AI Café Conversations | AI for Executives: Leadership Insights | Transforming with AI

Augmented Intelligence: Mastering AI Integration in Executive Coaching

• Sahar the AI Whisperer | Neuroscience Expert in AI and Leadership • Season 2 • Episode 10

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Join Sahar the "AI Whisperer" as she welcomes executive coach Lizette Espinoza for an insightful exploration of AI integration in executive coaching, using  AI coaching tools for executives,  Rather than treating powerful tools like ChatGPT as glorified search engines. 

In this episode, they delve into the evolution from basic AI usage towards mastering human-centered AI tools. 

Lizette shares her journey from an attorney to an AI power user, offering strategies that can enhance business operations while ensuring data security. 

 What truly distinguishes this conversation is the focus on mastery versus basic usage. As the gap widens between novice and skilled AI practitioners, Lizette emphasizes that true AI mastery goes beyond mere usage; it’s about enriching your leadership with AI, this is pure AI for Executives. 

This episode highlights how viewing AI as augmented intelligence can foster collaboration rather than replacement. With practical insights and engaging analogies, like the powerful metaphor of a dragon in Game of Thrones, listeners will discover the key to leveraging AI for competitive advantage. 

Whether you're an executive or a coach, this discussion offers vital strategies for adopting AI confidently. Tune in to learn neuroscience-backed approaches to integrating AI in your professional journey and transform your leadership effectiveness.

Both experts reframe the paradigm entirely, suggesting we view these tools as "augmented intelligence" rather than "artificial intelligence." This subtle shift highlights AI as a collaborative partner that amplifies existing strengths.  The warning is clear: it's not AI taking jobs, but people with AI skills replacing those without them. For executives, coaches, and anyone looking to remain competitive, the message is unmistakable: master your AI dragon or risk being left behind.

 Discover neuroscience-based AI strategies for executives and coaches. Sahar MB.BCh explores human-centered AI integration for leadership success.  

Subscribe and share to join our community of forward-thinking professionals embracing AI as a tool for growth rather than a threat to authenticity.

Ready to transform your AI implementation? Start with your team's nervous system, not your technology stack.

My book "The Coach's Brain Meets AI" was released on Friday 8/8 it is already #1 in New releases on Amazon - get your kindle or paperback copy now https://a.co/d/7te8En7

If you have any questions Email me at sahar@saharconsulting.com

To get in touch with Lizette:

https://www.systemandsoulai.com

LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/in/lizetteespinosainfanttech/



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Speaker 2:

Good morning. Good morning, Do I have a treat for you today? This is Sahar, your AI whisperer, and this is the next episode in season two of AI Cafe Conversations. So we're doing things a little bit different today. So I have, first of all, a great executive coach here, but also a very, very dear friend. We go back a long time and it's just like I admire what she has been doing. I mean, she is a fabulous entrepreneur, she is the brain master behind a system and soul AI and she is just fabulous. I'm going to let her talk about herself in a second. Her name is Lizette Espinoza and I'm just delighted that she had time for us today to be in this interview. Like I said, we go back a long time and we go back and forth. We are each other like what do you do, how should I do this, how I'm going through this, what should I do? And we kind of talked AI for a long time together and today, you know, I asked her to come here to share her experience with all of you.

Speaker 2:

So, Lizzie like I call you. Thank you so much for being here today. I would like you to please introduce yourself, and then I have a couple of questions for you.

Speaker 1:

Well, sahara. First of all, thank you so much for having me, always an honor. Yes, we go back a long time. You're one of my dear, close friends when it comes to just sharing life and I really appreciate you for that, even especially with AI. So I know we'll talk about that later, but I definitely credit everything you've done and everything you've talked about to open my own eyes in what this is capable of, everything you've talked about to open my own eyes in what this is capable of. And for a little background of myself actually, prior to joining on the entrepreneur side, I was a former litigating attorney, so still an attorney, but I love using it in combination of business and law. I'm in the baby tech space, infant tech and now my experience in the entrepreneur space. I really love supporting entrepreneurs and so that's where I'm a coach and an executive coach to other entrepreneurs and now moving into allowing them and showing them the capabilities of what AI can do for them, because this really is revolutionary.

Speaker 2:

You know that's so interesting that you're saying this, because I have been saying this a lot lately that people are barely using AI like a Google search. They're scratching, and I think the biggest risk that people are going through is that they're scratching the surface. They're entering whatever, getting a response, and they call themselves AI experts, and that scares me because, honestly, we both know garbage in, garbage out, right. So thank you for being here. I'm going to ask you a couple of questions. When did you start AI as a tool, as something that you wanted to try? What made you go to it and what was your biggest fear?

Speaker 1:

I know a couple of questions in there. Well, honestly, you know, my legal mind is actually what kept me away. So it's interesting. Even though I'm in tech, I feel like I'm a late adopter of AI, in particular, I think, the way we talk about it. I think ChatGPT opened it up it was at 22 when it launched but even though those that are in AI know that it's been around for years, right, but this is just where it really became publicly known to the mainstream, even though we're surrounded by it, because those series and the Alexas were AI.

Speaker 1:

It's just in a different level and you weren't aware of that, right? Uh, so the legal part of me didn't want to use it because of security reasons. I was like I don't want to just put my information out there. Um, just even the word open ai, that's like everything's just going to be out there. So I actually credit you for really opening my eyes to the fact that once I realized that I can have some security protocols toggle things off, and even from there, I've added different ways to add protections or being really clear that I'm intending something to be private.

Speaker 1:

That's actually where, all of a sudden, I took off to the point that my husband, who had been using it for two years prior to me, was like oh my God, what are you doing? It's like you're a monster. It's like I haven't even come close to the way you're using it, because it intuitively came to me and I feel like what you just said. I do deep dives with it and, you know, I even started creating my own bots that like specialized assistants, uh. But I hear your voice in the back of my mind often, which is garbage in, garbage out. So when I see people just doing these simple sentences or they're not giving enough information in the background, I know that they're not getting the best results that they can.

Speaker 2:

And they're shooting themselves in the foot, basically, and it hurts them rather than helping them.

Speaker 2:

Actually, there was just a study released and they said that, finding out that most of the platforms, like either Cloud, anthropic or even Meta or ChatGPT or Perplexity all of them are leveling up.

Speaker 2:

Maybe one is over memory, one is over maybe paradigms, and but they're all almost at the same level. What the gap has been going is in the users, between the novice users and the people that really know how to do it. The gap is actually like really widening, and I love the fact that you're saying that and I know that you're doing not only that, and I know that you're doing not only prompt engineering, right, where you're doing a lot of prompt chaining, where you take, you know, like you said, you dig deep and dive and most people don't do that, and for me, this is sad. What was your mindset as a brain? I know that your legal part of your brain kind of put you in a stand up like hey, let me an alarm position where your amygdala all of a sudden give you your survival vibes Stop, don't go any further, you are in danger. But what was your mindset about AI when you started working with it when we started talking about it you started working with it when we started talking about it.

Speaker 1:

Once I started using it and I'm seeing the capabilities of how quickly the results are coming, um, and that, at the end of the day, I am the one that's mastering it, right? So, going to, you know, when it comes to even teaching other people, my thing is like I, I really want you to think with it. So I think that's's where my intuitive side you know, I happen you know, if we do personality styles, I happen to be an analyzer. So the analyzer in me it's, it's easy for me to go deep with it, right? So I give it a lot of information and background and I really look at it as like, hey, if I had this person in front of me, what information does it need to know in order for it to do its job? Well, so that's probably the easiest way to think about it.

Speaker 1:

You know, if I had, if I just hired somebody and I gave them one sentence hey, go write this memo for me, and they come back and it's about something that you didn't want. Well, look, I didn't give any clear instructions on that, right? So this is where I really started. When I'm showing people, it's like, hey, I want you really think with this right, um, and I like this is my partner, emmy and I. We say this for it's not I don't want to say artificial intelligence, it's augmented intelligence, right, because artificial means fake, but augmenting is how can you augment and improve yourself and how do you work with it together to make you a better version of yourself? So when I started using it and I was seeing the power of it, I was just seeing how you as an individual can just like exponentially grow yourself because of the questions that come through, because you're really having a conversation with the AI.

Speaker 2:

So you know it's interesting that you said that because I call it even in. As you know, I'm releasing a book called Coaches Brain Meets AI and in the book book I say that we collaborate, we don't compete with AI, right, and I say that if you are a good coach and you have good skills, ai you say augment, I say amplify will amplify those skills and I'm sorry, but if you're not a good coach, it will amplify how mediocre the skills are. You know, I I mean there is no two way about it. You know it's about, again, how to use it. So thank you for sharing that. What was the first aha moment in your coaching practice when you're helping executive use AI? What was your first aha moment that made you, yes, I'm on the right track?

Speaker 1:

uh. I think one in particular was someone who's had already had experience with ai tools, particularly a lot of the marketing sides but then and also had experience on the chat, gpt side. But when I showed them what was more available to them, they were like, oh my goodness, it's like I saw their aha moment and their little glimmer of how much it really could improve for them. Um, that this person actually very quickly took it on uh and improved and even started making money, uh at a bigger, at a faster rate, just because of these slight improvements. And so what was fascinating here is because she was already using it, but it shifted her in a different point of view of like, hey, let's think a little bit more, a little bit deeper with it. And again, I think, even at the end of the day, let's think with it right, because when you were talking about somebody using it and like, and they, they don't cross-reference, they don't check, or they're like, oh, this looks good. Um, that's the ai mastering them.

Speaker 1:

And again I go back to from the executive coaching perspective, you need to be able to maneuver this, you need to be able to move with it. But that, that was my number one, a hot moment there Of, hey, this really is going to impact somebody, and so I actually get so much joy in it too. That's probably the other big spark Of like you guys. This is life changing. So I realized, too, how much I love talking about it, because it makes a difference to people's lives and giving them some time back and reducing stress levels. That to me, that's invaluable, right, like that's actually really what matters in life, like let's find a way to have a better life, absolutely absolutely.

Speaker 2:

What is the biggest? When you're coaching, like leaders and executives, what is the biggest pushback that you get?

Speaker 1:

Hmm, I think well, when it was. Surprisingly enough, I actually get more people being open to using the AI. The beginning was the fear, so I really relate to the part of the security issue, so at least I can show them. Hey look, these are different ways that you can secure your data, and it's interesting where I wear the legal hat on that. I don't know if you do this, but when I do my custom bots, I even add disclaimers to the bottom. I've added different notes to show again. I am intending this to be private.

Speaker 1:

So that was one of the biggest pushbacks. Secondly, it is when someone is closed-minded. They think that AI is not going to help them with their job and they're not willing to open themselves up to possibilities. So if you're closed, then that's one of those things where it's like no one's going to be able to teach you that. It's like I can lead the horse to water, but if you don't want to drink, then it's like there's nothing we can do about them being closed to what might open up for them. So that that would probably be the second biggest pushback. Is someone's just closed about it.

Speaker 2:

You know it's yesterday I was reading a post on LinkedIn and I know you love, you are on LinkedIn a lot and someone was saying that she was tasked with coaching an executive in an organization and she found out that that executive was not open to coaching. So she's basically berating the HR and the CEO of the company that they pushed that person for coaching when they were not ready. And I had to stop for a second and I'm like that's not being a good coach, right, it's about like especially with ai now knowing, understanding that, remember, when people are scared of ai, ai as a coach, cannot read the micro expressions of someone's face that you're coaching. Your mirror neurons are different, your empathy is different, but they can look at patterns and behaviors and they can give you lights on things like that that can help you mostly develop even your own skills. And I had to go and respond to that because I don't believe in that someone is.

Speaker 2:

There is a very small percentage where people are uncoachable, but it depends on the coach and you know that is that I mean I'm sure you met in your life. Not everybody is open from the get-go for coaching. But as a good coach, you presented in a way where you talk to their survival, calm down their fear and take them to the next level. And now, with AI, is just absolutely a lot easier. The next question that, since we're talking about business, what business results have you seen from your AI integration in your business?

Speaker 1:

and in other people's business.

Speaker 1:

Well, it's definitely it's making a difference in saving money from some of and because of the time right, because it there's some of the results that I get that are just so much faster, and from like, for example, I have a CEO bot. So I basically recreated myself and this is primarily on chat GPT. I recreated my experience, and so what I did with this particular GPT is I said you've already built the business to like where I wanted to go right, like what is a hundred million dollar company to the billion dollar company look like. And so whenever I run through it, I use different analysis for this one. Sometimes it'll be like hey, these are some of the experiences we're going through right now. Let's strategize through it. So we strategize um, I can even put in some pnl like, even, uh, like performance, uh things with the company and ask it like, where are the gaps? Um, I will use it for, let's say, I went on all of a sudden I had a bunch of networking events, like three or four in a week. It organized all of my follow-ups for me. So it's like almost having an assistant um from a systems perspective.

Speaker 1:

Uh, from our marketing side, I had our team. We did create a special marketing um assistant on chat, gt, so that they have the links. So, when it comes to creating our calendars, our marketing calendars and events, it's like now it's done so fast. You know what used to take maybe two weeks. Now it takes within a few minutes. But it's like now you edit it so there's room to do more things. So I'm using it with the team and I'm inspiring and allowing the team to use it. I definitely am the one, the proponent of it, with all of the different components, different departments. How can AI support you to do your job better and also for training purposes? Right, right, that I know. I want the people that work with us to also have knowledge in these tools that they can use not only when they're working with us, but in their own lives actually my next question was going to be how has your team responded to your AI leadership?

Speaker 1:

I think they're excited. I think, like, particularly in the marketing team, I think they were already using it beforehand. But when it was a very specific directive coming from me, it's like hey guys, how are we using it? Let's make this faster. They totally embraced it.

Speaker 1:

And again, when we talk about the fear of when people are saying that it's going to take away jobs, it's also going to create jobs. So it's not one of those of it'll fully take it away. Just, there are some industries where you are going to have to learn to use it and I feel marketing is one of them. Um, because otherwise you can't keep up with the speed of what comes out. Um, because everybody else using AI with it, and so I think they appreciated it there that it's like hey, um, and I feel we're also take coming away from the um the narrative when it first came out of like there was a lot of pushback of like you cannot use it, or I feel some negative connotation, people thinking that it's not yours or it's not real. So when people say that, to me it's obvious they're not using AI because they're not realizing that you, as a human, have to still work with it.

Speaker 1:

It's a tool just like my Word document, right? I still typed that up. I still have to do work with it. It's a tool, just like my Word document, right? I still typed that up. I still have to do that. Well, when you're using with these prompts, it's like I still had a lot to do with that it would. Whatever was created would not exist if, as a human, I didn't have some inputs to it.

Speaker 2:

It's like using GPS to go somewhere doesn't make you less of a driver. Yes, you know. If you have to go through a surgery, right, and the surgeon uses the highest tech with AI possible to get you the best result, would you rather go with that, or someone that stayed 50 years behind? Very good point. That doesn't make them less of a surgeon, right. Yes, thank you for bringing that up. It doesn't make them less of a surgeon, right. Yes, thank you for bringing that up. So now for our listeners, who are in your shoes when you started, like, what is the best advice you give executives who are where you started? And one of the questions that I always get I'm not a techie, so what would you say to that?

Speaker 1:

You know what I'm going to tell them? If they can use Microsoft Office and if they can use email, they can use AI. So I love how I also read this the other day when AI was first being developed, yes, you needed the coders and you needed these software engineers, but it has gotten to the level where it is easy to use. So I think maybe that's actually part of the fear too. Right, there is some intimidation factor when somebody says AI of like I just don't know what that is, but when they jump in, they're going to realize, oh, it's not as complicated as I thought it was. And if you jump in, like you know, it's like literally 15 minutes a day, 20 minutes a day, you're going to start using it pretty well. Day, you're going to start using it pretty well.

Speaker 1:

But at the next level, the advice would be let's show you how to use it at a deeper level. Right, based on our conversation that we talked about at the beginning, if nine out of 10 people are just using it as a glorified Google search, that's, you're not going to maximize it. Yes, it'll help you to a certain extent, but it's yes, it'll help you to a certain extent, but you're like the tip, tip, tip of the iceberg of what it can do. So I would recommend to any executives. It's like hey look, there's so many resources out there. There are executive coaches like myself, like you, that are teaching entrepreneurs how to use it.

Speaker 1:

And start first with yourself and then how do you introduce it to your teams? And start first with yourself and then how do you introduce it to your teams. That's actually why we started system and soul ai, because we're noticing again, a lot of people are talking about ai but their the adoption rate is not as high as you think. It is right. Um, you know it's interesting because you and I are circles, like we're talking about it, so you think everybody's talking about it. But I have this analogy it's like climbing a mountain and the people at that level of the mountain they've all used it, but when I turn around, there's all these other people that haven't even touched it. Um, so it's one of those of um, you use it first and then see how you can introduce it to your team and see how it can really streamline your systems.

Speaker 2:

Yes, especially for business and I say this I say that people are using ai like a calculator, when it's actually a super duper, very smart computer you know, and that's, that's um, that that's what, and and actually, and actually my last article was talking about that we don't have an AI leadership crisis, like, I guess, leaders. They are just shoving AI on their teams without preparing them for the real change management. That is more psychological than anything else. You know, they are just pushing it down their throat and that's why some people have adversity to it. If you would suggest one AI tool that every executive should start try first, I remember when I introduced my husband to sushi, I made him eat California roll first because it was like the easiest entry to sushi. So if that analogy, analogy we would do it a tool for ai, what would you suggest an executive um tool he can have?

Speaker 1:

well, I, I'm definitely biased with the chat gpt and I keep telling people like it's the baby of ai. Uh, I know people. Some people say what do you mean baby? It's like because it's it's the easiest to use. The good news, too it's the basis for a lot of them. Right, it's like it because it was the one that was developed the fastest at the beginning. A lot of the other platforms emulated it, so if you can learn how to use chat gpt, then you can use a lot of the other platforms. And again, for security purposes. That's why I like ChatGPT because it was easy to do that toggling off on your data. And again, I feel it has gone further along because of the fact that it's been around. So that is my recommendation. I think it's fun, and that's another thing. So just like, have fun with it, exactly.

Speaker 2:

You know best memory by far on all of them. I mean I tried all of them. It's the best memory ever and it's the highest emotionally intelligent platform so far. I mean, Claude is second anthropic, but Chad Gipity is still the most. It's like your bff. Sometimes you know it's a. So, before we wrap up, what would you tell other coaches like you that maybe are not deep in ai or um, they want to explain what ai to uh to their clients without feeling that they're not authentic, without feeling that they are cheating. Because, believe it or not, all these thoughts were in my brain Like am I cheating? Am I not being authentic? Am I not good enough? That's why I have to have like a cane to walk on. You know what I mean. What would be pearls of wisdom from you going through what you went through the whole last year about AI? Before we wrap, what would you say?

Speaker 1:

uh, interesting, because it's. You know, the other day, when I did have a session in person, someone had this point of view, before that you were. It was plagiarism, right, that they're creating something that wasn't theirs. And that's when I explained. It's like, well, if, if I can show you how to use it first, you'll realize that. That's when I explained. It's like, well, if I can show you how to use it first, you'll realize that that's not the case, because of how much human input, how much of your input has to come into it. So I think once they see that, then they'll just get a re-clarification.

Speaker 1:

And again, I think everything's about mind shifting. How do we support individuals to shift their point of view from something that at the beginning they actually don't know much about but they've just heard? So it's giving them a hands-on experience and like, let me show you. And then, secondly, it really is about again, like, see, well, it's a tool tool, right, it's like any other tool that we've got. Uh, you use tools, like you just said, it's like to get somewhere from a to b. I'm going to use my car, right. And and we use analogies of in the past where, again, I'm going to go back as we had horses right or we started from walking, we had horses. We have cars right. Next thing you know, now we've got the self-driving cars. Yeah, so everything's in evolution.

Speaker 1:

And I always love I actually use Game of Thrones analogy, uh, for my classes as like having an AI I'm gonna call it a companion is like having a dragon in Game of Thrones, and I use the dragon analogy because to so someone can see how massive it is right. So think of just that series, the ones who have the dragons, have the power right. You can fly with it, you need to, but you need to master your dragon. And so, in this context as well, it's like would you rather have one or not? Because and it's one, and here's the next piece it's available to anybody. It literally is such a thing about leveling a playing field and, unfortunately, if you don't know how to use it, you actually will be left behind. So that's almost like the pros and cons of if there is is fear, you should be more afraid of not using it absolutely.

Speaker 2:

And, like I said earlier, people say that it's going to take jobs. It's gonna people with ai skills are going to replace that, those jobs. It's not ai, it's going to replace the job. So, um lizzie, this was so much fun. How can people reach you?

Speaker 1:

you can reach me on linkedin. You can look up liz espinoza. You can reach me on my website, uh www, soul and system aicom, and you can find me also on instagram, liz espinoza, um, but I think the easiest one right now would be linkedin website and we're here to support. There's so much for this space right now and I think we really do need to. I love what you're doing right when it comes to getting this message out, because this really is changing so quickly as well that we need to. If I can help as many entrepreneurs get on board as quickly as possible, then you know. Again, I feel like I did something to support someone else's growth.

Speaker 2:

Beautiful. Thank you so much, lizzie. It was so much fun having you today on my podcast, ai Cafe Conversations, and I'm going to put all your information in the description of the episode of the episode. Uh, it's going to be episode six on season two that will be released on um july, to be july the 9th. So, uh, I can't wait, you know, for people to uh really enjoy this episode. I had a lot of fun. I hope you did too, and thank you so much for being here with me today.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely. It was an honor and I love it that you call me Lizzy. Yeah, I always call you Lizzy.

Speaker 2:

Okay, my audience, I love you. Those that love AI Cafe Conversations, as you know, please subscribe, share it with a friend. Show me love like it, share it. This is Sahar, your AI whisperer, and I'll see you in the next episode.

Speaker 1:

Awesome, this is Sahar, your AI whisperer, and I'll see you in the next episode.