Do you find yourself lacking confidence in not only your personal life, but your career? As women, we struggle to stand up, speak up or show up in the world in full. We hold ourselves back and play small, often due to the messaging we receive throughout our upbringing and culture.

Today I’m joined by Erika Cramer, the Queen of Confidence herself, who believes that if more women were out there running companies and countries,  we would see so many more amazing changes in the world. So how do we get out of our own way? Erika’s beliefs around overcoming fear and self-doubt could be summarised in these three words: do it scared. 

As a renowned speaker, author and coach who empowers women to break free from self-doubt, Erika knows firsthand what it is to begin life with a negative self-image. Suffering trauma throughout her childhood while in the American foster system, she quickly developed a view of herself as bad or wrong. However, a series of painful events in her twenties caused a life-changing awakening in her mindset and life purpose. 

In our conversation, we explore the cost of lacking confidence, from missed opportunities to compromised dreams and toxic relationships. Erika emphasises the pivotal role of self-trust and self-belief in initiating meaningful change.

She introduces the concept of using fear as a fuel for growth. Rather than succumbing to fear by running or standing still, she encourages reframing it as a clue that we're on the right path. 

So, if you’re struggling to live a life of confidence, it may be time to step out, embrace fear and make it work for your success. It’s your best chance to live out your dreams and enjoy the beauty of unwavering self-trust. 

LINKS:

Connect with Erika:

• Website: https://thequeenofconfidence.com/ 
• Instagram: @thequeenofconfidence
• Facebook: @theconfidencequeen
• Podcast: The Confidence Chronicles

Elevate with Janine

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I'm sure all of you have experienced feeling that confidence. In some way or another, what we spoke about specifically on this episode, two awesome things. One is the cost of your lack of confidence and lack of self belief to get curious. And I want you to think about as you listen to this, what is it costing you right now in terms of not being the confident you that you can become?

Enjoy this conversation. If you love it, please take a photo and share it with anyone that you think would find it useful and I'd love you. to comment, uh, on what you loved most about this episode. Thank you so much and enjoy.

Erika: I'm

Janine: so excited to have my very first guest on this relaunched podcast. No other than the amazing Erica Kramer. Thank you so much Erica. Oh my

Erika: gosh. I'm so excited. I

Janine: love this woman so much. And as you've probably heard Through the episode so far as part of this relaunch. Um, this has been a whole shift for me.

I've got to ask you, why have we all got to get out of our own way and start stepping into confidence? Why is this such a passion piece for you? Mindset, confidence, being who it is that we're supposed to be.

Erika: Oh, well, first of all, I love you. Thank you so much for that beautiful intro. It is, it is the thing that keeps me up at night and puts me to sleep and makes me jump out of bed.

So, for me, I always say, and it probably triggers everyone on International Women's Day, I'm like, forget about blaming the patriarchy, forget about pointing the finger as to why you don't have what you want. You are crueler to yourself than any man or patriarchal system will ever be. So how do we get out of our own way?

And I believe when we do that, not only do we change our homes and we change the world, we change our companies. Many of us, and those of you listening to this amazing podcast, I know you're here to do some stuff. You're here to make an impact if you follow this incredible woman. So, we can't make that impact and we can't make the change and make the dreams come true if we ourselves are stopping Our own selves.

Like, that's, that's it. Preach

And then it's like this fear of showing up. Do you, do you see that in your world? How do you see it presenting itself, this lack of confidence or imposter syndrome or, Oh my God, I'm going to beat myself up and crawl to myself.

Erika: Yes. A hundred percent. I think it's something, it's probably the most common thing that we see, uh, as women and I know men struggle with this as well, however for us it's such a predominant thing that we go to, that we have to be the nice girl, that we need to play small, that we need to be quiet and soft and gentle and it feels like it's something that I think a lot of us learn growing up.

Who cares about me and my story? It's not about that. It's about the work. And I'm like, you are the work. You know, like your story matters, the things that you go through, the way that you see the world, the things that you love, the things that piss you off. Like, I want to know those things so that I can be more connected to you.

And so I think that if, if we're so focused, hyper focused on what other people think of us and how they will perceive us, we almost present this facade as to who we think people think we should be. It's very convoluted. It's like this thought process that doesn't actually make sense. And when you realize that.

But I don't know who Erica is yet and who I can be. So, I am in this place where I don't know who I am. Peeling back the layers of who I'm not so when someone externally tries to label me or judge me or poke fun at me They don't know who I am. If, if I don't know, how do they know? So consider that they're speaking to a version that they perceive you as, which is all their stuff.

So it really gives me this, like, Huh, I don't have to give a shit what people think of me. I'm so free from that, because they definitely don't know who I am if I don't know who I am. So we can't allow that to stop us. And I think that's probably the biggest blocker of confidence, is worrying about the opinion of others, worrying about people thinking things about us, that maybe we secretly think already about ourselves.

And the time best spent is to work on our own thoughts about ourselves, and then we're free. Literally, that's freedom.

I remember standing up on stage a few years ago, big, big room, I prepared this presentation till the cows come home. And for some reason, my presentations up until that point have been lots of other people's stories. Lots of case studies, lots of facts and figures. And I woke up this morning and went, Oh, bugger this, I'm going to share my story.

I don't know why, I woke up one morning and just thought, I'm going to do it. Of course my husband went, How the hell are you going to do that? You've had to give your slides a week ago. It's okay, I'll work it out. And, um, I don't even remember what I said, or what I even saw. spoke about for those 45 minutes.

Look at, look at how awesome she is. She's always been like that. Have you always been the confident Erica? That we see in front of us now.

Erika: I'm trying not to laugh because like, oh gosh, no, as you know, um, no, I, I, I literally believe I was the least confident person in the world, a short story, but I had a lot of horrible child, uh, abuse, sexual abuse, uh, traumatization of my childhood being in the foster care system in America.

And you know, I kind of grew up thinking that I was fundamentally flawed, wrong. Damaged, something is wrong with me and I must be cursed. And so this, this belief that I wasn't good enough and I wasn't chosen 'cause my dad left. And just all of those things, abandonment issues manifested into bad relationships.

If others weren't happy, I was bad. And so this was this, this kind of way that I was running and unfortunately I broke my back in a terrible car accident and it kind of woke me up to my life a bit. Um, and I started kind of going, what do I want to do with my life? What am I doing? You know, that kind of existential questions that you start asking at 23 years old.

And I was married. My partner was in the military. I was in the military. And unfortunately the following year he passed away in a car accident. And it just kind of was my moment of like, whoa, TKO, like I'm done. There's too much trauma, there's too much stuff going on. I just numbed out, Janine, for like three years, got into bad relationships, moved to Australia for a man who wasn't very kind, but I couldn't see it.

And so I was attracting all of this. My life was going, here's the result of your thoughts. Here's the result of your mindset. And it was a bad relationship. So thankfully got out of that and found my current husband Hamish, who was my personal trainer. And he kind of introduced me to coaching and therapy and healing.

You know, it took me eight years. Eight years. I was not trying to help anyone in those eight years. I was really dealing with all my stuff and it was a lot of stuff. So eight full years for me to realize, wow, I can see what's possible. All the pain and stuff I experienced is really fueling me now. And, and I'm able to be more resilient.

Because. You overcome the difficulties and so I sucked. I was not confident. I hated my life. I didn't like who I was. I thought I was cursed and after eight years of this work, I wanted to do this to support other women to do this. So when I say I understand what it's like, I get it. I get what all of it is like.

And this is why I speak on it. So passionately, because you don't have to struggle with a lack of self confidence. It's not, it doesn't have to be that way, you know?

Janine: And do you still have moments of that, Erica? You know, your, your career has gone mental gangbusters. You know, I think I, we, you and I first met before you were my mentor, styling.

But are there still moments where you go almost, I call it those vomit in mouth moments. So it's like, Oh God, I don't want to do this. And, and what do you do? What does, what do you do, Erica, to get yourself moving from the equivalent of someone going, I can't post a video on Instagram, to what your version of that is now?

I'm just

Erika: with you, like, as you're sharing, I'm like, Oh, I'm feeling the vomits coming up, you know, um, I have a much more vulgar way. I'm like, I get skid marks in my undies. And I just want to run. You know, I'm like, I have to go do a spiritual poo before I speak on stage. My stomach goes crazy. I don't know if anybody resonates, but I'm like, Oh, my gosh, this is so scary.

And it's such a evolutionary thing that we just have it. We're so Fear driven and so I recently was thinking about this because I think fear is a beautiful thing if we know how to work with it many of us let our fear freeze us. And it's like, let your fear fuel you. So when you're fearful, your survival instincts are on, right?

You are hyper focused. You're basically trying to figure out how to survive and how to not die in the moment. Even though it's a speaking engagement, right? It's like, your body's like, We're going to die. So what do we do? Where's safety? And so when you're in fear, you can actually hyper focus on what you desire.

It'll work so beautiful. It'll give you this amazing like energy on stage or at a meeting or before you're going to do something scary. And so the invitation is, okay, I'm scared. There's adrenaline. Let me focus on this one thing. And my focus is I step my foot on the stairs of the stage and then I step my other foot.

I'm literally like, holy crap, I'm getting on the stage. And what if I just ran off the stage right now? Literally, I'm thinking like, would anyone notice if I just went home and I'm walking on the stage? And then as soon as my last foot is on that stage. That's my little action. I did it and then the adrenaline and then the dopamine of me being like I don't know what the hell I'm saying, but it's coming out and it's the most incredible experience and instead of the dopamine in action If you grab your phone and you scroll the adrenaline with that dopamine it keeps you in this frozen State where nothing good happens.

I love that. I

Janine: think it's, I often talk about, I think it's the, the, the perfectionism. that also fuels the fear. Um, you know, like you said, do it scared, do it anyway. Have no, uh, like, play lightly. Play lightly with the outcome. And just have an experiment. Like, start experimenting more. You know where you're heading?

And yeah, it's freaking scary trying to get there. But if you See, everything is a playful experiment and stuff's gonna go wrong versus I want it to be so perfect it gives you that release and the other piece I for me personally, Erica, I often go and I feel that fear. I see it as a massive gift because to me, it's actually the clue.

Oh my God! And I, I literally use that as a clue that I'm on the right path. to a significant moment of

Erika: growth. And you are, right? It's like, and you, I love what you said to the expectation versus intention. Like an expectation is perfectionism. This is going to go this way. This is how it's going to happen.

Like I had an expectation from my first birth and it did not go that way. And so, you know, it was a bit, this is the way it's going to be. It's like so rigid. And so, uh, it's not flexible instead of my intention. is that this is going to happen. And I intend on this and I would love that. And if it doesn't, I'm more fluid and there's more flexibility with the intention.

Janine: Where do you think is we're talking about this?

Where do you think that that expectation comes from? Because you're an expert in this, this confidence and mindset space. And you and I both know it's, it's a balance of yourself, the expectation you're putting on yourself. And surely there's outward stuff that we're choosing to listen to or choosing to believe that that's what we've got to do.

What's, what are you noticing from your work area care of where that expectation is coming from? Yeah,

Erika: I really, I know that this is very therapist of me, but I can't help but say, It truly matters. Our upbringing, our childhood truly matters. I mean, especially in the zero to to 12, that imprint phase where we learn who we are by our world.

And so We can't help but look at the way that we were raised in the family, in the culture, in the society, in the country. What does it mean to be a woman living in Australia, the tall poppy? We don't have that in America. It's different, you know, as a Latina, what's our background? Like, there's so many things.

And so I, I hate when people are like, Oh, that's so therapeutic. But it's true. I mean, We can't deny that our childhood and the way that we were raised in the container we were brought up in doesn't impact us who we become as an adult because it fully does. And so I think that one of the important things that we can look at is where do we feel we have a dysfunction?

I've been looking for someone to say, Hey, you're good. You did a good job. You're enough. I've been looking for acknowledgement and really that's. That's the masculine energy that I was missing from my father. I was looking for someone to say, you're good enough. I want to choose you. And so him leaving when I was two years old, subconsciously showed me I wasn't worth staying for.

And so what do I do? I become a workaholic. I want to be so successful. I want to chase my dreams so that I can prove maybe to my dad that, hey, I'm worth, you should have stayed because I'm worth it. And I, I've questioned this Janine so many times in my own therapy of like, Is this why I work so hard and I go so hard for my goals to prove that I was good enough to be chosen?

Do I want to work? here. Do I want to be an accountant or is that what my family wanted for me? And so if we're not careful, we start to follow someone else's GPS map and we end up somewhere we don't want to be in a marriage 20 years later where we're unhappy and miserable when really two years into it, you were unhappy, but you couldn't divorce because what will people think?

Janine: Yeah. And I was sharing with you offline how even now experiencing through the eyes of a mother on my 15 year old that's got this, this professional sporting dream and he's talented, there's no doubt about it. Yeah. But his confidence in himself, his own mindset, and being able to take ownership for the choices he makes on the field and off the field is his journey.

It's not one that I can take. And what we're talking about here for these people that are listening in, confidence. Building confidence isn't a seven step process. It's not step number one, step number two, step number three. It's, it's actually so much deeper than that, because if I relate it back to my 15 year old talent is no longer enough.

If you're finding that tricky and you're labeling it as a lack of confidence, it's actually what you're talking about, Erica. It's something else. It's linked to confidence, mindset, whatever it is that's holding you back and playing small. And playing small is okay as well. We don't all have to play big.

But if you've got something, if you've got this fire to do something more or to become something more, or you're beating yourself up because you have You're not achieving what it is. It's not about blaming everyone else. You've actually got to

Erika: work out for yourself. A hundred percent. And that's the thing.

If someone is listening to this, I'm sure there is something out there that they want to do and something that they want to accomplish. And the thing is, people that you perceive as confident, like I recently spoke about this and I think it's so important because people go easy for you, Janine, you're confident.

Your family thinks you're crazy most of the time starting your own business. You know, your friends don't get you. You miss out. You sacrifice. We don't set goals. We set sacrifices. We are willing to sacrifice some fun stuff right now. for the long term gain. And so, you know, when when you're doing these things, most people don't understand what you're doing.

And so being confident and putting yourself out there is so scary. Hence why the book is called confidence feels like shit, because it feels terrible. Most of the time you're nervous, you're scared, you're unsure, you're doubting yourself, you're questioning if you're good enough, you know, you're confused.

It's hard. You're in the arena, as Brene Brown says, getting punched in the face while people are eating popcorn, criticizing. How you moved when you were getting punched is like, listen, you, you got to give us a break. We're in the arena getting burned like this is, but how exciting, like how exciting to be in the arena, getting punched in the face by life and going, I know I can get back up.

I believe. And that's what confidence is. It's self trust. The definition of confidence in the Latin terms is confidence, which means to trust yourself. That's how I see confidence. Do I trust myself? Do I think I can do this? Have I done it before? No. But do I feel like I'm going to be able to work it out?

What's my strike rate so far? I've worked out my life so far. If you're still here, you have 100 percent strike rate. So, I believe in myself and I trust that even if I don't know what the hell I'm doing, I will find a way to work it out, you know, and that's what I'd love for everyone to take is that confidence equals self trust.

That's it. You know,

Holding you accountable, having your back, that are telling you, we trust in you, we believe in you, and I know that's what you do for your clients, that's what I do for my clients, we see more in them than they can ever see in themselves, but we can't help them get there, there's still this, you've got to do the work yourself, you've got to do it so that we can help, help lift you.

So as we sort of wrap up this, your final message to our listeners, who have all got. Some form of bigger dream going on. You know, they're probably listening to this cause they're scared to post, scared to share their personal stuff, worrying about leaving that job, setting up something of their own.

Erika: Yeah, I would, I would really truly take a good look at what it's costing you to play small. What it's costing you to not go for what you want. And I would make a list. Your homework after this podcast is make a list of what it's costing you. Maybe it's costing you your joy, your financial freedom. Maybe it's costing you your vision, your dreams, your purpose.

Cool. Put your money where your mouth is. What is it costing them? I hope that that hurts because when you look at how it's costing the people that you said you came to help and you won't show up on an Instagram live and you won't step on stage and you won't put your hand up to support your team that you're supposed to be the leader of, or you want to step into leadership.

Look at the cost that it cost them. It doesn't allow them to do something. You're not allowed to do that impact. That woman, I think about the woman that I don't speak to, she stays in a toxic relationship. Now, am I her savior? Of course not. But guess what? If I ever get into a funk, it moves me into action to think that there is someone right now miserable, unhappy in their mind thinking they're not good enough.

And I'm like, let's do this. Let's make it happen.

Janine: Erica, I am so glad. That you took responsibility for your life and being of service to other people. Your work is so important. You are amazing. I will put it in the show notes how to find you. And until next time, just keep being as frigging awesome as

Erika: you are.

Love you. Love you. Thank you for having me, gorgeous woman.