The Confidence Chronicles

Gina Zapanta is a lawyer, entrepreneur, mother of four and founder of Empowered with Gina.

So naturally, I wanted to know:

How the fuck does she do it all?

Her answer?

“I have it all because I don’t do it all.”

And THAT is the conversation.

In this episode:

Why women need to stop measuring their worth by how much they can carry

What Gina learned about success by watching the way powerful men operate

Why opening doors for other women creates more abundance, not less

How Gina thinks about failure, success and building a life on her own terms

We also talk about motherhood, money, service, friendship, gatekeeping, representation and the next big dream Gina is finally bringing to life.

You’re allowed to build a big life without carrying every part of it alone.

🎟️ POSITIONED, PAID & PUBLISHED — MIAMI, OCTOBER 21

If you’re a woman in business ready to build your authority, elevate your personal brand and become known for what you do, come join me and Maha Abouelenein in Miami for Positioned, Paid & Published.

This is for the woman who knows she has something powerful to say and is ready to position herself, get visible and get paid for her expertise.

Use code PPP20.

👉🏽 https://courses.thequeenofconfidence.com/positioned-paid-published

READY TO BUILD YOUR AUTHORITY, CONFIDENCE & PERSONAL BRAND?

📖 GET ERIKA'S BOOKS
→ Becoming Magnetic (Penguin Random House, 2025)
→ Confidence Feels Like Shit (2020)
Available here:
https://shop.thequeenofconfidence.com/collections/book
Amazon, Barnes & Noble or any audio book app

📩 GROW YOUR FANBASE — Learn the timeless skill that turned my 1,000 followers into a 7 figure global business
→ https://courses.thequeenofconfidence.com/offers/TKhTxM3n/checkout

♟️ THE QUEEN’S TABLE
My high-level mentorship for women ready to step into leadership, visibility and legacy.
→ https://thequeenofconfidence.com/the-queens-table/

✨ THE NEXT LEVEL
Build your confidence, audience and income.
→ https://thequeenofconfidence.com/the-next-level/

🎤 BOOK ERIKA TO SPEAK
For keynotes, corporate events, and women's leadership conferences in Australia and the USA:
→ https://thequeenofconfidence.com/speaking/

📲 FOLLOW ERIKA
→ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thequeenofconfidence/?hl=en
→ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erika-cramer-queenconfidence/
→ Website: https://thequeenofconfidence.com/about/
→ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thequeenofconfidence

👑 LISTEN & SUBSCRIBE TO THE CONFIDENCE CHRONICLES
→ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2MUxtupRLNGB8cuNC9mwXI
→ Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-confidence-chronicles/id1439434022
→ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWtf2VIsUYg-vkERa16r_VcFNz3Bt6kLI
→ All platforms: https://thequeenofconfidence.com/podcast/

🙏🏽 ENJOYED THIS EPISODE?
Please subscribe so you never miss one. It takes 30 seconds and it means everything to us!

I’m recording this episode sitting in a car in San Diego because honestly, that feels pretty appropriate for what I want to talk about.
My family and I are travelling across America for two months while I speak, run my business, see family, create opportunities and chase some very big dreams.
It’s fucking incredible.
And sometimes it’s fucking hard.
This episode is the part of chasing your dreams that doesn’t always make the highlight reel.
In this episode:
What nobody tells you about actually going after the thing you say you want
Why the messy moments don’t mean the dream isn’t working
What travelling, parenting, marriage and running a business at the same time is teaching me
Why you have to be willing to invest, risk rejection and act without guarantees
I am living something right now that once existed only in my head.
It doesn’t look perfect.
It looks real and I wouldn’t trade it.
🎟️ POSITIONED, PAID & PUBLISHED — MIAMI, OCTOBER 21
If you’re a woman in business ready to build your authority, elevate your personal brand and become known for what you do, come join me and Maha Abouelenein in Miami for Positioned, Paid & Published.
We’re bringing you an incredible day designed to help you build your personal brand, position yourself, grow your authority and get known for what you do.
Use code PPP20.
👉🏽 Get your tickets to Positioned, Paid & Published
READY TO BUILD YOUR AUTHORITY, CONFIDENCE & PERSONAL BRAND?
📖 GET ERIKA'S BOOKS
→ Becoming Magnetic (Penguin Random House, 2025)
→ Confidence Feels Like Shit (2020)
Available here: Shop Erika's books
Amazon, Barnes & Noble or any audio book app
📩 GROW YOUR FANBASE — Learn the timeless skill that turned my 1,000 followers into a 7 figure global business
→ Grow Your Fanbase
♟️ THE QUEEN’S TABLE
My high-level mentorship for women ready to step into leadership, visibility and legacy.
→ The Queen's Table
✨ THE NEXT LEVEL
Build your confidence, audience and income.
→ The Next Level
🎤 BOOK ERIKA TO SPEAK
For keynotes, corporate events, and women's leadership conferences in Australia and the USA:
→ Book Erika to speak
📲 FOLLOW ERIKA
→ Instagram
→ LinkedIn
→ Website
→ TikTok
👑 LISTEN & SUBSCRIBE TO THE CONFIDENCE CHRONICLES
→ Spotify
→ Apple Podcasts
→ YouTube
→ All platforms
🙏🏽 ENJOYED THIS EPISODE?
Please subscribe so you never miss one. It takes 30 seconds and it means everything to us!

Jen Gottlieb is an entrepreneur, bestselling author, international speaker and former performer who has built a career around communication, visibility and being seen.

But this conversation goes far beyond how to look confident on a stage.

Jen and I talk about what it actually takes to trust yourself, allow yourself to be seen before you feel ready, practise publicly without needing everyone’s approval, and navigate the line between being vulnerable and sharing parts of yourself that still need time to heal.

In this episode:

The daily practice that became her “confidence boot camp”

Why being seen before you’re ready can accelerate your growth

What watching Jerry Seinfeld practise imperfectly taught her about becoming great

How to know what parts of your story are actually ready to be shared

And underneath all of it is one of Jen’s simplest ideas about confidence: every promise you keep to yourself becomes evidence that you can trust yourself.

If you’ve been waiting until you feel confident, polished or completely ready before you put yourself out there, this conversation will remind you that confidence isn’t something you have to wait for — it’s something you can build.

🎟️ JOIN JEN + ME AT FFFCON 2026 IN BOSTON

Jen and I will both be at FFFCon 2026, September 25–26 in Boston.

SAVE $100 on GA or VIP tickets with code: ERIKAFFF

👉🏽 https://fffcon.fabfiercefemales.com/

READY TO BUILD YOUR AUTHORITY, CONFIDENCE & PERSONAL BRAND?

📖 GET ERIKA'S BOOKS
→ Becoming Magnetic (Penguin Random House, 2025)
→ Confidence Feels Like Shit (2020)
Available here: https://shop.thequeenofconfidence.com/collections/book
Amazon, Barnes & Noble or any audio book app

📩 GROW YOUR FANBASE — Learn the timeless skill that turned my 1,000 followers into a 7 figure global business
→ https://courses.thequeenofconfidence.com/offers/TKhTxM3n/checkout

♟️ The Queen’s Table
My high-level mentorship for women ready to step into leadership, visibility and legacy.
→ https://thequeenofconfidence.com/the-queens-table/

✨ The Next Level
Build your confidence, audience and income.
→ https://thequeenofconfidence.com/the-next-level/

🎤 BOOK ERIKA TO SPEAK
→ For keynotes, corporate events, and women's leadership conferences in Australia and the USA: https://thequeenofconfidence.com/speaking/

📲 FOLLOW ERIKA
→ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thequeenofconfidence/?hl=en
→ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erika-cramer-queenconfidence/
→ Website: https://thequeenofconfidence.com/about/
→ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thequeenofconfidence

👑 LISTEN & SUBSCRIBE TO THE CONFIDENCE CHRONICLES
→ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2MUxtupRLNGB8cuNC9mwXI
→ Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-confidence-chronicles/id1439434022
→ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWtf2VIsUYg-vkERa16r_VcFNz3Bt6kLI
→ All platforms: https://thequeenofconfidence.com/podcast/

🙏🏽 ENJOYED THIS EPISODE?
Please subscribe so you never miss one. It takes 30 seconds and it means everything to us!

🇺🇸 We’re taking the podcast on the road!
We’re travelling around America as a family for the next two months and trying a whole new format while we’re away.
Tell us in the comments: what do you want to see from us while we’re travelling? Behind the scenes, business, marriage, family, travel chaos? Let us know.
Now, about this episode...
Last year was one of our biggest years in business.
It was also fucking exhausting.
The business was growing, the opportunities were coming, but the way we were operating was no longer sustainable. So Hamish and I made a decision that felt completely counterintuitive:
We slowed everything down.
And it changed the way we run our business.
In this episode, you'll learn:
• How to spot the bottlenecks keeping your business dependent on YOU
• Why slowing down can actually help you scale faster
• How better systems can give you back your time and energy
• What I had to change as a leader to trust my team and let go
If your business is growing but you’re exhausted, doing too much or constantly thinking “it’s just easier if I do it myself”, this one is for you.
Sometimes the next level isn’t doing more. It’s building a better way to do it.
READY TO BUILD YOUR AUTHORITY, CONFIDENCE & PERSONAL BRAND?
📖 GET ERIKA'S BOOKS
→ Becoming Magnetic (Penguin Random House, 2025)
→ Confidence Feels Like Shit (2020)
Available here: https://shop.thequeenofconfidence.com/collections/book
Amazon, Barnes & Noble or any audio book app
📩 GROW YOUR FANBASE — Learn the timeless skill that turned my 1,000 followers into a 7 figure global business
→ https://courses.thequeenofconfidence.com/offers/TKhTxM3n/checkout
♟️ The Queen’s Table
My high-level mentorship for women ready to step into leadership, visibility and legacy.
→ https://thequeenofconfidence.com/the-queens-table/
✨ The Next Level
Build your confidence, audience and income.
→ https://thequeenofconfidence.com/the-next-level/
🎤 BOOK ERIKA TO SPEAK
→ For keynotes, corporate events, and women's leadership conferences in Australia and the USA: https://thequeenofconfidence.com/speaking/
📲 FOLLOW ERIKA
→ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thequeenofconfidence/?hl=en
→ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erika-cramer-queenconfidence/
→ Website: https://thequeenofconfidence.com/about/
→ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thequeenofconfidence
👑 LISTEN & SUBSCRIBE TO THE CONFIDENCE CHRONICLES
→ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2MUxtupRLNGB8cuNC9mwXI
→ Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-confidence-chronicles/id1439434022
→ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWtf2VIsUYg-vkERa16r_VcFNz3Bt6kLI
→ All platforms: https://thequeenofconfidence.com/podcast/
🙏🏽 ENJOYED THIS EPISODE?
Please subscribe so you never miss one. It takes 30 seconds and it means everything to us!
Chapters

00:00:00 The Business Was Growing. We Were Dying. What we changed before it broke us.
00:05:33 48 Speaking Events and Total Exhaustion
00:07:07 How Do We Scale Without Dying
00:09:05 Finding the Bottlenecks: ME
00:11:20 Slowing Down to Speed Up
00:17:09 Investigating Every Process: Why Do We Do It This Way?
00:21:17 The Breakthrough: From Overwhelmed to Calm and Organized
00:23:17 What Really Changed in the Business
00:23:37 Why We Chose Team Over Agencies
00:25:38 When Everything Started Working Again
00:44:04 Confidence Is Trusting Yourself When Everything Feels Wrong

Have you ever looked around at the women in your life and wondered why you feel like you have to make yourself smaller to belong?
My gorgeous friend Neda Hovaizi knows that feeling.
Before she created Fab Fierce Females, Neda was an ambitious woman with huge ideas who found herself feeling misunderstood by the women around her. She started questioning herself. Then the invitations stopped coming.
Eventually, she realised something:
She wasn't the problem. She was in the wrong circle.
Instead of waiting for the women she admired to invite her to their table, Neda decided to invite them to hers.
That decision eventually grew into Fab Fierce Females, FFFCon and a community of women who don't feel threatened by another woman's ambition, they fan each other's flames.
🎟️ JOIN ME AT FFFCON 2026 IN BOSTON
I’m heading back to Boston to speak at FFFCon 2026, happening September 25–26 at the Hyatt Regency Cambridge.
Come spend two incredible days with us surrounded by ambitious women, powerful conversations, leadership, connection and community.
SAVE $100 on GA or VIP tickets with code: ERIKAFFF
👉🏽 Get your tickets here:
https://fffcon.fabfiercefemales.com/
In this episode:
• what it feels like to outgrow friendships and realise you need a different circle
• how Neda built three businesses by following the ideas she couldn't ignore
• why being surrounded by women who aren't intimidated by your greatness matters
• the deeper story of family, grief and legacy behind the work Neda is building
We also get into something I LOVE about Neda: she doesn't wait until she has the entire roadmap before she moves.
From opening her own dental practice just one year after dental school, to launching a med spa, building Fab Fierce Females and confronting her fear of public speaking, Neda's story is such a beautiful example of what can happen when you trust the vision enough to figure the rest out along the way.
If you’ve been questioning whether you’re too ambitious, too driven or simply too much for the people around you, maybe the answer isn’t to become less of yourself.
Maybe you need a different fucking room.
READY TO BUILD YOUR AUTHORITY, CONFIDENCE & PERSONAL BRAND?
📖 GET ERIKA'S BOOKS
→ Becoming Magnetic (Penguin Random House, 2025)
→ Confidence Feels Like Shit (2020)
Available here: https://shop.thequeenofconfidence.com/collections/book
Amazon, Barnes & Noble or any audio book app
📩 GROW YOUR FANBASE — Learn the timeless skill that turned my 1,000 followers into a 7 figure global business
→ https://courses.thequeenofconfidence.com/offers/TKhTxM3n/checkout
♟️ The Queen’s Table
My high-level mentorship for women ready to step into leadership, visibility and legacy.
→ https://thequeenofconfidence.com/the-queens-table/
✨ The Next Level
Build your confidence, audience and income.
→ https://thequeenofconfidence.com/the-next-level/
🎤 BOOK ERIKA TO SPEAK
→ For keynotes, corporate events, and women's leadership conferences in Australia and the USA: https://thequeenofconfidence.com/speaking/
📲 FOLLOW ERIKA
→ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thequeenofconfidence/?hl=en
→ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erika-cramer-queenconfidence/
→ Website: https://thequeenofconfidence.com/about/
→ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thequeenofconfidence
👑 LISTEN & SUBSCRIBE TO THE CONFIDENCE CHRONICLES
→ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2MUxtupRLNGB8cuNC9mwXI
→ Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-confidence-chronicles/id1439434022
→ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWtf2VIsUYg-vkERa16r_VcFNz3Bt6kLI
→ All platforms: https://thequeenofconfidence.com/podcast/
🙏🏽 ENJOYED THIS EPISODE?
Please subscribe so you never miss one. It takes 30 seconds and it means everything to us!