The AI Advantage: Energizing Female Solopreneurs and Redefining Opportunities. A Conversation with Erika Stanley (Epi. #220)

Unlocking the Power of AI for Women Entrepreneurs | Energy Conservation & Authenticity

In this episode, Erica shares her personal journey with AI and its incredible impact on her professional life. She discusses how she started using ChatGPT in 2023 and how it helped her manage wedding planning and client work. Erica, a brand and web designer, emphasizes the potential of AI to aid highly driven women entrepreneurs in conserving energy and enhancing creativity. The conversation delves into the importance of authenticity in social media, tips for customizing AI to suit individual needs, and the broader implications of AI on the gender wage gap. Tune in for actionable insights on leveraging AI for business success while maintaining authenticity and balancing personal energy.

Bio:

Erika Stanley helps women entrepreneurs bring clarity, alignment, and ease to their businesses through AI-powered branding, automation, and strategy. As a brand strategist and founder of Mile End Digital and AI Queens Society, she teaches solopreneurs how to use AI intentionally—so they can scale without burnout, attract aligned clients, and spend more time in their zone of genius.  AI isn’t just about efficiency—it’s about creating space for purpose-driven entrepreneurs to build a business that truly reflects their values and vision. Whether she’s speaking on a podcast, running a workshop, or guiding her AI Queens community, Erika simplifies AI so it’s accessible, intuitive, and actually useful for modern solopr

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Transcript

[00:00:00] shilpa: Welcome, Erica. I'm so happy you're here. 

[00:00:06] erika: Thank you so much for having me. 

[00:00:08] shilpa: I think we have something in common, probably more things in common once we start talking, but for sure, um, we are keen on utilizing AI and I'd love to hear your background, your journey, and then your thoughts about the mindset space.

[00:00:29] shilpa: And perhaps we can go into the whole, how can it save your energy? 

[00:00:34] erika: Oh, gosh. Yeah. So if we rewind. So starting off, I have been in the marketing and creative space for almost 20 years. And if we rewind back to 2023 at the very end of the year, I was about four months out from my wedding and chat. GPT had just come onto the market.

[00:00:59] erika: Open [00:01:00] AI and people were talking about it. And I I didn't quite know what it was, but I had heard that it was a tool that could help you. And so I had this really long to do list and some of it was related to the wedding and some of it was client work. I had a ton of projects going on at the time and I just was feeling so overwhelmed going into the holidays.

[00:01:22] erika: It's like, all right, let's see what this little thing can do. And I popped my to do list into chat GPT and it just helped me Organize all of my thoughts into Small medium and large tasks helped me organize it based on theme the like mental effort that it was going to take to accomplish some of these tasks and Just within that 30 seconds between when I put it in and when I started to see it spit out results like, Oh my goodness, this is going to be such a huge help.

[00:01:55] erika: I mean, fast forward, even just a month or two after that, and I was already using [00:02:00] it to help clients who. Maybe needed to optimize their bio, they were going to be on a podcast and needed a professional bio and all they had was the one that was on their website. And so I started using it for more things like that.

[00:02:14] erika: And I really started to see pretty quickly how this could help the women that I work with. And I primarily I'm a Brand and web designer and content strategist. And I primarily work with highly driven, highly capable women. I know you can relate. You seem like one of those highly capable women. And one of the, it's a plus and a negative, is that we are used to doing things ourselves.

[00:02:44] erika: Because we can, we do. And I see it all the time with my clients that They get burnt out on content creation, writing blogs, writing social media posts, and in particular, the solo [00:03:00] business owners, you just feel like you're spinning your wheels all the time, and they're really good at what they do, and they're expecting themselves to be A plus at social media.

[00:03:12] erika: When maybe they were never trained in that and A. I, uh, in particular, the large language models, although I do have clients that are branching out, it has been a complete game changer. Oh, gosh, I just like game changer is one of those A. I words husband. I know it's so cliche, but it has been a big leg up for a lot of my clients who were feeling that weight of being on the social media, um, hamster wheel.

[00:03:39] erika: And it's just It's been incredible to be like the guide along on the ride with them for that. 

[00:03:47] shilpa: I, I couldn't agree more. And just, just a side comment about these cliché words. They may be cliché, but we were using them well before, like, in corporate, like, um, we're gaining [00:04:00] traction, um, the belly of the underbeast, all these things.

[00:04:05] shilpa: They're true. And I think we've inadvertently probably trained the AI saying, this is how we feel like we've unlocked. Oh, yeah. Creativity. Unlocked. Unleashed. Unlocked. Unleashed. Yes, and that is repetitive. Now, I do try to avoid certain words that become cliché, but the truth is there. You were mentioning that sort of being in that loop.

[00:04:31] shilpa: Of, uh, being stuck and trying to come up with things. That's one of the key things that I've seen myself being able to help with me and potential clients is the surge of creativity, unlocking of the creativity. Yes. 

[00:04:49] erika: It's a great brainstorming and sparring partner. I, I personally, and a lot of the women I work with, we're not lifetime [00:05:00] entrepreneurs.

[00:05:00] erika: A lot of us have come from corporate have come from other offices and you're used to working with other people and having somebody that you can just walk over to their office or turn around if they're at the desk behind you and be like, Hey, what do you think about this idea? And now there's been this huge shift.

[00:05:16] erika: To remote work or work from home or entrepreneurship, honestly, and we don't have that anymore. Now I'm still we're still the people that I talked to. Everybody's cultivating communities now. Um, they may not be people you work with, but there are people that are maybe on the same track as you. If it's in a if it's in a different industry, then you're at the same place in your business journey.

[00:05:41] erika: Um, so we have those communities, but it's still It's been a huge benefit for me to have this creative sparring partner that I can throw ideas like, Oh, Hey, I'm, I'm thinking about this for a campaign. What are some potential pitfalls? What are some [00:06:00] things that I'm like, where are some gaps? What am I missing here?

[00:06:02] erika: And for it to just be able to spit out. Um, Some, some ideas and me to go back and forth with my little AI, my chat GPT buddy, I, I have a, I have a couple of custom GPTs that I use pretty regularly. And so I, I have one specifically trained on me, my business, my ideal audience, um, the things that I love to sell.

[00:06:27] erika: My client's pain points. And so when I'm sparring back and forth, it has all of that background knowledge. And it's using that to help spark ideas in my brain that normally it would have been a coworker. They are helping me. I don't have a coworker. It's just kind of me right now. And so that's been hugely helpful for me.

[00:06:48] shilpa: Now, are you also in the entrepreneur space right now or are you, yeah, wonderful. 

[00:06:55] erika: I am. I am. I build, I build full brands, [00:07:00] websites, and, um, content and marketing strategies for my clients for these, the highly capable women. And I mostly work with people who have been in business for a little while, um, three to five years ish.

[00:07:13] erika: I don't know about you, but a couple of years into my business, it looked very different than it had when I first launched. And so the brand, the website that I launched with, it needed to look a little different, um, than it did just because I had grown. And so I'm working with women who are in that stage.

[00:07:32] erika: Where maybe what they launched with isn't quite right anymore based on what they've learned and grown into, or they might be in that stage of their business where they want to be doing something different and they kind of feel stuck. So that's, that's where I work and most, I don't even want to say most, all of the women I work with, they're all in that AI curious space where they're coming to me, they've maybe tried to use it a little bit, they're not getting [00:08:00] the responses they want, or they tried it a year ago.

[00:08:03] erika: I'm like, this doesn't really sound like me. I can do it faster. I can do it better if I just do it myself. And I want to say to anyone listening who had that experience. First of all, it has come leaps and bounds just in the last, gosh, even the last few weeks, but of course the last year. So if you tried it before and didn't get the results that you were looking for, please hop back in again.

[00:08:27] erika: Um, but also I think that there are. Different ways that we can interact with it different customizations that just help to give it a bit more context and to help take that mental load off for women. We carry a lot and AI has the potential to help take and alleviate some of that mental load that we carry around with us day in and day out.

[00:08:58] shilpa: I couldn't agree more. Like, I [00:09:00] have like a thousand comments about how I want to follow up with what you just said. But one thing just came to my mind. Like, you were talking about the wedding being the catalyst for working with it. And my wedding took place over 15 years ago. And I got married over 15 years ago.

[00:09:18] shilpa: My husband and I are both user experience designers, and we took it nauseous, and we took like, we were crazy detail oriented about every nuance of the wedding with a spreadsheet and, uh, ratings and everything. And I remember one time just before the wedding, just sitting there and my husband's like, you're still thinking about the wedding, aren't you?

[00:09:41] shilpa: And I go, I can't stop my brain. There's so many details. Well, fast forward to any part of my life now, like we're planning a, um, a trip in a few months and I'm like, give me everything we need because we're going to have the most [00:10:00] awesome trip. 

[00:10:02] erika: I, this past summer, I used it to help me plan a capsule wardrobe for a trip where I only wanted to pack a carry on and I wanted to make sure that, and I, you know, we have.

[00:10:14] erika: When we travel, we don't have a strict schedule, but we have like, you know, we're going to be here on these days. We want to do this. We want to go to a museum one day. We want to go see a musical another day. And so I had a rough outline, and I helped, I used it to help me plan a simple, like, basic color coordinated capsule wardrobe.

[00:10:34] erika: And I packed for that whole, like, 12 day trip. In a carry on using ChatGPT, ChatGPT, 

[00:10:41] shilpa: I've heard, I've heard a lot of other people talk about trip planning and, you know, going from wedding planning, trip planning, but then going back to something a little more, um, professional oriented, career oriented, like you and I've been describing content creation is, um, a challenge for a lot of people.[00:11:00] 

[00:11:00] shilpa: And I've had one client would talk about, well, I sit there thinking, what am I going to say next? In this next post, that alone is it, you know, I didn't think I would have that challenge, but then I don't necessarily like to post every day. And yet, how do you balance that with staying authentic? You don't want to post for the sake of posting.

[00:11:24] erika: Yeah, and, and that, that is a balance, right? You don't ever just want to post just because you feel like you have to, um, and I think It's easy to forget the social part of social media, that it's just as important to engage with others as it is to just be. Post your own stuff. So, um, that in itself, staying social, I think, helps you stay more authentic.

[00:11:53] erika: It can help you, um, be more mindful of your authenticity as you are engaging with other people, [00:12:00] um, on whatever platform you're on. Um, there are a ton of social media influencers out there who are constantly posting. Here's 20 hooks that you can use. Here's a bunch of different post formats. And, um, Yes. If you are just copying them, it can feel inauthentic.

[00:12:25] erika: However, those are my favorite types of posts. I love to screenshot those posts or to download their freebie and then pop that into ChatGPT, into my custom GPT that then knows about me and my business and my clients, my audience, all of that and have it give me Different ideas and angles for how I can use that person's hook idea, or these 20 hooks that they just gave me for free.

[00:12:53] erika: And how can I use those to speak to my clients? Now, those are just the hooks. The story that comes after [00:13:00] that, that's what's coming from me. That's what's coming from my experience, my years of expertise, my own personal life. I was it. Um, I was at the climbing gym a few weeks ago, and I was, you know, standing at the bottom of the wall waiting my turn.

[00:13:17] erika: There was this one particular route that I was trying to get. It was trying to master and I had already fallen a couple of times. And so I was waiting for somebody else. And I had this thought about how. The climbing gym, the climbing wall in particular, is this like mirror for business where you've got the short term goal of getting from the bottom to the top, but then you've got a longer term goal of okay, I'm on this easy route here and I want to get more and more advanced and it's going to take practice and you have to be okay with the fall and you have.

[00:13:48] erika: So here I am. In my full gear and I run over and grab my phone and I put into my, I open up my apple notes app and I start voice dictating this whole, like this idea [00:14:00] to myself. Now this is my own experience. I'm standing there in the moment. I don't want to lose my place in line. Um, but I want to get the ideas out and then I just sat it to the side.

[00:14:11] erika: I went back the next day, kind of fine tuned the thoughts and then popped them into chat GPT and asked, how are some ways that I could phrase this that would resonate with my ideal audience? And It was the, um, the, of the three ideas that it gave me, I ended up going with, it's the, um, the comfort zone trap, where you get stuck in your comfort zone, and I mean, I could stay on the easy routes at the rock wall and still have a blast, but I'm not ever going to get any better because I'm stuck in my comfort zone.

[00:14:40] erika: Anyway, so it helped me come up with this idea for how I can make this relevant to my people, but it's still my authentic story. And I think that. Women in particular, we are more sensitive to these things. We're more empathetic, and we want to, we're seeing all of the garbage, [00:15:00] right? We're seeing all of the, the boring, generic posts.

[00:15:05] erika: Um, I see, I use LinkedIn a lot, so I see it particularly on LinkedIn in comments, where it's a bunch of dudes, and you know that they're using AI to leave these generic comments. And. It just it's this like huge red flag. And I know that as women, we want to be authentic. We see it. We don't want to be associated with that.

[00:15:23] erika: However, there are really smart and strategic ways that we can all be using AI to still get our stories out there that are going to, they're going to reach somebody, they're going to touch somebody. But Not all professional writers. We're not all professional social professional social media experts. How can I phrase this thing that that I know will reach people in a way that is not going to like, like I said earlier, like we were talking about earlier, like add to the mental load of my day.

[00:15:55] shilpa: Absolutely. And going back to something that you mentioned, um, and [00:16:00] I've, not everyone that's listening may understand AI as deeply, but for those who are curious, um, I invite them to understand that there are tools and techniques like you're expressing where you can take your, and I say this in a very light way, but let's say your persona, your, your, You're, you're profile is even if you're not a business owner, maybe you're retired, but there's something that makes you, you authentically you, maybe you like to go for beach walks, maybe you worked for the government for 35 years and you have an empathy for certain Conditions in the world.

[00:16:42] shilpa: I'm just saying that that makes you and that's your lens. And then if you're in the world of say a solopreneurship, like yours articulating, you've taken that to the next level. You're like, I know who I am. I know my audience and there's a way in chat [00:17:00] GPT and other AIs to then in the back end, give it your persona, your profile.

[00:17:06] shilpa: So when it's speaking to you. With your custom GPT. It's, it's saying, oh yeah, Persona X for you. And you're building out that 7 day program. And it, it knows you. So that's, I just, I wanted to share that for those who may not be like, what does she mean that it knows me? 

[00:17:27] erika: Oh gosh, thank you so much for bringing that up.

[00:17:29] erika: I, I forget sometimes that not, not everybody. Um, and the way I use it is different than the way a lot of other people use it because I'm dealing with multiple clients and multiple personas. So I have been setting up these, uh, custom GPTs, custom bots that are different for me, different for my different clients.

[00:17:46] erika: Um, most people could use, uh, there's a setting and I, I think this is available on the free version of chat GPT as well as custom instructions. And it's just that it's a setting within chat. Gpt. [00:18:00] Claude has something similar. Google Gemini has something similar, but you're basically telling it a little bit of context, a little bit of background information about yourself so that you're not starting from scratch every single time so that it already knows, like you said, that you you like taking walks, that you are retired, that you used to be a librarian.

[00:18:21] erika: And so I mean, all of these little nuancy things that make up the multifaceted humans that we are. It now knows a little bit of that and can put that into the responses that it spits back to you. Um, you might have a more professional tone or a more casual tone. You might be a little on the snarkier, edgier, um, edge of things.

[00:18:49] erika: Um, and, and you can You can put that information in there, and you will get responses that feel more customized, personalized [00:19:00] for you, rather than the standard, ready to unleash or unlock your journey, like, yeah. So, yeah. 

[00:19:08] shilpa: And you were saying, Erica, that, um, it is rapidly, almost exponentially improving, um, what it, from day to day.

[00:19:18] shilpa: So what it might've been six months ago, and even now, like, even with my custom GPT, paid version, and all the things that I'm, I'm constantly talking to it, there are times where it doesn't always nail it. And I will say, well, I don't use that phrase, or I don't use those kind of emojis. Um, and it may sound hip and cool, but I want to be authentic.

[00:19:45] erika: Absolutely, yeah. For some reason, it just, it can't, it does not understand that I don't use, I don't use certain emojis. It gave me one today where it was like the red flashy light, like the red [00:20:00] emergency. I would never use that. There's no such thing as a marketing emergency. I would not use that emoji. And it gives it to me all the time, even though I've told it not to.

[00:20:10] shilpa: Apparently, and I'll maybe share this with you offline, but there's a way to train it to not do that. I think what it is, is you say, use, um, do not, or use all these emojis, but these. Somehow, it's like this. Algorithm math formula. So they'll be like, oh, I can, I can only use these. 

[00:20:32] erika: Oh, 

[00:20:33] shilpa: okay. Kind of 

[00:20:34] erika: a, like a reverse.

[00:20:36] shilpa: Yeah, like a Venn diagram only use the, the subset only use these. Okay. I'll have to try that. Okay. So now going back to the meta theme, no geeky words here for this, um, episode is around energy awareness, women solopreneurs and the acceptance [00:21:00] that having this help, this service can help you conserve your energy for yourself, Erica.

[00:21:08] shilpa: What is your why? And how do you see AI helping you conserve your energy for your why?

[00:21:20] shilpa: Oh gosh. 

[00:21:20] erika: Um, well, I, I firmly believe that small business, and in particular women in small business, that we, we're going to save the world. Um, and. From what the studies that I'm seeing, women are not integrating A. I. Into their lives as much as men are. We're not utilizing it. We're not learning it. We're not writing about it.

[00:21:53] erika: Um, the adoption rates for A. I. Among women. It's it's lacking. And [00:22:00] we have a huge opportunity. To help to use a I to use technology to close the gender wage gap to close the gender tech gap. This technology was was built for what like it is perfect for women and dudes are using it more than we are. Um, and so I it is my mission to make sure as many women as possible use it know how to use it.

[00:22:35] erika: Get curious about it. Get in and get messy. You're not going to break it. Um, and so the, the best way to learn it is to just get in and play with it. Um, that, that's my why I really, I think that AI has an opportunity to help us close the gender wage gap. When you look at the types of use [00:23:00] cases or um, AI, as most people I see are using it.

[00:23:05] erika: Now, granted, there are tons within the research and the scientific field, and I think AI is going to cure cancer. Like, it's going to help us do so many things, but there are a lot of service based jobs that will be in danger of replacement due to AI, and a lot of those jobs are held by women, and AI If we want the opportunities to continue to have those jobs and to not be replaced, but to be leaders in this field, now is the time, right?

[00:23:40] erika: We are, we're the surfers, we're out in the ocean, the wave, the wave is here. Like it's, we are almost at the top of it. We need to be the surfer that's going to catch the wave and ride it all the way into shore. We cannot let this pass us by. So that's, that is the message that I want. To share with people [00:24:00] as much as I possibly can.

[00:24:02] shilpa: I couldn't agree more. That's something that I write about a lot. That's why you and I definitely keep in touch. Yeah. Yeah. Um, you probably know who said this. It's escaping me. But, um, that. AI won't replace you, but somebody that's using it may. And I do focus heavily on women in AI, women utilizing AI for, um, what I think of is the, I call it operational tasks for being a solopreneur, which often is the barrier to entry.

[00:24:38] shilpa: It is the reason why I, I believe my theory is that being a solopreneur can get difficult or people may not take it all the way is because that operational production stuff can be all consuming. But what women are really good with is I, this is my personal take, is we're good at [00:25:00] like the yin and yang, bringing it together, the creative parts, um, both sides of the brain.

[00:25:05] shilpa: And we, we are, we're able to unlock the creativity with that little, that little catalyst. 

[00:25:14] erika: Yes, totally. It, it is really good at taking two ideas and helping to connect the dots and bridge the gap. I'm sorry. We're at the point in the afternoon where my postal worker has just arrived to drop off the mail and my dogs are going a little crazy.

[00:25:33] erika: I 

[00:25:34] shilpa: can edit this part 

[00:25:35] erika: out. 

[00:25:36] shilpa: Okay. 

[00:25:36] erika: Yeah. Great. 

[00:25:38] shilpa: No, no, I'm not hearing it. It's okay. Don't worry about it.

[00:25:49] erika: Yes. So one of the things that AI is really good at, it's taking ideas. If I, if I've got two separate ideas and it helps me to, [00:26:00] um, to find a common thread, a way to tie ideas together and to bridge the gap between those. So just like you said, where you've got like the yin and the yang, the right brain and the left brain, and it's going to help you make those, those mental connections that, Okay.

[00:26:13] erika: Not that you couldn't make on your own eventually. I'm, I'm a pencil and paper post it note kind of girl. And so I used to, when I was working on big client projects, I would put things on post it notes and move them around until they all made sense. I know that I am capable of that. AI makes it faster.

[00:26:32] erika: It's still helping to make the connections that I would have made anyway, but it is, it is helping to, it's helping me to find those threads and pull them together faster and more efficiently than I could do on my own. 

[00:26:45] shilpa: Absolutely. I agree. And having that mind map be Iteratively refined for you. And yes, you can do it on pen and paper.

[00:26:58] shilpa: But can you imagine [00:27:00] iterating through multiple scenarios and throwing in orthogonal concepts? Like, well, what, by the way, I, my niche market is now and then you. throw that in, and it can pull data for you. And what I often do, and you can tell me if you do this, um, while I do utilize ChatGPT, I also am getting deeper into Claude.

[00:27:21] shilpa: I use MetaAI, I use, it's like, Perplexity, I just kind of pull, and then I do a lot of cross validation, so that whatever I'm referencing, Is, um, accurate because, you know, in the early days of Chad GPT, you'd be like, that does not sound right. How can that be possible? Yes. And that goes back 

[00:27:46] erika: to, yeah, authenticity.

[00:27:47] erika: I do that as well. I always fact check using Perplexity. Even now that ChatGPT has Search, and it will cite sources, [00:28:00] I still go back and double check because I still feel like it hallucinates occasionally. Or the sources that it's finding are not necessarily the best sources. Perplexity, it feels like it's giving me a lot more, um, reference material.

[00:28:15] erika: That I can choose and just make sure based on my experience and what I know, Oh, this is a relevant source. This is garbage. Um, I, Claude just released Sonnet 3. 7. I don't know if you've had a chance to play, but it's creative writing skills are leaps and bounds ahead of where a chat GPT is. It's so good.

[00:28:38] erika: It's so good. I haven't had a chance to play with, um, GPT 4. 5, but Sonnet 3. 7 is amazing. I also have been playing around with Notebook LM from Google and the ability to put in videos and files and create a whole knowledge base and [00:29:00] then have a full conversation with that knowledge base. That's really cool.

[00:29:06] erika: That's, if I were, if I were a kid, if I were a kid writing a research paper nowadays, being able to put in all of these reference and source materials, and then have a conversation with essentially these like books and ask these books questions, gosh, the, the use cases for this are just so, so cool. Now, um, 

[00:29:28] shilpa: tell me a little bit more about that.

[00:29:29] shilpa: You said it's from Google. 

[00:29:31] erika: Yes. So it's good. Google's notebook. Is it available 

[00:29:36] shilpa: for anybody or do you? Oh, yeah, it's 

[00:29:38] erika: available for anybody. It's free. Oh, actually, you might not, you might need to have a professional like a G Suite, but I use I use Gmail for my I use G Suite professional suite, Google Drive and Google Docs and all of that for my business.

[00:29:54] erika: So 

[00:29:54] shilpa: for the app in the drop down, just type in LM, 

[00:29:57] erika: you, you might need to Google Docs. [00:30:00] You might need to Google it, but just yeah, Google notebook LM and it gives you a little folder off to the side and you can put in a bunch of different materials, screenshots, files, PDFs, videos, YouTube, you know, cause Google owns YouTube.

[00:30:14] erika: So you can put in YouTube videos and then it uses that as reference material for the questions you're then asking it. It will also, it does this cool thing where you can have it create a podcast out of those materials. I, I don't know how I feel about that. So I'm on, I'm on the edge of like the ethics piece of like, what do I think about this?

[00:30:40] erika: What do I not think? Like, how are people using it? I was looking for, um, we're recording this at the very beginning of March. So the Super Bowl was just about a month ago. And, um, I was looking for podcasts on Kendrick Lamar's Um, Pulitzer prize winning [00:31:00] album, which was from like 2017 and I found this podcast on Kendrick Lamar and I started listening to it like this sounds too perfect and nowhere in the show notes.

[00:31:15] erika: Nowhere in anything did it say that it was AI generated, but I figured it out through, through listening to it and through readings like these are not two real people. This is AI generated content. It was still good content, but it did make me feel a little icky about it. I went out and found other podcasts to learn about how did this artist.

[00:31:38] erika: Win a Pulitzer Prize for a rap album, the first in history, like I wanted to know more. And the very first resource I found was AI generated. That just felt, that felt icky to me. 

[00:31:49] shilpa: No, that scares me. See, and we were talking about fear because that's where, I mean, it's almost like the classic books that were written, [00:32:00] I mean, like in reference to how, I don't know, do you remember that movie called Brazil, Stanley Kubrick, and talking about It's talking about the information age and fabrication, manipulation, and not being able to tell the difference.

[00:32:16] shilpa: I mean, we are sort of in that era right now. I haven't thought of that movie in years. 

[00:32:23] erika: I've been thinking of The Truman Show. 

[00:32:25] shilpa: Oh yeah, for sure. But there, there are like a variety of sub context cultural movies that have been playing into this for a while. And I, I, I agree. Like there are, there's pushback from a lot of people that I know, even like friends.

[00:32:41] shilpa: Like when I say I focus on social media strategy, but if I'm not able to say my full story, why? There's a lot of judgment and fear. 

[00:32:53] erika: Yeah, there is, and I think there will be, but [00:33:00] the genie's out of the bottle. We're, we're not, we're not putting it back in, and the people who don't want to adopt AI, don't want to start utilizing it, they're gonna, they're gonna be left behind.

[00:33:15] erika: And, I think that we as a society, we, we need to be responsible users of it. We need to hold our leaders to account to make sure that the proper safeguards are put in place. The issue with deep fakes. Um, even even something as simple as when open a I released the voice. Um, and gosh, this was it's been a year now, and they had asked Garlick Johansson, who was the voice for her and the movie, and I asked her, Hey, can we use your voice?

[00:33:55] erika: And she told them no, and they did it. Anyway, they [00:34:00] just pulled her voice off of the Internet and and she fought back and won. And so I think that there will there will be a point where our you. We're at the point where our leaders need to be held account, held to account, and we as a society have to be the voice for good, responsible AI usage and pushing back against the negative, harmful uses.

[00:34:33] shilpa: Yes, absolutely. And I'm glad you brought it to that because it is a responsibility and we're both conscientious of it. We're also conscientious of the fact that while it's helping us with our energy or meaning when I say energy, we're talking about, you know, where do you want to place your focus? Where do you want to place your day to day activity?

[00:34:54] shilpa: And I can tell you that there would be a great conversation you and I can go into deeper in a [00:35:00] different podcast, but just the fact that. I very strategically, proactively utilize that technology, AI in different ways so that I can free up my space, my energy for the creative stuff that I love. 

[00:35:14] erika: Yes. And I, I personally have to be careful and I know other people fall into this trap as well.

[00:35:22] erika: We're using AI to help free up space and give us, uh, give us space and focus our energy on other more important things. I personally know that I have to be careful that now this extra space and energy that I have that I'm not immediately filling it with other busy work with other energy sapping tasks.

[00:35:44] erika: So those, those little things on the to do list that I mean, if you don't get them done, it's at the end of the world. Those, those little energy There's energy drivers and energy drainers. And when I, like, when I get space in my [00:36:00] day, it's, it's insane how quickly I fill them with energy drainers because they're just sitting there on my to do list.

[00:36:07] shilpa: Well, and this goes back to being human and why we need to integrate mindfulness and different modalities because, um, our Mind can occupy our, our time in the worst of ways. So, yeah, I agree. I mean, I can just tell you, like, sometimes I'll mark in my planner. Okay. This is the time when I'm going to do a little workout and inevitably that workout keeps getting pushed further and further down in that list.

[00:36:41] shilpa: Because I'm like this one more thing, this one more thing. Oh, okay. Now I have to do this. And it's like. One o'clock, just before my son gets home from school, I'm like, Okay, quickly go for a run or a bike. 

[00:36:54] erika: Yeah, if we, if we only prioritized ourselves the way that we prioritize. [00:37:00] Other people and tasks, especially, especially business owners, like tasks in our business.

[00:37:07] erika: May we all be able to prioritize ourselves the way we prioritize other things. 

[00:37:14] shilpa: Absolutely. And that's the thing. Like, while I'm advocating for AI and for energy and conserving our energy. It's a challenge because we deprioritize ourselves. Well, um, Eric, I really enjoyed this conversation and you and I can go deeper into mindset and during the season of mindset if you'd like to come back.

[00:37:36] shilpa: Yes, I would love that. Thank you so much. Yeah. Thank you. I really feel like, um, there was so much value that you will give to other female solopreneurs on the journey. And I can't wait to talk to you again. 

[00:37:52] erika: Thank you so much. Shilpa. This has been an absolute pleasure. I'm really glad that we were able to have this conversation today.

[00:37:57] shilpa: Yeah. Me too. Well, have a great day. Okay. [00:38:00] Thank you. You as well.