Cindy Dodd was given a second chance at five years old, after chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant, and she has spent every day since refusing to shrink. In this episode of The Blow Your Mind Podcast, the co-founder and COO of PEMA.io sits down with Erika to talk about the belief work underneath visibility, self worth as the foundation of everything that follows, and why so many capable people disqualify themselves from the rooms they want to be in. She opens up about the week her business quietly collapsed during her honeymoon, how she and her husband rebuilt it into an Inc. 5000 company by leaning into complementary strengths, and what it means to be the only Black woman in a male-dominated industry. Along the way she shares the daily habits that anchor her belief, the flow blocks that protect her sharpest hours, and a reframe that turns nerves into fuel. It is a conversation about resilience, self trust, and the quiet decision to bet on yourself before you feel ready.

Cindy’s Website: www.cindydodd.com

Follow Cindy on Instagram: @thecindydodd

Follow Cindy on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/cindymdodd

Cindy’s YouTube: www.youtube.com/c/@thecindydodd

Check out PEMA.io

Follow Erika on Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/erika_sinner/⁠⁠⁠

Check out her website: ⁠⁠⁠https://erikasinner.org/⁠⁠⁠

Buy her book, Pets Are Family: ⁠⁠⁠https://erikasinner.org/book⁠⁠⁠

Check out TinySuperheroes: ⁠⁠⁠https://tinysuperheroes.com/⁠⁠

00:20 Meet Cindy Dodd

02:18 The story we tell ourselves about why we do not belong

03:42 Relabeling nervousness as the feeling before something big

05:22 Why staying small online costs more than you think

07:19 A second chance at five: sickle cell, chemo, and a transplant

09:55 Self worth as the foundation of getting seen

13:07 The honeymoon that revealed a collapsing business

16:57 Believing it was figureoutable, and rebuilding together

19:36 Flow blocks and the corporate athlete

25:58 Mind Blown Moment: walking past NYU during Tech Week

In this solo episode, Erika goes back to the beeping switchboard of her receptionist days at a pharmaceutical company, when she was working full time, paying her own bills, and putting herself through night school to earn the degree she knew she needed. She tells the story of how she stopped waiting to be noticed and built her own opening instead, inventing a fake marketing project and talking her way into feedback from the VP of marketing. What started as a bluff turned into a page of red-pen notes, a real skill she could prove, and eventually a seat on the marketing team. It is a story about creating your own opportunities, doing the work to back up your ask, and the truth that no one is coming to save you, so you get to change your life yourself.

Follow Erika on Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/erika_sinner/⁠⁠⁠

Check out her website: ⁠⁠⁠https://erikasinner.org/⁠⁠⁠

Buy her book, Pets Are Family: ⁠⁠⁠https://erikasinner.org/book⁠⁠⁠

Check out TinySuperheroes: ⁠⁠⁠https://tinysuperheroes.com/⁠⁠

00:00 The sound that haunted her, life at the switchboard

02:20 From hotels to knowing she needed a degree

05:29 Taking the stepping stone job to fund night school

08:28 Refusing to just be the receptionist, building a reputation

11:04 Inventing a fake marketing project to get noticed

13:25 The lie she told the VP of marketing

15:19 A page of red-pen feedback and what she learned from it

17:31 Two weeks later, an opening on the marketing team

19:35 The fight to get her hired without a degree

25:40 Luck is where opportunity meets preparation

Cate Luzio spent 20 years leading multi-billion dollar businesses at HSBC and JP Morgan before she walked away in 2018 to self-fund a company nobody had asked her to build. In this episode she makes the case that nobody will ever care about your career or your business more than you do, and that betting on yourself starts long before anyone hands you proof it will work. Cate and Erika get into the two months Cate spent depressed on her bathroom floor after handing in her notice, the partner who told her to write it down when she thought she was only venting, the mentor feedback early in her finance career that knocked her back ten pegs, the breast cancer diagnosis that turned reading fiction into a non-negotiable, and why she still asks herself seven years later whether she made the right decision. She closes with her go-to tool for anyone waiting on permission to move, a personal SWOT analysis, and a challenge to start with your weaknesses first.

Check out Cate’s website: cateluzio.com

Follow Cate on Instagram: instagram.com/cateluzio/ or instagram.com/weareluminary/

Follow Cate on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cluzio/

Follow Erika on Instagram: ⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/erika_sinner/⁠⁠

Check out her website: ⁠⁠https://erikasinner.org/⁠⁠

Buy her book, Pets Are Family: ⁠⁠https://erikasinner.org/book⁠⁠

Check out TinySuperheroes: ⁠⁠https://tinysuperheroes.com/⁠

0:00 — "Did I make the right decision?"

3:39 — Confidence isn't a feeling, it's built by getting back up

6:05 — The "power middle" and the story people carry before they say it out loud

11:30 — Holding your own in rooms where you weren't sure you belonged

15:21 — The mentor who told her she was "too emotional"

17:33 — Handing in her notice, and the two months on the bathroom floor

19:30 — "Write it down," and the business plan that followed

26:52 — Non-negotiables, breast cancer, and reading fiction at night

34:06 — Mind blown moment: making it through the pandemic with her team

38:39 — The challenge: a personal SWOT, weaknesses first

What do you do when the person you are meant to be with is sitting across the classroom, and you are both married to someone else? Erika and Chris met in night school, two divorces and a lot of growing up before they became each other's person. In this duo episode they get honest about the marriage lessons nobody handed them: how to tell growing apart from growing up, why Chris gave himself a full year of saying yes to everything, and what happened the day he told Erika she did not seem very maternal. It is a conversation about becoming someone new without losing the people who love you, and how much a marriage can actually hold once you say the hard thing out loud.

Follow Erika on Instagram: ⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/erika_sinner/⁠⁠Check out her website: ⁠⁠https://erikasinner.org/⁠⁠Buy her book, Pets Are Family: ⁠⁠https://erikasinner.org/book⁠⁠Check out TinySuperheroes: ⁠⁠https://tinysuperheroes.com/⁠

00:00 Welcome back

01:11 How they actually met at night school

02:22 Chris's "I'm going to make a friend" phase

05:33 Both marriages end, and growing apart versus growing together

07:20 The Facebook poll and the half marathon

08:48 Chris's hot takes on tanning, the ocean, and drinking

13:20 "You don't seem very maternal" and rethinking kids

16:22 Welcoming a partner's growth instead of fearing it

19:24 The advice they ignored, including "happy wife, happy life"

26:15 Mind blown moment and the challenge question for new couples

In this episode of The Blow Your Mind Podcast, Erika sits down with Fritz Zaegel, President of Repco Solutions and a partner she has worked alongside for more than twenty years. They trace a friendship that began when Erika was a 21-year-old receptionist at a pharmaceutical company and Fritz was the vendor who always picked up the phone, and they revisit the moments that defined it: the commissioned driftwood sculpture that lost a wing, the demos she forgot on the way to a career-defining conference, and the Sunday he read his own credit card number to a courier so her materials would make it out of storage in Mexico. Underneath the stories is a conversation about what it takes to build a company people trust, why empowering a team to fix problems before assigning fault becomes a reputation, and how Fritz held the line through a 75 percent revenue drop in 2020 without laying off a single person. It is a masterclass in service, coachability, and the standards that separate a partner from an order taker.

Check out Repco Solutions: RepcoSolutions.com

Follow Erika on Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/erika_sinner/⁠

Check out her website: ⁠https://erikasinner.org/⁠

Buy her book, Pets Are Family: ⁠https://erikasinner.org/book⁠

Check out TinySuperheroes: ⁠https://tinysuperheroes.com/

00:00 Welcome back

01:40 Meet Fritz

02:30 The broken bird: a driftwood sculpture gone wrong

06:00 What Repco does, and why service is the difference

08:00 From manufacturer to total-solution partner

12:00 The demos she forgot, and the employee he put on a plane

21:35 Empowering the team to fix first, assign fault later

24:00 Leading through COVID without a single layoff

28:20 Tiny Superheroes, the "25 boxes," and giving back

33:30 Mind Blown Moment and the challenge to close

Access is not the same as love, and holding a standard is not the same as losing connection. In this solo episode, Erika reframes what most people call boundaries as sacred lines, the rules of an arena she gets to build on purpose. She makes the case that ownership almost always costs you something before it pays you back, and that every yes you give is automatically a no to something else, whether that is rest, creativity, your marriage, or your own priorities. She walks through the actual rules of her arena, from keeping her calendar sacred and ending the endless "pick your brain" coffees, to Chris teaching her that "no, that doesn't sound fun to me" is a complete sentence, to cutting off advice that never gets acted on, refusing to let other people's urgency become her emergency, and never shrinking her ambitions to keep someone else comfortable. She closes with the hidden math behind every yes, the mind blown truth that standards do not cost you connection but abandoning them costs you yourself, and a challenge to spend one week asking, before you agree to anything, what you are quietly saying no to.

Follow Erika on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/erika_sinner/

Check out her website: https://erikasinner.org/

Buy her book, Pets Are Family: https://erikasinner.org/book

Check out TinySuperheroes: https://tinysuperheroes.com/

00:00 Welcome to the Blow Your Mind podcast

00:43 When people want access that no longer fits your life

01:19 What building your arena actually means, ownership over confidence

01:53 Sacred lines instead of boundaries

04:20 Every yes costs you something

05:52 The rules of Erika's arena and why the calendar is sacred

10:07 Chris and the art of just saying no

11:32 The five minute "pick your brain" trap

15:04 Draining, guilting, destabilizing, and the yearly audit

20:01 Mind blown moment and the one week challenge

When Katie Love was a young NBC News reporter, she covered a house fire that killed an entire family on Christmas. She came back to the newsroom, and instead of asking how she was holding up, her director asked her "where was your Katie Love smile today?" That was the day she walked out and never looked back.

In this episode, Erika sits down with Katie, now founder and CEO of Love Social Media, a multi seven figure woman led agency, to talk about what it actually takes to show up online as yourself. They get into the mindset shift from "I have to post" to "I get to tell this story," why messy and real outperforms polished and perfect, how to build a thicker skin for the 10 percent while serving the 90 percent who are cheering you on, and the truth that when you try to be liked by everyone you end up loved by no one. Katie also shares the weight no one warns founders about, and the moment a team member told her, "This is the house that Love Social Media built."

Follow Katie on Instagram: instagram.com/katielovesocial/

Follow Erika on Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/erika_sinner/⁠

Check out her website: ⁠https://erikasinner.org/⁠

Buy her book, Pets Are Family: ⁠https://erikasinner.org/book⁠

Check out TinySuperheroes: ⁠https://tinysuperheroes.com/

00:00 Welcome back!

01:25 Meet Katie Love

02:18 The story we tell ourselves about being seen online

03:50 Instagram versus reality, and showing up in the mess

06:37 Why TV scrutiny was harder than social media

09:05 Liked by everyone, loved by no one

11:25 Confidence is built through reps, starting with B roll

12:51 Go sit in your car

16:23 The Christmas morning that changed everything

22:35 The house that Love Social Media built

24:39 The seven day challenge

Erika sits down with her husband Chris to unpack what it actually takes to be a trophy husband, the version nobody posts about. She makes the case that walking away from a job you were proud of is less about the schedule and more about identity, and that the hardest part is finding your worth when no boss, performance review, or paycheck is there to hand it to you. Across the conversation they get specific: the ego hit of losing a title overnight, Chris's almost enviable habit of validating his own work, an early role-reversal moment at the kitchen sink, what a real week looks like with five dogs, a newly opened pool, two vet visits, and two allergic reactions, the Sunday planning ritual and shared calendar that keep their home running like a profession, the physical toll of being on your feet for four hours straight, and the two-year-old stain on the bedroom ceiling that taught them more about budgets, priorities, and communication than any argument could. She closes with Chris's mind blown moment about giving yourself patience in a new role, and a challenge to look hard at your own routines and ask whether they are still actually working for you.

Follow Erika on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/erika_sinner/

Check out her website: https://erikasinner.org/

Buy her book, Pets Are Family: https://erikasinner.org/book

Check out TinySuperheroes: https://tinysuperheroes.com/

0:45 — The slow slide into depression after leaving work

2:06 — Welcome: what being a trophy husband really means

3:33 — Losing the professional identity and the hit to the ego

6:08 — The dishes and an early role-reversal moment

11:03 — What a real week actually looks like

15:42 — Systems, Sunday planning, and treating home like a profession

17:00 — The physical toll nobody sees

21:31 — The ceiling stain, the budget, and how they prioritize

29:55 — Mind Blown Moment: have patience with yourself

31:03 — Challenge: audit your routines and ask if they still fit

Mary Seats built a multimillion dollar clothing brand from her dad's living room with three hundred dollars, lost it to the investors who promised to scale it, and then bought it back. In this new episode of The Blow Your Mind Podcast, she makes the case that the secret recipe behind every business she has built was never the team, the investors, or the connections, but herself. She walks Erika through the day she was fired from Cupcake Mafia and told to pack her desk into the suitcase she had brought, the months she spent quietly sleeping on an airbed above her own retail store while still running it, the article and three rival stores she used to force her company back to the table, and the scribbled factory address that turned a birthday trip to China into a manufacturing partnership. She closes with the daily practice that keeps her dreaming bigger, and a challenge to write your biggest life down by hand long before you expect to live it. It is a jaw-dropping, mind-blowing conversation from start to finish, and one you will not want to miss.

Follow Mary on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mzskittlez/

Follow Erika on Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/erika_sinner/⁠

Check out her website: ⁠https://erikasinner.org/⁠

Buy her book, Pets Are Family: ⁠https://erikasinner.org/book⁠

Check out TinySuperheroes: ⁠https://tinysuperheroes.com/

00:00 Meet Mary Seats, aka Mz. Skittlez

03:46 Inside The Bakery Cowork, the largest female-focused coworking space in the US

07:44 Why entrepreneurship is like baking, and you can't do it with one tool

08:46 The Icing Agency, and why niching down was never the answer

13:48 From music artist to Cupcake Mafia, built with three hundred dollars

18:00 Fired from her own company, sleeping on an airbed above her store

24:09 The untold story of how she fought to buy her brand back

30:24 The China factory she tracked down from a scribbled address

33:50 Mind blown moment: the secret recipe is you

36:33 The challenge: write your dream down by hand

In this solo episode, Erika opens up about Kingston, her soul dog, and Pets Are Family, the book she never planned to write. She makes the case that grief is not something to be fixed, that people do not need their pain solved, they need it acknowledged. Erika unpacks how her dogs became her kids, the morning eight years in when Kingston woke up not himself and her world quietly began to come apart, and the impossible week that followed. She is honest about the parts of grief no one prepares you for and the shame of admitting she was not okay while running a company. Erika also shares how one private loss became a national movement around pet bereavement leave, the strangers who checked on her every day until they became real friends, and how Kingston still sends her signs right when she needs the proof. She closes with the reframe that changed how she shows up for everyone she loves, and a challenge to stop trying to fix the people you love and simply acknowledge their pain.

Follow Erika on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/erika_sinner/

Check out her website: https://erikasinner.org/

Buy her book, Pets Are Family: https://erikasinner.org/book

Check out TinySuperheroes: https://tinysuperheroes.com/

0:00 The love that changes how you move through the world

2:27 The day Kingston chose me

5:58 My soul dog

6:18 The morning everything changed

9:01 The decision no one prepares you for

11:24 Why I started therapy and stopped hiding it

16:38 The moment I knew I had to write the book

21:09 Coming back from grief, and the turtles

28:22 You do not need to fix grief

29:13 Your challenge this week