In Part II of the PROTECT pillar series, Anacani Walters goes deeper into the cognitive health crisis quietly affecting women wellness entrepreneurs who are using AI.

Through the real story of Rachel, a yoga teacher and wellness coach with 12 years of experience who was producing more content than ever but feeling mentally and physically worse, this episode delivers three actionable, neuroscience-backed techniques to help you stay sharp, present, and irreplaceable in the AI era.

What You Will Learn in This Episode:

• The Mermaid Mind Map Technique: Why drawing AI output by hand before using it builds denser neural networks through cross-modal processing
• Chain of Thought Prompting as Logic Training: How to use a 4-step practice to keep your brain in the driver's seat and train decomposition, one of the most powerful cognitive skills a business owner can have
• The Socratic Method with AI: How to stop asking for answers and start asking for questions so your prefrontal cortex stays engaged in higher-order reasoning
• Why your community is paying a price for your hesitation around AI and what the antidote actually is
• The civic responsibility angle: why less than 22% of AI roles are held by women and what that means for every wellness entrepreneur who opts out

Quick Win from This Episode:

Try the Socratic Prompt Method once today. Pick one piece of content you need to create. Write your 3 main ideas first. Then ask your AI: "Here are my ideas. Act as a critical expert and ask me 3 challenging questions that will make this piece stronger. Do not write the content for me."

Reflection Question:

What would your community be able to receive from you if you had 5 more hours in your week? And what would it take to create those 5 hours?

Resources Mentioned:

• Part I of this series: Ep 52 "Your Brain Is Softening and Nobody Is Talking About It"
• EmpowerHER Biz Collective (free Facebook community): facebook.com/groups/empowerherbizcollective
• Jim Kwik's Limitless Program: jimkwik.com
• AI Responsibility Compass App: my-ai-compass-flow.base44.app (DM COMPASS on Instagram for the link)
• 12 Signs You're Stuck in a Clarity Gap checklist: comment TWELVE on any @empowerherwave post

Listen to the Episode:

Comment LISTEN on Instagram @empowerherwave and we'll send you the Apple and Spotify links directly to your DMs.

Join the Conversation:

Come inside the EmpowerHER Biz Collective, our free Facebook community where we take these conversations deeper with live trainings, tech walkthroughs, and heart-centered support from women wellness entrepreneurs who get it. Link in the show notes.

If this episode moved you, please share it, leave a review, and tag a fellow wellness entrepreneur who needs to hear this. Your share helps more women get into this conversation.

SEO Keywords:

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If you have ever felt like your creativity is declining or maybe like your ideas feel less original or you just can't think as clearly as you used to, I'm here to tell you that it's probably not burnout and it's not even age.

It might just be how you are using AI and today we are going to fix it.

Welcome to part two of this podcast series.

So grab your cup of whatever's keeping you grounded and let's dive in.

Welcome to Heart Led CEO, the podcast for women wellness entrepreneurs who are ready to build, scale and automate their businesses without sacrificing their soul, sanity or authenticity.

I'm an economie Walters, a nurse turned entrepreneur, military spouse, first time mama in my 40s, and a recovering burnout survivor who's making it a mission to help Heart Led women just like you create thriving businesses that really feel good, do good, and give you the freedom that we all deserve.

Because here's the thing, you don't have to hustle harder to succeed.

You don't have to drown in tech overwhelm or try to do everything alone.

And I'm here to give you the strategies, automation, tools and mindset shifts that will help you step fully into that leader, CEO and impact maker that you are meant to be.

If you're ready to grow your business in a way that aligns with your values and your life, you are in the right place.

Let's get into today's action episode.

Hello.

Hello my beautiful friend.

Welcome back.

So if you listen to part one, thank you so much.

Thank you for staying with me and coming back for the second part of our series.

If this is your first time, welcome, you're right on time.

Don't worry, you can always go back and listen to part one if it feels aligned with something that you need to actually listen to.

But before we get into it, because it's another very juicy episode, I want to just take a deep breath with you just to kind of ground us into this moment.

So close your eyes if you can.

If you're driving, be safe and inhale into your nose, bringing that breath into your belly, letting your belly expand, then your ribs, then that last little breath into your chest as you start to exhale, shoulders up, back and down from your chest, your ribs bringing that belly button up and in for a little hug.

Again, inhaling through your nose, belly, ribs, last little breath of in your chest, up back with your shoulders, exhaling.

Perfect.

All right, now again, as always, take what serves you, leave what doesn't.

Put on your Possibility scarf.

Because again, we are going deeper today than we did in part one.

So if part one already stirred up some emotions, then just keep an open mind.

Okay, so I want to tell you about a woman that I work with and let's just call her Rachel.

Like, she's brilliant.

She's a yoga teacher and a wellness coach.

She has had 12 years of experience, which just basically for me means that she's had really deep knowledge of her zone of genius and a genuine real gift for essentially holding space for other people.

Now, she's been using AI for about eight months and on paper everything really looks good.

She has been posting more, her emails were going out consistently, and her content calendar was really finally starting to feel like she's getting it under control, which has been such a big weight lift off her shoulders.

But when I got on a call with her a few months in, she said something that kind of took me by surprise.

She goes on to tell me that she has, she feels great that she's been producing more content about wellness more than she has ever done before.

Huge sigh of relief, really big weight off her shoulders.

But in her own body, she just doesn't feel as good as she used to.

It's like the feeling of things getting worse instead of actually getting better in her mental space and her overall just physical well being.

So I asked her a few more questions and then I asked her.

After she explained to me a little bit more about what she meant, I was like, okay, well when was the last time you actually had an original idea that you did not immediately go to AI for help to develop?

And she didn't say anything and I was like, okay, well that tells me a lot because today we're actually going to be talking about how to get that back, which is could be that spark that you've been feeling like you're now missing.

Because how to use AI in a way that sharpens your mind instead of softening it is what I want to talk to you about.

And this really matters more for all of us as wellness entrepreneurs than literally almost anyone else on planet Earth, in my opinion.

Now, the meat of what we're going to cover today is the mermaid mind map technique.

And we are again going deeper than we did in part one.

So if this is already feeling like, oh my goodness, this is a little bit over my head, go back to listen to part one and then come back here.

But we're going to talk about the mind map technique and why visual synthesis is a real superpower for your brain.

We're going to talk about the chain of thought prompting as more of a logic training and not just some content trick that you can go and impress your friends with at your next social.

Then we're going to talk about the Socratic method with AI and why I really feel it is the most underused tool in the wellness space.

We're also going to talk about why our community is paying a price for our hesitation around AI as women, wellness entrepreneurs and really women in general.

And then we are also going to touch upon the civic responsibility angle that I don't think a lot of people are talking about, especially in the wellness industry.

And I want to go there.

So let's get going.

So diving right in.

No breaks, because I don't want this to be crazy long.

Keep doing what you need to do and just listen.

Put your possibility scarf on.

Keep your open mind.

Take what serves you.

Leave the rest.

Okay, point number one, the mermaid mind mat.

Which, by the way, when I first heard this, I was ecstatic.

I was like, you're speaking my language.

Thank you very much.

So I'm a visual learner.

I have been my whole life.

You guys know my story.

I had an 8th grade equivalent reading level until my mid 20s.

So actually having that was a superpower because it's what got me through life until I figured out how to read.

So give me like a diagram, a flowchart, even now that is how I instruct my language models to talk to me so that they remember I am a visual learner.

Talk to me in story or picture so that I can remember and understand what you're talking about.

I really have to relay everything visually, even if I have to sketch it out myself and draw out the maps so I will remember things better that way.

Put it in a song, it is locked in, my friend.

But give me just like a whole screen of text or a wall of text and I will lose it in about five minutes.

Do not ask me what I just read.

Now.

I'm trying to get better at it because then I have to read it over and over again.

But my brain just doesn't work that way.

And here's what I found as I have often gotten deeper into understanding how our brain actually is processing AI generative information.

Because when we actually start to take information that comes from AI, which, you know, some of it can be crazy dense depending on what you're using it for.

It's typically text heavy and it's often structured in a way that was optimized for output rather than for our retention as humans.

And so when we translate it into more of a visual form, something really powerful happens, whether you are a visual learner or not.

For me, it just makes things so much better.

Now our brain has to do real work.

It has to actually interpret and connect and synthesize the information that is coming into it.

And so now that act of translation from one format to another is a form of cross model processing.

I know I'm using a lot of technical terms.

Just hang in there with me.

What does this do?

It just literally builds denser neural networks, which is what we want in our brain.

And it is what we are calling the mermaid mind map technique.

Now, after you get a piece of whatever your language model puts out, before you use it, I need you to draw it out.

Not a screen on an actual piece of paper or a whiteboard or some type of a physical drawing.

You need to try to train your mind to connect the ideas by connecting it with arrows, putting the main concept in the center and and letting that related idea branch out with the ocean radiating out from like a single wave.

And it's not just some really cute exercise.

This is actually training your brain.

So you're actually taking passive consumption, which is what everybody is doing with AI now, and turning it into an active synthesis.

So you just try it once and then tell me what it feels like.

It is literally like a mind map.

I'm just calling mine the mermaid mind map.

And you think of it as the center is the swell.

And then you have these ripple effects that are branching out to give you this sense of understanding and mapping out what you're interpreting from your language model in terms of whatever it is that you're gaining, especially if you're having it try to teach you something.

It is the best way to really understand what is teaching you.

And if you have a hard time, guess what, you can prompted to actually give you a visual mind map.

Like give me a mermaid mind map of all of this so that I can visually connect it.

And even making the connection of reading the text and then referencing your image really helps.

But it would help you even more if you can start practicing creating your own.

So if you're a sketcher, you like doing sketch, even having like your own illustrations of notes based on what you got from your language model is super helpful.

Does it take more time?

Yes.

But is it worth it for your long run for your brain?

Absolutely.

So just play with it.

You don't have to do it every single time, but just see the difference when you use it and when you don't.

Okay, so I'm going to go on a limb here and assume that you've probably heard of chain of thought prompting.

Now, if you haven't, it's a technique where instead of asking AI to just give you an answer, you ask it to think through a problem step by step with you and showing its reasoning along the way.

Now, most people use it to get just better AI outputs, and it absolutely does that thousand percent.

But what I want you to understand more as a wellness entrepreneur who really cares about your cognitive health, is that when you, my beautiful friend, practice chain of thought thinking, when you get into the habit of really breaking big problems down into more smaller logical steps, before even opening any type of language model tool, you are actually training a core executive function called decomposition.

Now, decomposition is basically the ability to take a complex problem and break it into manageable pieces.

That's all it is.

And it is one of the most powerful cognitive skills any person can actually have, especially if you're a business owner.

Now, this is how you can practice it.

It's how I try to practice it myself.

So the next time you have a business problem, okay, Something in your business entrepreneurial space.

Again, the important part is before you ask AI, these are the things that you need to try to do.

The first one is to write the problem in one sentence or formulate it in one sentence, even if you just are typing it.

Okay.

The second one is that I want you to list three biggest questions that need to be answered to solve it.

Okay.

I want you to put on like your Carmen Santiago, if you remember that, that will let me know how old you are.

And then the third step is I want you to write down what you already know about each of those questions.

And then step four, which is the last step, then you go to AI to ask it to challenge your thinking instead of just giving you the answer that what you just did with one through four steps is called chain of thought thinking.

You literally kept your brain in the driver's seat and then you gave AI a much better starting point to work from.

Because when you do it the other way, the way that we've been doing things, or most people tend to use AI, it is just pulling from the Internet and from what it's trained.

It's going to be generic, it might not actually be factual, but when you start from a process of you already know this stuff and you're coming from an expertise, it's almost like you're also training the AI of where it needs to start from.

And Then guiding it on how to respond back.

It's super, super powerful.

All right, now point number three that I wanted to make sure we touched on is the Socratic method with AI.

Now, I'm not going to lie, this is my personal favorite out of all the ones that we've talked about.

But I have to say, almost nobody is actually doing it.

Now go back to when you were in elementary school, and the Socratic method is one of the oldest teaching techniques, actual history.

Okay, when you remember going to school, did the teacher ever give you the answer?

No.

They always asked us the questions that led us to discover the answer ourselves.

It's actually how I talk to my 4 year old.

Now, most people who use AI are using it like a search engine.

They're asking for an answer and then they just take it, like, okay, you're AI.

You're like the smartest thing on earth.

Got it?

Take it and run with it.

But what if instead you used it like a Socratic teacher?

Now, if you're like me, I need to have it in like contextual scenarios for me to understand how this actually works.

I need it in like a real life example.

So here's a real example for you.

Think of the last time you created a prompt and instead of asking, write me a blog post about the nervous system regulation for entrepreneurs.

And if that's you, like, that's exactly how I prompt Anakini.

Hey, there is no judgment here.

You actually can say, instead of that, I want to write a blog post about a nervous system regulation for entrepreneurs.

Now here are my three main ideas.

Act as a critical expert in this field and then ask me three challenging questions about my perspective that will make this piece stronger.

Do not write the content for me.

Understand the difference.

Like that first prompt is really outsourcing our thinking altogether.

But the second prompt really forces your prefrontal cortex to actually engage in the higher order of reasoning.

So you have to defend your ideas.

You have to actually be forced to think deeper, and then you have to actually know what you believe.

Now, what would be the purpose of all of this?

Like, in real life, what's the actual benefit?

Because what's starting to happen is that when people are being challenged in real life, and let's just say that it's when you have a client and they're asking you a really hard question, we get stuck in like and we freeze.

Because why?

We've been letting AI do our thinking for us.

We've been letting AI create our proposals.

We've been letting AI write our Content.

We've been letting AI create our presentations without us giving it any type of input or working with it as a strategic creator.

But what you are doing and learning this today is that when a client asks you a hard question in a session, what are you not going to do?

You do not freeze up.

Why?

Because we are not letting AI do our thinking for us anymore.

Because you've lived experiences and have genuine expertise and we are protecting those lived experiences and that valuable expertise and what the Socratic method was actually designed for, even in the space of AI.

All right, now I want to talk about why your community is paying for the price of your hesitation.

Because if you are still on the sidelines within using AI or not, I do want to make sure that I talk to you because I need you to hear me out.

I need to be really direct with you for a moment.

But again, know that everything that I say is with so much love and I'm cheering you on so freaking hard.

But I want to talk to wellness entrepreneurs who are telling me every day the AI is not for them.

They're too busy, it's too overwhelming, it's killing the world.

I don't want any part of it.

I just want to do the things that I've been doing the old fashioned way, manually, because why it works for me and I prefer that way.

Now, I understand all of it, I really do.

But I need you to understand what's actually happening in the communities that you are serving.

While you are electively choosing to opt out of the artificial intelligence wave, it is happening whether you want it to or not.

And research is showing that cognitive health is severely in crisis now.

Attention spans are declining more rapidly than they were when social media came out.

And anxiety and depression are at record highs in every age group, more so in teenagers and young children.

The tools and platforms that are driving the crisis, guess what?

Are only going to become more powerful and more perv.

I'll give you an example.

I was part of this five day training that was free and I knew they were going to sell something at the end.

I just didn't expect it to be this like four week VIP intensive that really was intensive.

Like they were expecting us to show up for some days that were going to be like eight hours worth of live training.

And I'm like, yeah, that does not work for my life right now.

Like I got a kid, like I got a business, I got a life.

I'm not going to just hang out with you guys for four weeks for like a full time job, 40 hours or whatever, for the entire week.

When I looked into it, I was like, y' all are selling the same exact course as more of like a diy, like self paced for a fraction of the price as this vip.

But what I realized was is that the attention span for their target audience is not there.

Their target audience does not have the capacity or the attention span to go through a self paced course anymore.

Which is just like mind blowing.

That that is the trajectory of where the market is shifting.

Now you want to know what I think the antidote is?

Guess what, what you do.

Yoga, Breathwork, Movement, presence, human connection.

Embodiment practices that regulate the central nervous system and help rebuild that cognitive function that technology is literally stealing.

But here is the thing, my beautiful friend, Truth bomb.

If you're not using AI, then this is what you're probably spending most of your energy on.

Formatting, inbox management, content creation, manual, client follow up.

And you are burning your precious thousand an hour time on your $7 an hour task.

And that means that you have less time of yourself to actually give to the actual healing work that is needed in the world.

When you learn how to use artificial intelligence intentionally, you can reclaim time.

And then what do you do with that time?

You get to use it to do the work that only you can do.

And then you get to serve your community.

You get to be fully present in the community that actually needs you so that you can be present and fully resourced.

And artificial intelligence use right is one of the most powerful ways to make that possible.

And my last point before I end this, because I know now it's going to start to feel like I'm going on a rant because I'm super passionate about this.

But I do want to talk to you about something bigger that's way beyond your business.

Less than 22% of AI roles globally are held by women right now.

Now that means the technology that is being built right now, every day, every hour, it feels like the language models being trained, which are the products that are being designed, are being built predominantly by men without women's voices to vouch for us in the room.

And that has massive, massive consequences.

I just read an article in Forbes where they had the same resume created by the same AI using the same exact words.

And all they did was change the name of the person on the resume.

One was a male and one was named as a female.

He got a 97% approval and the female's resume got kicked back, was called weak that she couldn't use AI.

And it was like shocking that the hardest critics were not like some old men.

It was actually Gen Z men who were three and a half times more likely to call Emily's resume weak in that article.

And it reminded me of a commercial that was put.

It was called Run like a Girl.

I don't know if you guys remember that.

It was like 10 years ago.

And they were asking random people anything from a man, even a grown woman and a little boy probably he was 10 in the video.

They asked him random questions like, what does it mean to you to fight like a girl?

And they would make fun of it.

They were mocking women like we were catty and like, and what does it mean when you run like a girl?

And they would run in this feminine, weird way, making fun and mocking women.

But when they took actual little girls who were 10 years old or younger asked them the same exact question, it was the true definition of what it really means to fight like a girl.

Run like a girl.

I mean, it gives me goosebumps.

Just talking about is the same exact thing that is happening right now.

They are now just asking what it means use AI like a girl.

The answer hasn't changed.

Whether you're asking how to run like a girl or fight like a girl, the answer doesn't change when they ask us, what does it mean to use AI like a girl?

Shit, men should use AI like women because then we would have better language models.

But that is the point.

It is causing biases in everything in our facial recognition system, in basically all things AI that do not account for women's bodies, women's experiences, women's actual real life needs.

And here's what I want you to understand every time that you choose to use artificial intelligence language model thoughtfully every time you interact with it and correct it and push back on it and teach it and tell it, no, that is not what a woman looks like.

That is not what a woman sounds like.

That is not what women think.

You are contributing to training data that shapes how it understands women.

You're not just a user.

You become a teacher to artificial intelligence.

And I talked about this in the summit that I did where I know it can feel daunting.

When I ask you to challenge and teach AI, who am I?

Artificial intelligence is like the most genius thing on planet Earth.

Guess what?

Yes and no.

There's a difference between having common sense like knowledge and having knowledge that is genius on paper.

But like, theoretically it's a genius, but it does not understand.

Like, it has no life experiences.

It has no common sense.

Prime example, when's the last time you created something with AI and it gave you the date and the day of the week?

Correct.

It's like, it's a year behind.

I'm like, dude, that day is not fall on a Thursday.

That's a Wednesday or that's a Friday or that's tomorrow.

Like, why are you talking to me like it hasn't happened?

Like, you're a man.

You're a day and a dollar too late.

That is what I'm talking about.

It's not as smart as people think it's going to be.

Continuing to learn to be smart.

But I think it's an opportunity right now for you to step up and really start to coach AI the way it really needs to be.

So just understand that every time you opt out of using artificial intelligence, you are handing that lesson to someone else.

Beyond that, there are AI policies and decisions that are being made right now in legislative bodies, in corporate boardrooms, in research institutions.

And the women who are using these tools, who are really understanding them from the inside, are the ones who can speak credibly in those rooms.

Because you cannot talk about something and challenge it if you've never used it or understand how it works.

You do not have to be a tech person to have a voice in the AI conversation, but you do need to show up.

So the one thing to do today, it's your quick win.

I want you to try the Socratic prompt method at least once today.

Pick one piece of content that you need to create.

But before you ask AI to write it, do the practice.

Write three of your main ideas first.

Then say to AI whatever one you use, I don't care which one it is, here are my ideas and then tell it.

Act as a critical expert and ask me three questions that will make this piece stronger so that you don't write it for me and just see what happens.

You might like what you get.

You might like the exercise.

You might start to feel like, ooh, this makes me feel a little bit sharper.

And guess what?

When you actually have to talk about it in a real conversation with an actual human, you're that much more comfortable.

And your reflection question for the week is, what would your community be able to receive from you if you had five more hours in your week?

And what would it take to create those five hours?

So just to recap everything, I want to just bring it home really quick again.

We talked about a lot.

1.

The Mermaid Mind Map.

Take AI output and draw it out physically before you actually use it.

Cross model processing builds denser neural networks so your brain does real work in the process of you actually learning and not just consumption.

Number two Chain of thought prompting is not just a prompting technique technique, it is a logic training exercise that builds decomposition skills, one of the most powerful cognitive function a business owner can have in today.

Number three the Socratic Method with AI.

Stop asking for just answers and start asking your AI language model for questions.

Your ideas will get stronger and your brain stays in the game.

Number four, your community is paying a price for your hesitation.

The healing work you do is the antidote to what AI overuse is creating.

But guess what?

You need to be resourced and present to give it fully.

Number five, Every time you use AI thoughtfully you are actually teaching the language models.

But every time you opt out you are handing that lesson to someone else instead of showing up.

And that someone else is probably going to be a man and your quick win the Socratic Prompt method.

Try it today with just one piece of content and see how it makes you feel and see if the output is even better than you've been getting before.

Next week we're going to get into the Participate episode.

We're going to talk about some high celebrities and their reals and the controversial comments that were in there.

I think this is a cultural moment where women are being mean to other women for using AI and I want to talk about why that is one of the most dangerous things happening in our industry right now.

You are not going to want to miss this one, so stay tuned and as always, continue to be you, continue to be beautiful and continue leading from your heart.

I will catch you in the next episode.

All right, beautiful.

That's a wrap on today's episode.

But before you go, let's talk about something really important.

You are not just another entrepreneur trying to figure things out alone.

You are a wave leader.

Someone whose work is meant to create real impact, touch the lives of others and make this world better.

And I want you to know you don't have to do it alone.

If today's conversation resonated with you, I'd love to keep this energy going inside of my free Facebook community.

Empower her Biz collection Active.

It's where we take these conversations deeper with live trainings, tech walkthroughs and real heart centered support from other women wellness entrepreneurs who really get it.

So if you're ready for community, clarity and support as you build your own business with heart and ease, I'd invite you to come and join us.

You'll find the link in the show notes.

And hey, if you love today's episode, make sure to subscribe, leave a review if you feel inclined to, and share this with a fellow Heart led women entrepreneur so that we can build this movement together.

Until next time, keep leading with Heart.