What if you already have everything you need to be amazing? with Simone Knego

welcome to the Real Life Momz podcast. It is time to take a break from all our to-dos and carve out this time to focus on ourselves. I'm Lisa Foster, host, and today I'm here with fellow mom, speaker, author, podcaster, and entrepreneur, Simone Knego, and she is here to help us change the way we see ourselves. So, hi Simone. Welcome to the show. Thanks so much for having me here. Well, I'm so glad to have you here. Let's just start out with what that phrase changed the way you see yourself actually means for you.

So I think so often we hear about all the things we need to change about ourselves. You know, you need to be thinner, you need to be more beautiful, you need to have this car, you need, and I truly believe we just need to change the way we see ourselves. Mm. That we are amazing as we are. And that. It starts with self-acceptance, self-love, self-care, all of the things.

But uh, I don't believe that we [00:01:00] need to go and change 10 things about ourselves to be a better person. I think we need to realize that again, we're amazing as we are. Yeah, I love that. 'cause it's really kind of this inside out approach versus having all these external things that. We think will make us feel better about ourselves, but actually it's really what's in that makes us feel.

Better. Right? We have to work from the inside out and embracing what's inside. I mean, a lot of times we, we don't do that. We, again, look for the external validation instead of asking ourselves, what do we need? What do we want? You know, are we respecting ourselves? There's so many questions there that I think that we don't answer on a regular basis because we're so worried about the external validation and the people around us instead of really thinking about what we need.

. And it's so funny, I look back and I'm like thinking about when I've done that, it doesn't even feel good. [00:02:00] Like even, even if I try to have those external things make me feel better, they don't

so to your point, and I know that you've actually created a method to help people. Do this, right? Called The Real Method? The Real Method, yeah. Can you walk us through what that is and what are some of those steps that really make us feel that we can change the way we see ourselves?

Absolutely. So the real method started because I struggled for so long. I am someone that. Had an abusive relationship when I was in high school, and I squashed it down for so long that I didn't really know who I was. I mean, I have six children, but I still didn't embrace all parts of me and. We can talk later about what that moment was, where I realized what I was capable of, but, so the real method starts first with respecting yourself.

That's the R in the real method is respecting yourself. Because we need to set boundaries. We need to understand how to say no. I was the yes [00:03:00] girl for so many years, but understanding that it's so important that we respect ourselves first. We were taught to respect our elders, our peers, our coworkers. I don't ever remember.

Being taught that the most important person to respect was myself. Because when we don't respect ourselves, how do we expect other people to, right? If we can't take a compliment and say thank you or whatever it is, that it's very hard or say no to something that we really don't wanna do, but we feel, oh gosh, we have to, or someone's gonna judge us, I think it's so important.

That's number one. The second part is, is the E, which is embrace your failures and. Again, we all have bumps in the road, but we have to look at them differently. Every time I've failed at something, it's led me to something even better. But a lot of times when we struggle with something, we decide, you know what?

I'm just not gonna try anymore. And it's that whole learning process. When you do have a bump [00:04:00] in the road and continue moving forward, that's what's so important. A stands for, ask yourself what you want. This is a huge one for moms, for women, because we're so used to doing everything for everyone else.

When you ask a mom, well, what do you want? Well, I don't know, because we're so used to helping everyone else and putting our needs, our wants aside that it's it, we have to come back to that because when we take care of ourselves that, especially that self-care piece, then we're, we do a better job with everything else as well.

The last part is the L, which is live without limits. So we limit ourselves in so many ways. We say that we're not good enough, we're not capable enough, we're not smart enough, we're not pretty enough. And when we take all of those things away, maybe it's a story that we had from when we were younger that made us feel like we were not enough.

When we start living without limits, that's where everything changes. So the combination of those makes [00:05:00] the real method. Well, there's so many ones I love. Okay. Well, first of all, let's just start with the R. Okay. Respecting ourselves, right? Because, the compliment thing. How many times if someone's oh, you look pretty today, or, or, oh you did whatever so well, and you're just like, no, I didn't.

, It was nothing. It was nothing. What is that?, Just say thank you and move on. It's almost like we try to dim our light down a little bit. , 'Cause God forbid we should shine and show ourselves that it's gonna take away from someone else.

Yeah. And when someone is giving, it took me years to be able to accept a compliment. But you know, when someone else is giving you a compliment, they don't have to do that, right? They're doing it because they want to. And as soon as you, 'cause what I would do, like I have really curly hair, which is up now because I had shoulder surgery, and it's very hard to take care of.

But I would always say, oh, you know, my hair looks frizzy today, or, oh, that's not a good color on me. Instead of [00:06:00] just saying. Thank you, because nobody has to give me a compliment, and I don't need the external validation, but the fact that I couldn't accept it meant that I wasn't comfortable with myself, that I wasn't happy with myself.

That's why I couldn't take a compliment from someone else. And I also love embracing the failures, because I feel like for myself at least, that's exactly where I grow. I never mind making a mistake anymore. Like I used to feel like I. Needed to have all the right answers and know all the things

but once I could move out of that embracing anything that came good, bad, yes, it's a win. It's not a win. It always was a win because you learn so much from just stepping out of that comfort zone and making those mistakes so that you can do something different. If we didn't make mistakes, we'd always be in the same spot all the time.

Like there we wouldn't be moving anywhere. Yeah, it's absolutely true and, but it's a hard thing, right? It's really getting [00:07:00] out of our comfort zone to say it's okay to make a mistake. It's okay to fail at something like failure fuels momentum. That's how we move forward. My two youngest kids had the same teacher for first grade, and she would celebrate failures.

So if you would do a math problem and you'd mess it up. The whole class would clap for you because you tried. Mm. And so it really gives this like, you're like, okay, that's an interesting take on it. But I think it's so important that we understand that that's such an important step in how we grow as a human.

Also, another great story is, Sarah Blakely, who created Spanx every night. She would come home when she was a kid. Her dad would ask her, what did you fail at today? Hmm. If they didn't fail at something, he was like, well, you weren't trying hard enough today. So I think that's such a good perspective, and we're so afraid of failing because that makes us feel like we're not good enough.

But I think it's ex [00:08:00] exactly the opposite. Yeah. I remember not wanting to go to the board because I didn't know the right answer. Hmm. You know, but like to be praised for just trying is huge. And then I think back,, as a PT by trade, I look at infants that are. Starting to walk all the time, or as a mom, right?

We, we see our kids walk, they fall, they get back up, they fall. Like, we all failed. We ne we didn't learn our motor skills. Like, okay, I just got up and started going. We all fell, but we all got up. So we all have that so innately in us and we've all done it, but yet we're still afraid to try something that we might not be good at.

My encouragement is try it because how do you know? If you don't try, you will never know. I mean, same things again with my kids. I'm like, ask the question, because the worst that someone can say is no, but if you don't ask, the answer is always no. So mm-hmm. Try the things [00:09:00] and you never know what you're gonna like, and you never know what you're gonna excel at.

Yeah. I love that question of talking about what'd you fail at today? And if you didn't fail at anything, then , you didn't try hard enough. Amazing. Yeah, and it's funny 'cause I have a podcast with my daughter called Her Unshakeable Confidence, and we do talk about all the things and maybe a little too much sometimes.

Mm-hmm. But I think it's important to talk about the things that we struggle with and like, okay, this was bad today, let me tell you about this. I appreciate it because when I was younger it was like, don't talk about that. What will other people think? And I think it's so important that we talk about what we struggle with because you never know who you're gonna help by sharing what you struggle with.

'cause a lot of times people feel like they're completely alone in their struggles. Totally. And how amazing that you and your daughter are doing that, like live in front of everyone, yeah. I mean, it's hard enough to talk about with your kid and then doing it in front of everyone even harder. So way to go [00:10:00] with the L and stepping, without limits there.

Thank you. Let's talk about, stepping out of your limits there because I think that one is. So hard, living without limits what is that? And I know you're someone who summited Mount Kilimanjaro, which which is the highest mountain in what? Africa is that?

Is that what that Yeah, the highest free, highest freestanding mountain in Africa, but Oh my gosh, right. And okay, so that seems without limits, however. Yeah. Tell us a little bit about that. So that was actually a big turning point in my life because. Again, I was someone that really struggled with self-doubt and I put up this facade pretending everything was okay.

I didn't cry for many, many years because that's what how people thought of me like that I was this stoic. I was this really strong woman. So God forbid I would show a crack, right? Because if I showed a crack, then I think the whole thing would've crumbled my husband knew how much I struggled. [00:11:00] My kids were, I mean, my kids were great, but six kids.

It's a lot of kids, right? You're constantly going and doing, and I was asked to climb kil Majaro by a friend of ours who had climbed it the year before to go with a live strong foundation to raise money for them. And I said, yes. And why did I say yes? Because I think I was so used to saying yes that I didn't wanna let anybody down.

Which may sound ridiculous because you're like, oh my gosh, you're climbing a mountain. And you said yes to that. But that was just the way I did everything. Like, like I said, I was the yes girl. A parent would ask me, can you pick up my kid from school? Didn't matter if I already had six kids in the car.

Sure. You know, we have room for one more. I'll pick up your kid. All those kinds of things and, and. So I said yes, and I ended up, I trained for about six months because that's all, all the time I had and I worked out every day to be able to accomplish it. And I went with, there were 16 of us. I [00:12:00] didn't know anybody, and it was a life changing experience because I realized that if I set a goal, set a goal, and put in the work that I can really accomplish, I don't have to worry about what anybody else is thinking of me.

Plenty of people said, do you really think you're gonna make it to the top? No, I think I'm gonna make it halfway. That's why I'm doing it. It's amazing how that outside perception, what people think of you, can really affect what you do on a daily basis. And that was a moment in time where I said, I don't need to worry about that anymore.

Like I know I'm doing good things. I know that I'm a good human being, so what anybody else thinks doesn't matter. I also had plenty of people say, uh. You're really gonna go to climb a mountain and leave your family at home for two weeks. Don't you think that's selfish? But that's that the thing that, that's why I think we struggle so much with, we put limits on ourselves.

We have other people limiting us every day of our lives, telling us what [00:13:00] we're capable of, what we're not capable of. And I'm here to say like. Break all those barriers because you're capable of whatever you believe, as long as you put in the work. It's not just the goal, it's the action behind it.

Just you talking. It's funny because things seem so hard when you hear them, right? Like climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. I'm not saying that's not hard, but it sounds like impossible. You know, like running a marathon sounds impossible. Like all these things sound impossible sometimes, but it's because we put so much

on them. And I remember after doing my first marathon, and I'm not a runner ever, I've done like four marathons, but I will still say I'm not a runner. Yeah. Some people are a runner. I'm not a climber. I'm not a climb a climber. Yeah, exactly. Not a climber. And it's just interesting because I remember getting to mile 20, which is like where they say the wall is

and I was like, , if I could just get past this. 'cause everyone tells me there's a wall. Well, I didn't find a wall. And I remember finishing it and going, huh.[00:14:00]

Anyone can run a marathon. Mm. But people make you feel like you have to be an athlete. I am no athlete. Lemme tell you that. When we used to do track in gym back in elementary school, whatever, I was the last person to come in. I was so slow. It was ridiculous. But yet.

Anyone can run a marathon. It, it's so true. But people make you think that you have to be this athlete, an Olympian, something because it's so big. And same with, I'm assuming, climbing this mountain, or Everest. You do see people, some at Everest, although I, that scares the hell outta me. But that are normal people.

Like anyone can do it if you have right, the right mindset, the training, the motivation, these are not impossible. Yeah, I think so. Again, exactly what you said that. We kind of, a lot of times let people dictate what we can do with our lives and which is not how it's supposed to be. But it's hard to break free from that because we're so [00:15:00] used to hearing what someone else said.

And a lot of times what happens is people put their limitations on us so they don't think they can do it. So basically they're telling us that we can't do it. And again, I want you to think about that because that isn't, that isn't real, right? I mean, did I ever think I would climb a mountain? No. Did I ever think I would have six kids?

No. Did I ever think I would write a book? Now I wrote, wrote my second book, like, no, none of these things. But again, that's the motivation of saying, Hey, I actually want to do this. That's asking myself that question is, what do you want? I had some women say to me We were talking about Kilimanjaro. Oh, I could never do that.

Okay, well, you probably could. Well, would you want to? No, I would never wanna do that. Well, that's the words you should be using because as soon as you start saying that you can't do something, you start believing that. And the more you repeat that to yourself, the more you believe that. And that's why I think if we do it the opposite way, where we say that we are capable, I'm a big [00:16:00] positive affirmation person, like whatever we wanna do.

Again, it's saying it to ourself over and over and putting in the work. And as you're talking, I'm like, you know, motherhood like that's a mountain, right? I mean, forget about six kids, right? But the whole process, if you haven't been a mother before, that is scary. The whole birthing process.

Totally freak me out. I don't know about you, but Yeah. Yeah. Scary and how to raise your kid. Totally scary. 'cause there's no rules, but yet we seem to say we want to do that. That's usually part of it. Yeah. We want to do that. And then we figure it out. Like it should be, it's already in us, we're moms.

And so it should be that easy to do whatever it is that we wanna do. We don't understand it. We don't know how, but we figure it out. Yeah, I mean, it's like anything else. Like you, you learn how to do things. I mean, when I had my first kid,

I sterilized everything. Everything had to be perfect. Everything had to be a schedule. And [00:17:00] okay, great, that was child. He was like multiplication in kindergarten, child number two. Oh, it's okay, it falls on the floor. Child number three. If it's in the garbage, we can still use it, right? And then we adopted our youngest three, but by the end we were like, whatever works, you know, you're just trying to get it through your day.

But we do, we, we, we figure it out as we go. And that's true of anything we do in life. But as soon as we say. That we can't do something, we stop trying to figure it out. Yeah, totally., well, you've had such a journey, like what do you feel is your biggest life lesson?

I really do think it comes back to when you change the way you see yourself, the world around you changes because for so long I saw myself in a specific light and thought, thought that's who I have to be. This is what I have to do. And I used to describe myself and this I, I think, has been crucial in my transformation is.

As just a stay at home mom, just rob's wife using that word just to basically justify my [00:18:00] existence. And so now i'm a big proponent of drop the just right. You are a mom, right? So I am a mom. For a long time I was a stay at home mom, right? I am Rob's wife. I've been married to him for 32 years.

These are things that I should be proud of. I was at a, an event one night and I was seated next to a CEO of a big company, and we started talking, and of course she told me what she did, and then she asked me what I, what I did. And at the time, I was a stay at home mom and I said, oh, I'm just a stay at home mom, because I felt.

Overwhelmed. So I, all the things that she had told me, oh, I'm just a stay at home mom, and she said, oh, I can't imagine anything worse. And I didn't know what to do with that because I just felt like my whole existence was in the garbage at that point. Because I allowed what someone else thought to affect how I thought and mm-hmm.

So it really is that idea [00:19:00] of changing the way we see ourselves, and it doesn't matter what anybody else thinks. If we're being good humans, if we're doing the best we can, then that's all that matters. It's amazing. Even when we do, this real method and build ourselves up, that like one comment from someone else that you don't even know, right?

Can really just knock you off kilter. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I have a little, I have a little method that I like to use and it, it goes to confidence, it goes to self-respect. But I, it's back. I think you're much younger than me, but, um, we used to have something called control, alt, delete, and that was how back in the day, it's, now it's used for something else.

But back in the day, that's how we used to reset our computer. So if something froze, you'd hit control, alt, delete computer would come back online. As my kids tell me now you just push the power button and then push it back on again. Thank you very much, this is really about mindset, so it's about understanding that it's awareness of your thoughts.

So the idea that. I'm not saying that you can control [00:20:00] your thoughts, but you can control when you start having those negative thoughts that you can stop them. You can say, well, this is not true. This is not real. And then the alt thing is about changing your perspective. So instead of saying, I can't do something I can, or instead of what if I fail?

How about when I succeed? And the last thing is. Deleting the things that don't serve you anymore. Like we don't have to. It's like a computer, like you close out certain programs, you get rid of them. Right? And that idea that we have to keep everything that doesn't serve us in the back of our mind, we don't need to.

It's really about deleting those things outta there and understanding that it's okay to do that. Yeah. I love the delete because I, I tell you, my memory card is full. Your memory card. Yeah. Love the delete. And I also love the, the point of changing just the perspective so easy because it's so easy to be like, well, what if I can't do that?

Or what if, I fail doing that. But the [00:21:00] what if game works? Works both ways. It's just as easy and it's the same percentage if you do or if you don't, it's still 50 50, right? Like it's still, you might or you might not. Yeah, we, we love to focus on that we're not capable or we're, it's not gonna happen for us, but why can't it? Right? If we, if we. Say it enough times. If we put in the work, if we really believe, people talk about manifesting all the time, and I love the idea of it, but to me it comes back to putting in the work behind it.

So thinking all the things. And usually what happens when you manifest is you are putting in the work at the same time, and that's why it works so well, is because you really are aligned with what you want and how you wanna move forward. But you're right. You have to take action on that. Yeah. I love manifesting too, but when the opportunity does arise or you just, you have to take action.

Yeah. And that's always the scary part, yeah. I mean, again, we're humans, we're, we have fear for a reason, and fear of failure is just part of that. And I mean, being afraid has kept [00:22:00] us alive, right? That's part of it. But if we stay afraid of everything, then we can't move forward. And we're not living, so, no.

There you go. Absolutely. So, okay. What advice do you wanna give the listeners, on how to really love that person that's looking back at them in the mirror? So again, I'm a big affirmation person. 10 years ago, I would've said, that's woo woo. I would never do that. Like talking to yourself kindly and saying how beautiful you are, like that's dumb, and mm-hmm.

You know what? There's tons of science out there about it. So it took me really researching it to see the power of positive affirmations and how even when they do. MRI studies that the part of your brain that lights up when you're doing positive affirmations is like the center of reward. So there's a lot of studies about it, so don't say, oh, it's not gonna work, but.

It's about a regular practice. So again, with [00:23:00] confidence, it's a skill, right? It's that even if we were born confident, which maybe we are, maybe we're not. I mean, I think of two year olds running households everywhere. Yes. But life chips away at us. And so just like any skill, we can rebuild it. And so it's really taking the time to put in the work and so I have had people say, well, I tried affirmations and they didn't work for me.

Well, how often did you use them? Well, I tried them once. I'm like, okay, did you go to the gym once and get buff? Like people want this magic fix that happens overnight, but everything is a practice. Everything is work. I mean, when your kids are learning how to walk and learning how to speak, like you said before, like they fall down, they get back up again.

It's that constant work towards a goal. So I mean, that's really what I want the listeners to understand is that. Nothing. Magic happens overnight. You have to work at things and you have to believe in yourself. And it might sound corny, but it's so true because [00:24:00] it's just like self-respect. Like if you're not respecting yourself, how do you expect anybody else to, and if you're not taking care of yourself, then it's kind of the same thing.

I think your body needs, to feel safe. It feels safe around, even if it's not good what it's used to. So whenever we're changing something or trying something new, the body then wants to be like, oh wait, on guard here. There is something wrong here. This is not our norm. Right?

Yes. And so even on this like deep, deep layer, it's doing that. So. Practicing and doing it more than once doing it often starts to let the body go, oh, okay, wait, we do this, we do affirmations. And yes, I'm starting to believe that I am worthy and I am deserving and I should have blank, but yes, doing it once just puts the body on guard and feels kind of.

Awkward and so it's like, Nope, we're not gonna do that. But yeah, I think that doing it over and practicing is, is [00:25:00] huge and definitely multiple times. How often do you recommend doing it? To actually get ourselves kind of into it? So I do them every morning, but I also do evening gratitudes. So I call a mirror moments, I stand in front of the mirror and I have ones that I say,

specifically every day. But I also do, depending on what's happening, like if I'm applying for a big speaking job and, I'll tell myself like what I'm capable of and that you deserve this. You've got this, like all of the things. And what's interesting is if you look at athletes, I mean, I think we saw that a lot in the last Olympics, especially the female athletes, how much they would talk to themselves and.

Simone Biles is a great example of, you know, telling herself, you've got this, you've worked hard. And I think that it is common practice. And again, there's a whole,, psychology study around athletes about their mantras and it's funny, even this morning I was like flipping through social media, which I try not to do too much. But there was this like wonderful woman and it felt so good. She was [00:26:00] like 85, I'm gonna put her at 85. She's younger.

Sorry. Um, and she was doing exactly that. She was just looking in the mirror at herself and she was like, you are beautiful. You deserve it. And like she was like really going at it and she was even like, they are jealous of you, you know? And then I forget what else she said, but I just was like, gosh, I just need to have this with me all the time.

Because once again, modeling and seeing other people, and especially people who are older, you know, really. Feeling good about who they are. They've been through most of life here and they have so much knowledge that they have to be doing something right, right. Like they have learned along the way. And it was just so inspiring.

So it's, it's funny 'cause that just keeps coming in my head while you're talking. I have a card on my, that I taped to my mirror that has like the basic ones that I do. Of course I know 'em by heart now. But, you know, I think that's a helpful place to start is that, to have it in front of you so that you [00:27:00] don't forget.

And I do evening gratitudes to remind myself of what I'm thankful for. And you know, I've had people say, well, what if there's nothing I like about myself? Or what if there's nothing good that happened during the day? I am like, there is always something. Right. And that's where you have to start. So when you're looking in the mirror in the morning, you might be completely frustrated with, for me, for a lot of long time, it was about my weight.

I was so frustrated that I gained weight, lost weight, gained weight again, to the point where one day I was. Getting ready for an event. I'm looking in the mirror and I'm talking so negatively to myself, and my daughter walks in and she says, okay, first of all, you need to stop. You're beautiful. Second of all, you're giving me a complex, how do you expect me to like my body when you don't like yours?

Mm-hmm. I didn't realize when I was saying those things, how much it was affecting other people. I just didn't [00:28:00] even think about it. It was just the way I talked to myself. And so I've seen the same be true with the positive things that I say to myself. So again, my kids call mirror moments. They make fun of me or they used to, but now I see them doing it like as they get older.

I see them. Before something big, I see them standing in the mirror saying, you've got this, you look amazing. You know what you're doing. You're gonna walk in there, you're gonna kill it. And that's what we wanna model. We don't wanna model like, oh, you look like crap today. And I think that that's a great reminder.

I mean, it's sad that I needed my 15-year-old daughter to. Remind me of that. Right. Because I didn't even realize I was doing it. Mm-hmm. So true. And it's funny because like, I can look like crap, honestly. It happens but if I feel good inside, I. I look better. Does that make sense? Like, yeah. You know, like I went to work with my hair in a ponytail and I was like, whatever.

But I was like, I looked at myself and I was like, [00:29:00] wow, this is not a good day for my hair, or whatever it was. But then I was just like, you know what? I'm gonna hold myself up tall. I'm gonna feel good, and I'm gonna look, and I look back in the mirror and I was like, wow, I look good. I look better than I thought.

Like that was like amazing. Right? So it does, even just that mental piece really just radiates out and, and it feels good and you, do you feel and look better. Yeah. Yesterday was, so as I mentioned, I had shoulder surgery and so yesterday was the first day I was actually able to wash my hair on my own. So before that, it was like in the sink.

My daughter would wash my hair and so it was like a big con com. It took forever, but I. Got outta the shower and I'm like, okay, this is great. And the other thing I can't do is I can't pull shirts over my head. So like right now I'm wearing my husband's shirt. My daughter went to Goodwill and she bought me some shirts at Goodwill, and I think it might've been on purpose, but it's like the ugliest shirt I've ever seen.

It's this ridiculous maroon with palm trees on it. And I was like, but it's so comfortable. So I [00:30:00] put it on yesterday and I took this video and I was like, okay. Uh, I think I look like I'm wearing a curtain right now, but you know what? I feel really good because I've washed my hair and I feel good about myself and I don't care about the shirt, you know, but it's, it's that idea that if we feel good inside, that other stuff doesn't matter.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And it does and it radiates to the outside. Yeah. I, I love that. Okay. Well tell us a little bit about your book. 'cause you have the a book, the Extraordinary Unordinary You, is that right? Yep. That's my first book. It came out in 2020. It's all about realizing what you're capable of and recognizing that the little things you do everyday matter. I started off as a CPA, I have a master's in accounting. And I started speaking like for volunteer work, and I didn't know I had a story until I started speaking. And then people would come up afterwards and be like, wow, your story's amazing. And I'm like, who [00:31:00] me? Right? I, I, again, I didn't have that self-belief.

And then I got the question, have you written a book? I'm not a writer, I'm an accountant, and. And then I thought about it. I was like, well, why, why am I limiting myself? Right? I tell great stories. I can write a book. And so I did. That was my, my first book and I tell stories about my kids their, we adopted our youngest three, so their adoption stories about my husband, about Kilimanjaro, all kinds of things that I didn't think I was capable of, and I just kept going one foot in front of the other.

And then my second book. We'll come out in February, and that one's called Real Confidence, A Simple Guide to go from un Unsure to unshakeable. And that's more really systematic. I mean, a lot of really fun stories in there, but I really give frameworks and steps to follow. 'cause that was the funniest thing when I wrote this book.

I didn't really think of it. Like, I mean, the, the [00:32:00] subtitle of this book is, you know, follow your own Path, discover Your Own Journey. But what people kept asking me was. Gimme the exact steps of what I need to do. And so the second book is a lot of steps so that people will be like, oh, great story. Okay, here's what I do now.

And I thought that was really interesting. 'cause I never thought about it like that before, that people want to know like, okay, here's what you should try. Mm-hmm. Here's what works for me. So I learned a lot. Give us one step that the listeners can do after listening to this podcast.

I think, I mean, something that I think is so important because I, I hear it all the time from so women, so many women, is going back to that how you talk about yourself, right? Get rid of drop the, just to get rid of the word. Just you are not just anyone. You are not just anything. You are not just a mom.

You change the world every day. And so by owning who you are, it feels better on the inside. And [00:33:00] so I challenge you next time you hear yourself saying the word just, just replace it with I am and see how it makes you feel different. Mm-hmm. Just replace it or replace it? Just replace it. Yes. Yes. Well tell the listeners where they can find you and what else you offer.

So. You can, easiest way to find me is my website. I mean, I'm on LinkedIn and Facebook and Instagram under Simone knego speaker Simone knego But, uh, my website is simone knego.com, which is S-I-M-O-N-E-K-N-E-G-O. Even if you spell it wrong, I think you'll find me, because as of now, I'm still the only Simone knego in the world.

Um, lucky me with a complicated name. Uh, but. I also, I offer coaching. Um, we have our podcast, her Unshakeable Confidence, and I'm a keynote speaker, so I love going to different women's events, associations [00:34:00] and corporate events to help people build confidence. And the other thing I really talk about is kitchen table leadership.

The idea that. So many of our decisions are, uh, born, created, made at a kitchen table, but we don't see ourselves as leaders because nobody else, no, nobody ever told us that we were a leader. So that's a whole nother podcast. But yeah. Awesome though. So great. That's such a great idea. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing all your knowledge, your method, and just inspiring us to look at ourselves in a different light.

Thanks so much for having me. Thanks for listening to this episode. If you wanna learn more about Simone and her books, just click on the link in the show notes, and until next week, keep carving out time for yourself and keep putting yourself on top of your to-do list.