Smarter Online Business - Tech, Tools & Truths to grow a smarter, stronger business

How Women Are Using AI to Reclaim Power in Online Business

• Carrie Saunders • Episode 120

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Feeling overwhelmed by all the talk about AI… like it’s just another shiny tool you’re supposed to master, but have no energy or desire to learn?

We’re flipping the script. Because AI isn’t just about automation—it can actually be a tool of liberation. Especially for women juggling chronic illness, neurodivergence, or the exhausting mental load of running a business solo.  And we are talking to expert Shawn Every about tactics to help break free.

So the question is: What if AI could support you—without replacing your humanity or draining your energy?


Connect with Shawn Every

Shawn Every is an AI coach and speaker who helps neurodivergent, chronically ill, and overwhelmed women use tools like ChatGPT to reclaim their time, energy, and voice. 

Facebook - Shawn Jackson Every

LinkedIn - Shawn Every

Instagram - @aiwithshawn

Website - https://askshawnai.com

👉🏽 Grab her free ChatGPT Quick Start Guide


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Hey, it’s Carrie here with a quick update - eCommerce Made Easy is now Smarter Online Business!

Same practical tips you love, just a clearer name for coaches, course creators, and online business owners. You’re still in the right place to learn how to turn your website into your smartest sales tool. 

Find our show notes at our new domain

https://www.smarteronlinebusiness.com/


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Carrie Saunders:

Feeling overwhelmed by all the talk about AI, like it's just another shiny tool you're supposed to master but have no energy or desire to learn. You're not alone. It's something I hear a lot with other business owners. In today's episode, we're flipping the script, because AI isn't just about automation. It can actually be a tool of liberation, especially for women juggling chronic illness, neurodivergence or just exhausting mental load of running a business solo, and we're talking to expert Sean Avery about tactics to help you break free. So the question is what if AI could support you without replacing your humanity or draining your energy? So let's dive in Struggling to turn website traffic into real sales. You're not alone and you don't have to figure it out all yourself.

Carrie Saunders:

Welcome to Smarter Online Business, the podcast. For course, creators, coaches and e-commerce entrepreneurs who want their websites to convert visitors into buyers without the tech overwhelm. I'm your host, Carrie Saunders, a website strategist and conversion expert with over 20 years of experience. Each episode delivers simple, proven strategies to help you generate more revenue and make your website your smartest sales tool. Welcome back to the show. Today we're talking with Sean Every, and she is an AI coach and speaker who helps neurodivergent, chronically ill and overwhelmed women use tools like ChatGPT to reclaim their time, energy and voice, and I am so excited to have Sean on our show today to teach us how to use AI and help us not be overwhelmed and do the things that we want to do with it. So, Sean, welcome to the show today.

Shawn Every:

Thank you so much, Keri. I am so excited to be here and just looking forward to just sharing some gems with the audience.

Carrie Saunders:

And so, Sean, I just said just a little bit about who you are, but I know there's a lot more to who you are. So could you tell us a little bit more about who you are and how you help people and who you serve?

Shawn Every:

how you help people and who you serve. Yes, so, as you mentioned, I do help overlooked women through my brand. My company is Ask AI with Sean. I work with solopreneurs who are tired of doing it all alone. I show them how to use tools like ChatGPT to support their daily workload and to help them get organized and give them back their time and energy, but all without having to be real super tech savvy right, my background is in tech, wellness and virtual support, and I've lived the chronic illness, the burnout, the brain fog, so I teach AI in a way that feels human, first judgment free and just really practical.

Carrie Saunders:

That really sounds like a great mix, and I can totally relate to the chronic illness part. I actually I don't know if people on the podcast know but I actually have celiac disease. I actually have another podcast on that too, and so I completely get the chronic illness and I also have some sort of arthritis I'm not quite sure which one it is. So I'm really excited to hear today about you talk about how using AI as a tool of liberation, not just automation. So I would love to see how do you have that show up in the women you work with, how do you make it help them? And even, maybe in your own journey, how have you helped use chat, GPT and AI tools to help you free yourself?

Shawn Every:

Yes. So for me and the woman I support, ai isn't just about how can we get things done faster. It's more about reclaiming your mental space. It's more about reclaiming your mental space. Most people, when they think of AI, they think about it speeding things up. You know about productivity what I think about it. It's about slowing down. Slowing down enough to breathe when you're living with a chronic illness, neurodivergent, or just you're just dealing with. You know the overwhelm of business. Your energy is not unlimited. You know women I work with. They aren't trying to hustle harder I don't believe in the hustle culture but they're basically trying to survive, to heal and just to stay visible. With managing the real life stuff and my own journey with chronic illness which I suffer with fibromyalgia, chronic pain disorder, I've dealt with mental overload and burnout, but I still needed to keep a business running right. What AI becomes my co-creator or my co-regulator? Not just a productivity tool, it becomes my quiet support system sort of, you know, helping with things like planning, writing or organizing.

Carrie Saunders:

So we can stay visible, but without burning out. And it wasn't. For me, it was never about chasing more, but end up using AI myself too, because, being a business over 23 years, I get decision fatigue particularly a lot, and it sounds like you help women with even something like that too and teach them that they can use AI as something to help them relieve that mental load of some of the things they need to do. Do you have some good examples of how you would use it for that? I mean, I have some thoughts in my head of how I use it, but I'm curious you know what are some typical ways you have people use AI to help them in their everyday?

Shawn Every:

Absolutely so. It's because one of my biggest things was brain fog, you know, and the mental clutter that would just leave me stagnated where, just shut down and not want to do anything. Right, because that was my way of dealing with it or not dealing with it. So I do regular brain dumps and it's not, you know, like, yes, journaling, that's one thing, you know, just writing it out, writing it out.

Shawn Every:

But it's so much easier for me, carrie, to voice, to text just everything in my brain into ChatGPT or, as I've named her, lexi, that's what I call mine and brain dump, all of those thoughts, and just the purpose is, I don't want to be perfect today. I don't want you to give me this perfect response, I just want you to acknowledge it, give me this space and then help me to prioritize, you know, list out what it is that you hear from this brain dump and kind of organize this mess. And we have had some of the best conversations, you know, helping me to, I mean, because just getting it out is freeing in itself. And then to see it all out and to have the validation from my assistant saying, okay, you got this, we can work through this, but this is what I need you to do and that has been like a real life scenario that I use quite often.

Carrie Saunders:

That sounds like an excellent one. I haven't used that one, but I've used something similar. Maybe you can relate to it. So they actually.

Carrie Saunders:

The other week I think it was about a week and a half ago I was really feeling overwhelmed by my calendar and wasn't getting all the right things done on my business. So I listed out on paper first all the things I thought I should be doing and then I typed it up to chat GBT and gave it. Here's the list of areas I should be working on in my day to day for the business. One do you see any gaps? Do you see some things I should be doing that I'm not already doing? And two, can you create me a calendar blocking system that helps organize these things in a better way so I'm more efficient, I'm less burnout, and also labeled them, whether it's an activity on the business or in the business, and it did an excellent job.

Carrie Saunders:

I've been running this week with its new calendar blocking system and I felt so much freer. I felt less mental load Like. I feel my brain is less like scattered and you know there were some things I had to suggest. You know well, I do a little better with this at this time or on this day, but in general it just whipped that out for me so fast and I've had to refine a little bit of it, of course, but like, oh my goodness, it has saved me so much mental strain this week and I've gotten so much more done with it.

Shawn Every:

Yes, yes, it's about capacity, right, because that's the way I look at it. I've even done like energy audits, you know like I'll even include in there. Hey look, today I just I am not feeling it Like it's a big accomplishment just to get out of bed, you know. So my what low energy, what medium energy or what high energy tasks you know I can pull out of here, based on what my capacity is right now. So that's great. The way you use it as well, you know that's kind of similar that we're using it in this way.

Carrie Saunders:

So some of those people who might be listening might be thinking to themselves oh, this sounds really neat. I might want to do this for us, and I know a lot of business owners sometimes feel left out or overwhelmed with AI because they just aren't quite sure where to get started. Ai because they just aren't quite sure where to get started. And so what are some of the reasons that women, especially those navigating chronic illnesses or neurodivergence, might avoid it, and how can we shift them and encourage them to do what we have done with it and utilize it to really help our brains and our capacity in our days and our weeks?

Shawn Every:

Yeah, I think, with AI or even just tech spaces, we may feel left out because we often feel like it's built for a neurotypical or high capacity. People, right. What do they say? Learn the tool, write the perfect prompts basically be a people, right. What do they say? Learn the tool, write the perfect prompts basically be a machine. Right?

Shawn Every:

That's exhausting, you know, and I think that the AI messaging that is being spread is centered around, again, the hustle culture, right? Or high performance, or the tech bros, as I've heard it described, and they have endless energy, it seems like. But for the women that I work with, who may be managing brain fog, adhd, even caretaking because I work with a lot of midlife entrepreneurs who have a lot on their plate and it can seem so overwhelming. But what we need to do is we need to normalize using AI, imperfectly, right.

Shawn Every:

This is one thing that I teach. I don't teach all the fancy prompt engineering, I just teach just real conversations, like as if you were, you know, you had a new assistant that you needed to train on your life and your business. You wouldn't go out and buy a list of prompts to be able to communicate with that assistant, you know. So, yeah, just like shifting the narrative. You just need to give yourself permission to talk to AI like a helper and that's. I feel that that's what kind of shifts that narrative you know as helping women to see that, no, they're not left out. This is how they can embrace it.

Carrie Saunders:

I totally agree with that, because I've actually probably in the past maybe six months or so, shifted my my thoughts on that. I used to, you know, have an engineering background, not, you know. I was used to like using it from the techie side of it, but then, probably six months ago or so, I wanted to learn some newer parts of it and I was like, well, why don't I just ask it, why don't I just ask it how to make a custom GBT? And, like a few weeks ago I asked it how do I use projects and chat GBT? Like, and we just had this good conversation. You know mine's called Dottie. It helped me come up with the name, but it's called Dottie.

Carrie Saunders:

It connects the dots for me is why it's called itself Dottie, and so I asked her. You know how do I do these things and it is so helpful. So I agree with your perspective on using it imperfectly and I hope you know some of our conversation today will encourage those listening. You can just ask it how do I do this or what should I do here, like I ask it advice all the time. It's like one of my assistants, you know, and it it's gotten to know me well enough. It gets me some pretty good advice. You know I obviously check it with my own gut, just like a would a person or a human that I'm talking to who's giving me advice. You know you want to treat it. You know, just the same as that, as far as you know, double checking the advice. But the more you treat it like a human even though that might sound a little weird, it's actually pretty effective and it makes it less scary.

Shawn Every:

Absolutely, I agree 100%. Absolutely, I agree 100%.

Carrie Saunders:

So you like to use a phrase from what I've read smarter systems for real humans, and we're kind of touching on this already a little bit. But what does that actually look like? An everyday business task? How can those listening come away from this conversation and say, okay, I want to do this or that with it first and see how you know and see how comfortable I get?

Shawn Every:

Yeah, so basically the same way that we've kind of touched on a bit. Um, smarter systems for real humans. It looks like this so you're exhausted. This so you're exhausted, it's launch week, right, and instead of pushing through, you go to your AI assistant, whichever one you may choose to use, and say help me organize these 10 tasks by priority. Or can you rewrite this email in a softer tone? It's just about support that tends to bend with your capacity, not systems that collapse just because you're having a bad day, but it has to support your capacity. So real human systems that are flexible. They are low pressure and just built to adjust, because resting is a necessity, especially for women like us. We have to keep that energy in mind. So those are just some ways to just use it in your daily business.

Carrie Saunders:

Well, and I actually think of a personal use I used of it the other day, um, which is something you might not think of, but it but it helped me because as a business owner, I, like you know, at the end of the day I also don't have sometimes the mental energy to do personal stuff, um, and I was actually looking for an acetaminophen that didn't have polyethylene glycol on it, because I'm actually allergic to polyethylene glycol. Well, okay, pretty much every acetaminophen out there that you can go find in the store has polyethylene glycol in it. So I had to have a conversation. I had a conversation with chat gpt. I was like, why don't, why not ask it? And after you know a couple rounds of conversation, you know it wanted me to. You know a couple rounds of conversation, you know it wanted me to check you know off name brands. You know like at Kroger or Walmart or your local you know type of store.

Carrie Saunders:

I was like, well, and then I told it. I was like, well, do those have polyethylene glycone? And they were. And I was like, oh, yes, they do. And I was like, well, do you know of a brand? I finally got it in it and it's like, yes, genexa. And so then I looked it up to double check, and it doesn't have it in it. So it was even just as simple, as I just needed to find some pain medicine that was compatible with my body, and while it's not technically business related, it freed up my personal side of my brain, so that I'm not exhausted when I'm running my business too, you know. So, even simple things like that, yes, people don't even think about it. It was easier than Googling.

Shawn Every:

Yes, and I love that. I love that because I've like, of course there's people you're going to have people who agree and disagree, you know, with that use of it. But I'm like, what is the difference between going to Google and asking that question? As a matter of fact, I even use ChatGPT as my search engine. You know, on my computer that is when I go in to type in the search bar. That's what it goes to, ChatGPT, and that's because it has helped me so much, even in ways like you mentioned, even in preparing to go to my doctor.

Shawn Every:

You know, symptoms that I may have been having. My doctor is not readily available 24, seven. Talk about the symptoms that I'm having. So not for it to diagnose me but to make me be more sound, like I know what I'm talking about when I go to the doctor, because they're going to ask those same questions, right, and so it's like be prepared. What is it I need to ask the doctor? Or it will print out a symptom checklist for me. You know well, this is what you've been having on these days, this is what you reported, and now show this to the doctor. They can look for a pattern or something. So, yeah, I love it. I love the different ways that we can use it.

Carrie Saunders:

So then let's shift back into the business type of world and what would be one small, you know, but powerful way somebody could use ChatGPT or some other you know AI tool today that could generally change like how they work and really open up that brain space for them to be more creative in the rest of their business of their business, so that's a good one.

Shawn Every:

So we would start by assigning the role to Chad GPT to let him know that, hey, you're my thinking partner, right? And so what things may come up for us in a typical day, business related, that we would need our thinking partners assistance, and, besides the brain dump that I normally do, I would say that it is quieting the noise. And the reason why I say quieting the noise because this is something that I have problems with, you know, in my business, because you have all these experts in different things, right, and they say use this strategy, market this way. You know, show up visibly on this platform. Well, how can I quiet all that noise and just get into a routine of what works for me and my brand? And that's why I literally just put all that into ChatGPT.

Shawn Every:

This is where I am showing up. It's talking about visibility, and I'm showing up, you know, facebook, instagram. I'm trying to show up on LinkedIn. So help me to up my visibility game. What is it that I should focus on, you know? Let's think this through. Should I be trying to show up on all of these platforms at the same time, in the same manner? And you know what my capacity is and it's amazing, these conversations that we have, conversations that we have. So it's just, and I look at it as an emotional or mental offload.

Carrie Saunders:

You know, I don't need perfection, I just need support. And here's what's on my mind.

Carrie Saunders:

Well, and I look at it as, like you know you're talking to your business bestie is the way I like to think of it. Right, because you know it. The more you talk to it, the more it gets to know about you and know your capacity, like you're talking about, and your personality and how you like to be, and you know where your energy is stronger and weaker and it can really be that that, that extra support person to help you. You know, through those days it might be tough, or, you know, trying to, you know, weed out all that noise, Cause there's so much information coming at us every day, especially anymore with you know. You know everybody talks about social media and all the information, but it's really true. You know we get so many things presented to us during the day, you know, and it can really help us break through that noise. I love how you use it to help you break through that noise.

Shawn Every:

Yeah, it's, it's been a lifesaver for me because I know me, I can you know I'm working on trusting myself right. I'm working on trusting myself right to make those decisions and that I know the path or the strategy that's going to work for me. But then you know there are times when you're like well, maybe this expert knows or this person knows and I should follow them and what they're saying.

Carrie Saunders:

So, yeah, it's been very, very helpful. So then, how do you see AI shaping the future of online business and what do you think will lead to the charge of this? Where do you see it going?

Shawn Every:

So, man, ai gets better. Look like, day by day right, there's always something new coming out. But I really think, personally, that AI is leveling the playing field for so many people right. For women who may not have had a full team or the perfect systems. Disabled women we talked about neurodivergent, you know, and so I think that those people who have had to make something out of nothing just women in general, you know, we've had to figure it out right. We, we make things work, um and it, whether it's caring for our families, running the business, that's what we do. So these are the ones that I think will be the ones to actually lead the future of online businesses. They're using AI not to just scale, you know, but they're using it in ways to stay consistent, to stay visible and supported, to stay visible and supported and even, as in me, building our confidence, to be able to show up more, and that's part of the revolution that I see happening.

Carrie Saunders:

So I hear you talking a lot about helping women business owners in particular, too. So what's one belief you wish more women had about themselves when it comes to using AI and or running their business?

Shawn Every:

Yes, that you. It's going to look like I'm cheating if I use AI or I'm being lazy if I use AI. No, let's stop that. We're not cheating. We have to allow it to be the support that it can truly be and just know that you're not behind. It's not too late I'm talking to all my midlife ladies here but you're building something that's going to work for you and to me, that's very, very powerful.

Carrie Saunders:

I think that is really powerful. And if I didn't have AI now, I feel like certain things would just take me so much longer. And it's not necessarily using it for short cutting or anything like that, it's just there's so much in my brain we're also overloaded and overwhelmed. It helps me sort through the noise. Going back to your noise conversation earlier, you know it really helps me sort through the noise, otherwise I'd have to, you know, have a business friend that I would need to talk to and talk it out and talk it through, which I do that too right, we've got a time and place for each. But you know, ai can really help us break through that noise and feel freer in our brain and feel more relieved and less stressed, especially if we just go for it and just use it. I mean, that's really what people need to be hearing from Sean here today is that we just need to use it. You know, don't be afraid of it.

Shawn Every:

Absolutely AI for the rest of us right.

Carrie Saunders:

So I know you have a freebie that you told me about. It's a chat GPT quick start guide. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?

Shawn Every:

Yes, so for even not just for people new to chat GPT, but even with some who have been using it, I find that a lot have not taken this one little step, and that is personalizing chat GPT, giving it its custom instructions, and what I've done is I just created, you know, a step-by-step guide to show you how to do that, how to go in and tell chat GPT how you want it to respond, what do you want it to know about you, so that you can get those better responses, and yeah, so that's what I put together and it's really been very helpful to a lot of people who were not even aware of that small little step that they were missing.

Carrie Saunders:

That's great. We will have that linked in our show notes on our website, smarteronlinebusinesscom, as well as your favorite podcast app. We'll have a link to that. So, Sean, if anybody's listening and wants to learn more about you or connect with you more, where would be the best platforms to find you?

Shawn Every:

So I am very visible on Facebook, which, on Facebook my personal profile, is where I'm most active, and that is Sean S-H-A-W-N Jackson Every E-V-E-R-Y. But to find all of my contact information, my website has a wealth of information and that is AskShawnAIcom.

Carrie Saunders:

Great, great, and we will have that in the show notes. For those listening and might be driving. I'm going to come back to that. We'll have all of Shawn's links in our show notes. So thank you so much, sean, for being on our podcast today. I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation. I love how we're kind of similar in how we use AI, and I've learned so much from you, too, on other things I could use it for, so I'm really excited to dive into some of these strategies we talked about today.

Shawn Every:

Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me, Keri. I've certainly enjoyed it. Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me, Keri. I've certainly enjoyed it.

Carrie Saunders:

This conversation with Sean reminded me so much that tech isn't about doing more. It's about doing less better, with more peace, more space and more confidence. If you're ready to explore AI in a way that actually feels supportive, sean has that free gift that we mentioned just for you her ChatGPT Quick Start Guide, which we will link in the show notes. It's made especially for women solar entrepreneurs who want to get started without the tech overwhelm. Again, you can grab it using the link in the show notes and if this episode spoke to you, would you do me a favor? Share it with a business friend who might be feeling burnt out, left out or just a little AI curious to help make their life a little better. And if you haven't already, leave us a quick review. It helps us reach more women and other business owners just like you. Thanks for tuning in and we will see you next week.