Why the Smartest AI Strategy Is Taking Care of Yourself (For Executives)

You've played around with ChatGPT or Claude a few times. Maybe your company just rolled out some new AI tool and you're not really sure what to do with it. Or maybe you're hearing "AI" in every meeting and wondering if you're already behind.

While everyone's freaking out about AI replacing jobs, the real issue is simpler: we're handing powerful technology to people running on 5 hours of sleep and too much coffee. And then wondering why 90% of executives say AI has zero productivity impact.

In this episode, I explain why AI isn't replacing you (it's promoting you) if you use it right, what happened with past "disruptive" tech like Excel and the internet, and why your brain health is actually the best AI strategy. Plus, 3 simple things you can do today to optimize your focus and decision-making.

What You'll Learn:

• Why 90% of executives say AI has zero productivity impact (despite massive investment)
• How AI is like Excel in the 1990s (learning curve + everyone's figuring it out)
• Why sleep deprivation wrecks the decisions AI can't make for you
• The 3 things AI will never replace: creativity, judgment, strategic thinking
• 3 brain-boosting habits: 30g protein breakfast, 7-8 hours sleep, post-meal walks

This episode is for you if:

✓ You feel behind on AI and overwhelmed by how fast things are changing

✓ You're sleeping 5-6 hours and running on caffeine

✓ You skip breakfast or go hours without eating

✓ You want to stay relevant but don't know where to start

Does your calendar dictate your nutrition? 

• Grab The No-Time Nutrition Blueprint: http://store.feelgreatwithkait.com/ntn

Ready to stop trading your health for your wealth?

• Apply for coaching with Kaitlin: https://tidycal.com/kaitlin/apply

Transcript

Kaitlin Borncamp, CPA, NTP (00:00)

Hey, and welcome back to the Feel Great With Kait podcast. I'm your host, Kaitlin Borncamp I'm a CPA and an executive health coach. And today we're talking about a very relevant concept of AI and how the best AI strategy isn't what you'd expect. No, it's actually taking care of yourself. And in today's episode, I'm gonna be sharing with you three points that will help you reframe, or rather it should help you reframe how you think about AI.

a little brief history on how disruptive technology has impacted us in the past, and most importantly, what are some practical things that we can do to make sure we're using ⁓ AI to our advantage and really being able to take care of ourselves.

So the context here is that companies are literally spending billions of dollars on the latest and greatest AI tools. I'm sure there's not a day that goes by that all of us aren't hearing the word AI in our meetings or over dinner with friends or whatnot, but they're spending and investing so much in these AI tools and then handing over the technology to professionals who have slept five hours. Maybe they skipped breakfast, they're running on coffee for energy, which means that

they are not able to utilize the AI to their best of their abilities. At least that's what I would argue. So today we're talking about how the best AI strategy has nothing to do with the technology itself. No, it has everything to do with the intersection of how we use it and that relates to our brain health and our physical health.

And I'm not talking about the wearables that you've probably heard a lot about too, like the O-ring or whoop band or steps or whatnot. No, we are talking about actual AI technology and what happens to the humans using the AI such as chat GPT or Claude is something I've started using a lot

when the easy work starts to disappear, what's left for us humans, for the rest of the employees to actually do, and how it is not necessarily replacing you, but it's promoting you. Meaning, if we are able to automate all the easy jobs and the easy parts, the easy tasks within each job, then what's left is parts of your job that require more strategic thinking.

⁓ higher degrees of decision-making, creativity, judgment, as we'll talk about. And those things are to a higher degree now requiring even more of us as the people, What I'm talking about here is our ability to focus, our ability to think strategically and have energy in order to comprehend a lot of vast topics and really make these decisions.

that we're not going to or that we're not able to outsource to the AI. Because I know in the finance and accounting industry is that there's still always going to be roles and responsibilities that legally cannot be delegated or that cannot just simply be automated, Those are checks and balances. In accounting, we like to call those internal controls.

I don't see that changing and even though a large degree of the underlying data and systems and processes will be automated, it has been, right? We've seen this with some of the things, the disruptive technology that we've seen over the last 40, 50 years. And what it's done is it's on a continual basis. This has already been happening is that of the roles that are left of the people, it's just required us to think better. And my whole approach that I want to talk about here today is that

If we are going to be required to think better, we need to take care of ourselves and have better functioning brains, better functioning bodies in order to enable us to do so.

All right, so let's dive into what's a little bit of the history of some of these disruptive technology, because I always like to put things in context like for myself, it helps me feel better about the conversation, not freak out as much, but also too, it's interesting. It's interesting to really think about, you know, like right now, I feel like we're on this cusp of that increasing curve where technology is just increasing and expanding at such a fast rate that there's a lot of feeling of rushing. There's a lot of feeling of being behind. There's a lot of...

just kind of overwhelm, would say, in the context of how fast is this technology going to disrupt business and economies and things like that? So I always like to say, hold on a second. Let's think about what are some of the past disruptive technologies that we experienced and did it impact business and the economy the same way you thought it would then? Like my favorite example is the Y2K, which if you remember was back in the year 2000 when

you know, the internet was so new and that people literally thought that the year switching over to 2000, like 2000, was going to crash the whole internet and it didn't, right? We were fine. And so I just use that as context because I specifically remember me and my family, like everyone else going out and buying extra water, buying extra food, like we didn't really know what was going to happen. And so it created a fear and just so happens that that was kind of arbitrary fear, right? Like it wasn't necessary. So I am always curious.

Well, what parts of the current fear or current rushing that we're feeling is relevant or is accurate? Obviously, we won't know. Hindsight's always 20-20. But there are a few other disruptive technologies that I find really interesting. Obviously, a big one would be the personal computer that came out in the late 80s. And that, of course, disrupted things because people were able to have access to technology ⁓ in such a more easily accessible way. ⁓

Along that same vein, not shortly thereafter, know, Microsoft and Apple were competing to be able to deliver high quality softwares to operate on the new hardware assets of these personal computers. And so, of course, everyone knows Microsoft released, you know, the ⁓ Microsoft Office suite, including Excel, and that completely disrupted and changed the way that just basic office paperwork was done. Just being able to do math, just being able to

handle multiple columns of data that you didn't have to write in by hand and then have to erase if you made a mistake. I mean, this was revolutionary in itself. And I remember my mom telling me a story of her colleagues in the 90s when Excel was first being adopted and whatnot. And she had a colleague who didn't realize that there was a function ability in Excel. so they were actually still, they were using Excel with numbers in a column, but then they were still manually adding the total.

So, okay, we know that each technology also has its own learning curve, which is totally fine. But nonetheless, my point here, specifically for Excel and the personal computer, is that these were things that 10 years prior, 20 years prior, especially 30 years prior, were all done very manually with a lot of paper, a lot of time, and just a lot of error, right? You got to think of people just doing it by hand, people using a separate calculator, and that kind of transposition error that can take place when you ⁓ put a number in the wrong spot kind of a thing.

spelling errors, all of those sorts of things. So of course having it in a digital format immediately increased speed, immediately increased efficiency and effectiveness and accuracy and all these good things, right? And so I want to use that. That's like one of my favorite examples that I think about with AI right now is that AI in a way is similar to Excel in the 90s, Microsoft Excel, okay?

And then the other one, of course, a huge disruptive technology that we've seen in the last 25 years is the introduction of the internet. And then, of course, all the personal computers and computers started talking to each other and all sorts of information started flying around. We all know how that went. But in a lot of ways, people were afraid of it. People were, you know, unaccustomed to it. And for the first couple of years, things were just kind of so wild west in the sense that people didn't know.

what to do with websites, like they didn't even know how to look up the browser, ⁓ you know, still using WWW, right, the World Wide Web. And obviously since then we have created so much and gotten so much, ⁓ many different things off of the internet, of course, like that goes without saying. So again, I want to just use that as an example, like bringing the internet back to the YTK fear is that we always fear the unknown. We don't know how it's going to impact our

business, our jobs, our economy. But in the same way, you know, we could even take this back further. You know, a hundred years ago is when ⁓ the light bulb was invented and more heavily used. Really, I think it was invented in the late 1800s, but not, it took a really long time to adopt because believe it or not, people were very fearful of having light in their homes, the light bulb in their homes. And so it took a long time to adopt at that time. So anyway, early 1900s, the light bulb comes online.

people start using it, but what happened to all the candle makers, right? Like now that they were able to flip the switch and use their light in their home with electricity, what happened to the candle makers? You know, like we don't really think about that, but they still existed. They still found ways to add value and to make a living and to do different things. And I think right now we're experiencing that. We're experiencing different shifts of which tasks are gonna be automated and jobs lost, such as the candle makers.

in which tasks are just going to be made more efficient, such as all the business people using Microsoft Excel in the 1990s, right? So I always like to keep this in context that, again, what this means is with any disruptive technology, especially something as powerful and as value-add as AI, we, the users of the technology, must become better at using it. We need to know how to use it. We need to have regulated nervous systems to not be in fear of it, but instead to learn from it and learn of it.

So these are just some of the things that I think about in the context that's very relevant right now. And then lastly, for disruptive technologies, obviously, the smartphone and everything that's come from there, which was basically just the next iteration of the personal computer where everything just kind of got smaller and more efficient and whatnot. But nonetheless, it didn't kill communication like having the smartphone. It just changed it. So people actually learned how to communicate differently. And then, of course, with the smartphones, we had apps.

Now we communicate in so many different ways. Instead of sending a letter, you might post on Facebook, right? ⁓ Or you send a text to your friend. I remember when I first got my first cell phone, it was one of those flip phones that was, what is it? I wanted to say pay by number, but that's not right. It's where you like paid for the credits each month. And so for the first year or so, I didn't have enough credits to send videos. ⁓

And I remember one of my friends had Verizon, which was like the cool provider because Verizon, you could send video messages and I couldn't do that. So of course, over the years, like I got, I think we upgraded to Sprint and so we had more data, but we still had limited data for a very, very long time. And it was sort of this like contentious point of Kaitlin, you're using too much data on the family plan. then thankfully, obviously in recent years, everything just switched over to unlimited data. So it's, it's a non-issue, but.

That's another example of how technology has evolved and how we've adopted to it, how we use it in our life. So it's not always something to fear necessarily. But again, it's under the assumption that you're using it. I mean, like, think about somebody now who you would just assume they live off the grid. Like if you don't have a phone, a computer, like a cell phone, I mean, like you people would just be like, what are you just like a crazy person who lives in the woods? How would you be a functioning member of society today without a cell phone?

And so we can think of, again, bringing this back to AI, we think of it in the same way. And the underlying assumption, this is the thread throughout this episode, is that we, the humans, know how to use it and we're able to use it to the best of our abilities, which requires us to have, again, focus, productivity, a regulated nervous system. We'll talk more about that. But being able for us to use it and make the strategic decisions and make those judgment calls.

That's really the value add that we provide and that we, I'm arguing humans, will continue to provide in their roles and to businesses going forward. Okay, so let's shift over to a couple of facts that I find really interesting. I think will help reframe how you're thinking about AI and how it relates to human health in 2026.

So there was a survey of over 6,000 executives recently that shared that 90 % of them believe that AI had zero impact on productivity within their business. Meanwhile, 86 % of companies say that their AI budgets will actually increase in 2026, according to NVIDIA. So what is going on here? The interesting thing that's happening is that we don't have...

What this means is that we've not been able to tap into the full potential of the technology. And at the same time, companies believe that they need to use it in order to adopt into the future. So the reframe is what if this isn't an AI problem? What if the problem is the humans using it? And we have a unique opportunity right now, again, as the humans, as employees, whatever role you're in.

to get better at using AI and to be more productive in your current role, which again, requires your own computer, your own personal computer in your brain between your ears to function better.

But I think that's a really important place to know that that's where we're at, where even in the context of all these headlines and all the new tools and features coming out with AI, our adoption rates are slower. And this has always been the case. But what this means is that, again, right now in 2026, you have the unique opportunity to start to use AI to your benefit, be more productive in your current role. And in order to do that, we need to

be able to think clearly, make strategic decisions, and have the bandwidth in order to actually learn the technology itself.

Another interesting fact I found is that focus efficiency in the workplace has hit a three year low, which is at the same time that AI adoption is at an all time high. So again, I feel like we're at this cusp, we're at the precipice of the inversion of when the graph line starts to go back up again. So we have more tools, but we have less focus. That should pretty much terrify any executive or any leader listening to this who's running a team.

because we're investing like AI is the answer, but AI is only part of the answer.

We know AI can handle the volume, it can handle the easy tasks, but your employees, your team members, they handle the value, the strategic decisions. And those, of course, require your brain to work optimally.

Another point I wanted to mention that will help you reframe AI is that sleep deprivation is actually wrecking the decisions that you make on a daily basis, including those of how you're approaching AI in your job.

Sleep deprivation is wrecking the decisions that AI can't make for you. So, has shown that when we sleep, the prefrontal cortex, which is the area of the brain that responds to executive function, so being able to make decisions, ⁓ judgment, is the most sensitive to sleep loss.

And in one study, nearly half of sleep deprived participants reported impaired decision-making, which showed up as indecisiveness, poor decisions, and slower processing the following day.

And believe it or not, 25 to 30 % of the global population has some sort of chronic sleep deficiency.

So again, have companies who we know are increasing their budgets AI. We've seen it in the headlines.

but are the humans who are using the AI actually doing it optimally? These are the people that we're asking to make the decisions to lead the teams and build the AI systems, yet maybe they can barely decide what to eat for lunch.

Okay.

So what this means for us is that we know AI is going to be continuously adopted and it's going to get even better. We know this. So what this means is that the tasks that are left for us are going to require even more focused attention and breaking this down to our physical health and brain function, we know that being able to focus and have attention requires balanced blood sugar, it requires optimal nutrition,

and it requires us to not have high spikes of stress throughout our day because then we will crash later.

Similarly, making these strategic decisions, even just living in a world of AI with all the fear flying around, requires us to have better emotional regulation. And a huge part of this is being able to regulate our nervous system. I've talked a bit about here on the podcast, so be sure to go back and find some of the relevant episodes on this topic. But essentially what we need to do is be in control of our thoughts, be in control of the stress response in our body that those thoughts have.

in order to be regulated when we are thinking about ways to use these new technologies, as opposed to, like I said at the beginning, feeling overwhelmed or feeling stressed out that you're getting left behind.

Other tasks that AI will never be able to replace is truly creative thinking. this, a huge part of this is powered by our sleep that we get every night so that our brain can restore itself and that we can wake up feeling refreshed. Another thing which again may be required legally to retain in the hands of humans is going to be judgment and sign-offs. And those are powered by our free frontal cortex of our brain. And also same things, making sure that we have enough energy.

balanced blood sugar, and enough nutrients in our body. This hands down is the most underutilized benefit in corporate America is investing in the wellbeing and physical health of your employees and of your teams.

So think about it this way, if you are an executive or a team leader, you absolutely need to be maintaining or increasing your team training budget in order to be supporting and optimizing your team's performance in parallel to what your company is investing in tools such as AI.

Alright, we're now into the part where let's talk about what we can do about it. So I'm not going to overwhelm you in today's episode. I want to just give you a super simple framework, a super simple breakdown of the things that you need to be doing that will have one, the greatest impact and two, it's the easiest to implement. So the first one is to eat 30 grams of protein with your first meal of the day, ideally before you have a cup of coffee. Most professionals actually skip breakfast and just rely on coffee for energy.

And while I am a fan of fasting, think that this is wreaking havoc. If you are somebody who is already living in a high demand job or you have a high workload on your plate, fasting and relying on caffeine for energy is not going to be setting you up for optimal brain function or success.

The next thing is to stop treating sleep like a luxury. We've already talked about how sleep is paramount to optimal brain function, but you really need to reframe sleep as the most productive thing that your body does. And think about it this way, while your AI agent may be working overnight, so is your brain and that happens during the process of sleep.

Just imagine you log in to work, but your computer battery shows red. That's the equivalent of when you're running on poor sleep, which is less than seven hours per night. So really optimal sleep would be getting seven and a half to eight hours of sleep every single night.

And then another thing you can do in order to maintain emotional regulation, optimal energy and better focus is to give your glucose a job. Meaning that when you do eat a meal or you do eat a meal that has high carbohydrates that you are going to take a short walk or short movement break after that. Not only will that help blunt your blood sugar spike and help maintain your blood sugar and energy for the rest of the day, it will also help you have sharper focus.

for the rest of the day and it will help improve digestion.

There are so many other great tips and tools that I provide to the clients that are in my programs, but I hope that that leaves you. But I know that that will be enough bite-size information for you to see some real impact in your days.

So if this made you think about AI and your health differently, not just as a self-care, but actually as a true career performance strategy, that's exactly what we do inside of my program, the A1C and Energy Reset Coaching Program. It's 12 weeks, we use CGM and blood work data to create protocols that are actually built for your busy life and not add more to your plate. So if you're interested on how that can work for you, go ahead and use the link in the show notes to book a call with me this week.

All right, until next time, my friends, stay healthy.