, where my kids are becoming little people, of the special time that I have right now. So it's being intentional with my time is what I'm looking forward to.
Speaker 1:This year Wonderful. This has been such great. There's both again such a great balance of information, but also inspiration. So thank you to all of our busy live listeners who've taken the time to tune in and listen live. Thanks to all of our amazing podcast listeners and subscribers. If you haven't subscribed yet, please do. Please follow us on YouTube as well, where you can see a lot of our past episodes there as well. Sarah, thank you so much for being our kickoff for the new year. This is perfect. This is so spot on. Really appreciate you and your time.
Speaker 2:Well. Likewise, thank you for helping me kick off the year. Being part of a supportive community of women is so important and it you know it is something I crave in my heart and soul. So thank you for giving me access to this amazing community. Thanks to Ellen, and happy new year.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Happy new year, sarah. Happy new year everyone. Thank you all for joining us. We're excited to see you all again next week. Until then, everyone keep asking keep giving and keep growing. We'll see you next week. Bye, bye.
