118 | How Female Founders Use AI to Stop Feeling Like Failures (The Year-End Audit That Reveals What You Really Built)

Are you secretly labeling your year a failure just because it didn’t look flashy on Instagram?

If your calendar is full but your confidence is low, this episode is your reset button. You didn’t do “nothing” this year. You built more than you think, especially the invisible kind of growth that doesn’t show up in your P&L but changes everything.

It’s time to stop judging your year by surface-level metrics and start seeing the transformation you actually created. In this solo episode, Dawn walks you through a simple AI-powered audit that reveals the truth: you didn’t spin your wheels, you leveled up.

Join the AI for Founders Community on LinkedIn. It’s free, it’s founder-led, and it’s the smartest place on the internet to test prompts, trade tools, and get support from women who get it. Let’s build smarter, not harder.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why your brain literally hides your progress (and how to outsmart it)
• The 20-minute AI Achievement Audit that will leave you speechless, in a good way
• The 6 key business categories where your wins are hiding in plain sight
• How to translate your invisible work into real impact (hint: crisis navigation = CEO-level leadership)
• The one reflection question that will shift your entire outlook heading into 2025

Resources & Links

• Free Guide: 10 Ways AI Will Make You a Better Leader
• Prompt to Steal:
  "I'm a founder reviewing my last 12 months. Here's everything I remember doing... Help me organize this into categories: business building, team development, strategic decisions, crisis navigation, personal growth, revenue, and client work."

Related Episodes

• 112 | The 4‑Stage AI Process to Stop Losing 10 Hours a Week
  Perfect follow-up to the Achievement Audit—shift from reactive to strategic with AI.
• 110 | 3 Custom GPTs That Save Female Founders 16 Hours a Week
  Build AI systems that free up your time so your wins don’t get buried under busywork.
• 072 | How Female Founders Delegate Like a CEO Before Burnout
  Uncover the leadership habits that keep your business scaling and your sanity intact.

Want to increase revenue and impact? Listen to “She's That Founder” for insights on business strategy and female leadership to scale your business. Each episode offers advice on effective communication, team building, and management. Learn to master routines and systems to boost productivity and prevent burnout. Our delegation tips and business consulting will advance your executive leadership skills and presence.

Transcript

Shes’s That Founder
118 | How Female Founders Use AI to Stop Feeling Like Failures (The Year-End Audit That Reveals What You Really Built)

Ooh, sister. We're in that delicious space between Christmas and New Year, you're supposed to be relaxing. But instead, you're mentally listing everything you didn't do this year or everything you wanna do differently next year. Your Instagram feed is full of everyone else's wins, and you're sitting there feeling like you spun your wheels for 12 months.

Today we're fixing that with AI as your truth teller.

You worked so hard this year and somehow you're sitting here feeling like you accomplished nothing. Today. We're using AI to show you what you actually built, and I promise you're gonna surprise yourself. 

Hey, hey, hey. You're listening to She's That Founder, the show that helps ambitious women stop drowning in decisions and start owning their CEO seat with a little AI magic.

I'm Dawn Andrews, and today we're talking about why your brain hides your accomplishments from you and how to use AI to see your year clearly. Here's what we're covering, why your brain is literally wired to hide your accomplishments from you and why founders are uniquely terrible at seeing their own progress.

We're gonna cover the AI powered Achievement Audit that will reveal what you actually did this year, not what you think you should have done. About what you really built and then how to measure your impact beyond revenue because your p and l isn't the only scorecard that matters. And then finally, the one reflection question that will completely change how you walk into next year.

So this year I'm doing my annual yearend review. I got my calendar open. I'm scrolling through photos. I'm reading old notes. And this feeling washes over me. I worked so hard this year. What do I have to show for it? Like I couldn't point to one big thing. No massive launch. No giant contract, no viral moment.

Just a lot of work. A lot of fires. In my personal life and a lot of hard decisions, and I'm sitting here feeling like I spun my wheels for 12 months. Then I remembered something that I told a client a few days earlier. Your brain is wired to focus on gaps, not gains. 

You need an external perspective. Yeah, yeah. Gaps not gains, right? So I took my own advice. I pulled out my phone, opened up Claude, and I did what I'm about to walk you through and listen. I was shocked not at how little I did, but at how much I actually accomplished that I had completely forgotten about. 

Here's the thing about founders. We are uniquely bad at seeing our own progress. Why? Because we are always focused on what's next. By design, what's broken? What needs fixing? What's the next trend? What are our clients looking for next? How can we make that next sale? Our to-do list is infinite and focused on the next step forward.

So our brain never files anything under done. It just moves to the next problem. I mean, Can I get a hand raise here? Because I know that I don't even bother celebrating. Actually, most of the time I just pick up the next task, so

it just moves to the next problem. Plus, let me guess, you're counting right now, aren't you? All the things you didn't do, like the list goes on and on. The product development that got delayed. The revenue goal, you didn't hit the system you meant to build.

Yeah, that's negativity bias doing its thing. But here's what you're not counting the invisible work of leadership, the crisis you navigated that would've tanked your business two years ago, the decision making capacity that you've built, the team member you developed, the strategic pivot you made, that's going to pay off next year in Q2.

That's the work that doesn't show up on LinkedIn or in vanity metrics, or even necessarily in your revenue lines directly. But it's the work that actually builds business. So how do you see it? Clearly that's what we're doing today. So this happens, and it's not personal. It's biology. Like I mentioned before, our brains have something called negativity bias, and it's evolutionary psychology.

Our ancestors survived because they remembered threats, not wins. The tiger that almost ate your baby. Yeah. That's what they remember, not the day that nothing went wrong. So our brains are literally wired to scan for problems and dismiss accomplishments, and that's why you can receive 10 compliments and one criticism.

And guess which one keeps you up at night? The criticism every time. How many wins did you have this year that you've already forgotten? I'm betting it's more than you think and add that to the founder Comparison trap. You're comparing your behind the scenes to everyone else's highlight reel. They post the win and you live the 47 unglamorous steps it took to get there.

Of course it feels different, but here is the kicker. The most important work you do as a founder is invisible decision making team development. Crisis management, strategic thinking, saying no to the wrong opportunities, and building your own capacity to lead at the next level. None of that shows up in revenue, at least not in a one-to-one way, but it's the difference between a business that scales and one that stays stuck.

And this is why most founders use revenue as the only measuring stick because it's visible, it's concrete, and it's what other people are also looking at. But it's not the only scorecard that matters. Sometimes the most important thing you did all year was not take on that client.

Invest in the team member who won't show ROI until next quarter, or navigate team conflict instead of avoiding it. And there's no way for us to see these things clearly on our own. You need an external perspective, and that's where AI comes in.

All right, here's what you're gonna do. I can't wait to see how this goes for you guys because it was such a revelation for me. You're gonna use AI to run an achievement audit on your year, and I'm gonna give you the prompts to use. So grab your phone, OpenCL, or chat, GPT, and let's do this together.

Here's what you write in the prompt. 

“I'm a business owner. When you look back at my chat history, where did I focus my energy in my business in the last 12 months?”

And you'll be shocked at what it gives you if you've been using AI regularly. It told me, so I'm just gonna read you out some of the things that it shared with me based on my review of our chat history. Here's where you focused your energy over the last 12 months. Number one place, AI tools and automation heavy focus you created and it shared with me all the different tools, processes, and systems that I created for myself and for you.

Retreat design and high ticket strategic work. Podcast content strategy and production, marketing, voice refinement and narrative strategy. 

So here's why I think that this is so, so, so helpful. Those are the things that matter to me most. Like looking back and reflecting on that list. That is in fact what I cared about most and what made the biggest difference in my business this year. And before I asked Claude that question, it was sort of a feeling and it was amorphous. It wasn't clear and specific and strategic, and it was so helpful to see that reflected back to me.

And from there, here's the next step. I want you to do a data dump. So brain dump everything from this year into your AI of choice, and I mean, everything. Everything that you can remember, everything that you saw in your photos or saw on your calendar, the projects you launched, projects you killed, hires, fires, pivots, strategic decisions, revenue shifts, client wins, client losses, crisis moments, personal growth, things you learned the hard way, the tough conversation you finally had.

The boundary you set, the investment you made. Don't filter, don't judge, don't organize. Don't worry about spelling or grammar. Just dump it all out as the next prompt in this chat that you're in. So what's coming up for you right now? When I give you that long list, what's the first thing you remember from January?

And then here's the prompt and you can literally copy this exactly. 

“I'm a founder reviewing my last 12 months. Here's everything I remember doing, [and then you brain dump in there.] Help me organize this into categories, business building, team development, strategic decisions, crisis navigation, personal growth, revenue, and client work.”

So we already have the background of what your chat tool has pulled from your chat history, and now it's reviewing your history. And I want you to watch what happens. AI is gonna take that chaotic brain dump and give you structure suddenly you can see your year and your thinking organized.

You can see categories where you thought there was nothing. When I did this, I had 17 things under crisis navigation that I'd completely forgot about 17 times I could have panicked, and instead I led. That is leadership development right there.

So now AI's gonna do something that your brain can't, it's gonna spot patterns. So what did you build versus what did you maintain versus what did you navigate? What were you prioritizing? Even unconsciously, what's the through line of your year? 

So here's your next prompt. 

“Looking at this list, what patterns do you see? What did I prioritize? What themes emerge? What kind of leader was I becoming?”

And this is where it gets interesting because AI doesn't have your negativity bias. It's not comparing you to anyone else. It's not judging you for what you didn't do. Because unless you put your list of what you didn't do in there, it's just looking at the data and telling you what it sees and then you're gonna read it back and think, oh, oh, that's what I was doing.

Maybe you were building capacity, maybe you were protecting your energy, maybe you were developing your team's autonomy, or maybe you were just learning to trust your own judgment and you didn't see it in the moment. But AI can see that pattern. 

So this is where the real magic happens. You're gonna ask AI to translate activities into impacts. Not what you did, but what changed because you did it. 

So here's your next prompt for each category.

“ Help me translate these activities into their real impact. Not what I did, but what changed because I did it. So I hired two people, I built leadership capacity and freed myself from day-to-day execution”, right?

Ooh, that's so good. I killed that. Service line becomes, I made a strategic bet on focus and protected my energy for high impact work, or I navigated that team conflict becomes, I developed the hard conversation skills that CEO level leaders need. So can you see the difference?

You're not listing tasks, you're seeing transformation, and I hope you can feel how different that is.

Let me give you a real example. I have a client that I've been working through this process with who in early December, felt like she accomplished nothing this year and we did this audit. And before the audit she said, I didn't hit my revenue goal. I had to let someone go. I didn't launch the product that I planned again this year for another year.

I totally failed. And after the audit, here's what we found. She navigated a major team transition without dropping a client, not one. She made three strategic bets that repositioned her business well for next year. She built systems that freed up eight hours a week of her time.

She developed decision making clarity to say no to a six figure project that would have destroyed her bandwidth and derailed her strategy. Did she hit her original revenue goal? No. Did she build the business and leadership capacity that she needs for sustainable growth and the possibility for that revenue goal or even larger?

Hell yes, she did. That's what this audit reveals and that's why it matters. And to be true, like and full disclosure, this whole thing took about 20 minutes. And it revealed the real work, the invisible work, the work that actually matters, the foundational stuff that's under the big win. You know, the big win launch, the big revenue number, et cetera,

so here's what I need you to hear. You didn't do nothing this year. You did the invisible work of building a business. So the question is, what didn't I do? The question is, who did I become? Because here's the truth, listen, you can't build a business without becoming the person who can run it.

That is not separate from the work. That is the work You think you're supposed to be checking boxes, hitting milestones, launching the thing, making the number. Yeah, but what you're actually doing is building the capacity, the judgment, the resilience, the strategic thinking that your business needs from you as a CEO.

So think about it this way, two years ago, could you have handled what you handled this year? Could you have made those decisions, navigated those crises, led through that uncertainty? Maybe, maybe not, but you sure as hell can now. Because you built yourself into what your business needs. You didn't just navigate last year, you built yourself into the leader your business needs most next year, and that's the accomplishment that matters most.

So I'm asking you, who did you become this year? What can you handle now that you couldn't handle before?

Okay. Quick pause. If this episode is helping you see next year differently. If you're realizing you actually did build something this year, do me a favor. Do me a solid, leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Tell me what landed for you. It genuinely helps other founders find the show when they need it most.

And if you want this kind of strategic support and AI integration help all year long. Join the AI for Founders community on LinkedIn. It's free. We're testing tools, sharing prompts, and helping each other to use AI to actually lead our businesses instead of just run them the links in the show notes.

All right, let's wrap this up. Here is your quick recap. Your brain hides your accomplishments because of negativity bias and the comparison trap. It's wired to scan for problems, not wins. That's biology. That is not a personal failing. The AI achievement audit has four steps. Ask it to review what you've said in chat over the last 12 months about your business.

Dump everything into ai. Let it find the patterns you can't see, and then translate those activities into actual impact you didn't do nothing. You built yourself into what your business needs you to be. And that is the real accomplishment. And here's the one I want you to take into next year.

Not, what didn't I do, but who did I become? So your action step, take 20 minutes today or tomorrow, do this AI audit. See your year clearly, and I promise you, you are going to surprise yourself.

And listen, you are enough. You did enough. You're more ready for next year than you think. This is our last episode of this year, and I'm so grateful you've been here with me. I'm gonna take a short break to reset and plan for next year. We'll be back in January with fresh episodes, new frameworks, and even more AI strategies to help you lead like the awesome CEO that you are becoming

In the meantime, do that achievement audit. See what you really built this year and who you've really become. 

I'm Dawn Andrews, and I'm wishing you and all the people that you love and your business and your team the happiest New Year. Now go see what you really accomplished, Lovey.