Episode 217: How to Build Unshakable Confidence | The R.E.A.L. Framework of Simone Knego

The R.E.A.L. Method to Build Unshakable Confidence with Simone Knego

"Waiting until you feel ready is like waiting for IKEA instructions to actually make sense—it’s just not going to happen."

In this episode of The Uncommon Leader Podcast, John Gallagher sits down with USA Today bestselling author and speaker Simone Knego of @her_unshakeable_confidenceto to challenge the narrow story we’ve been sold about who "counts" as a leader. Leadership isn’t just a corner office or a job title; it’s what you choose at your own kitchen table when nobody is clapping.

Simone peels back the curtain on the "messy unpublished" parts of her story, sharing how she transformed confidence from a personality trait into a trainable skill. From her journey to the summit of Kilimanjaro to the daily mindset work of setting boundaries, this conversation provides the practical tools needed to silence your inner critic and stop playing small.

🚀 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐘𝐨𝐮’𝐥𝐥 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧:
In this leadership masterclass, we cover:
➡️ Redefining Leadership: Why everyday choices at home and work count more than titles.

➡️ The R.E.A.L. Framework: A deep dive into Respecting yourself, Embracing failures, Asking for what you want, and Living without limits.

➡️ Confidence as a Skill: How to build self-respect through consistent action, not just positive thinking.

➡️ The "What If Whisperer": Identifying negative self-talk and using the "Control-Alt-Delete" mindset reset.

➡️ The Label Rule: Why labels are for wine bottles, not your potential or your leadership journey.

➡️ Kitchen Table Leadership: Making high-stakes decisions and building foundations of integrity in private.

Your Move:
Confidence grows through action, not through waiting to feel ready. What is one small step you will take today to build real confidence?

If this conversation helped you rethink leadership, please subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review so more leaders can find these insights.

==========================================
𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 Simone Knego👇

➡️ LinkedIn (primary): https://www.linkedin.com/in/simoneknego/
➡️ Website: https://simoneknego.com/
➡️ BOOK: https://simoneknego.com/book/


#leadershipcoaching  #SimoneKnego #coachjohngallagher #executiveconfidence #mindset  #highlights  #ceostrategy  #performancehighlights  #leadership 

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Transcript

Leadership Beyond Titles

SPEAKER_00 0:00

So I feel like we've been told this very narrow view of what leadership is. It's the title, it's the corner office, it's the boardroom. And to make leadership, it's the things we do every single day. It's the behind the scenes, it's the messy moments. But nobody's ever called it leadership, so we don't see ourselves that way. But think about how differently people would show up to work already thinking that they're a leader, right? Understanding that, wow, these are leadership decisions. And so many of our biggest decisions happen around the kitchen table. Every single decision we make, those are, think about how it impacts someone's life. Whatever decision you're making, right? That is leadership. And so we need to look at it differently. And that's why I think it's so important that we kind of change the narrative there and that oh only certain people are leaders. No, we're all leaders, we just lead differently.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

She decided to make a radical choice in her own life to stop playing small and start sharing that messy, unpublished part of her own story and start to share with others. And I'm so looking forward to learning more about her and about the real methods she uses to help leaders stop waiting to feel ready and start living without their limits. So, Simone Canego, welcome to the Uncommon Leader Podcast. Great to have you on the show. How are you doing today?

SPEAKER_00 1:51

Thank you. I am so excited to be here, and I am doing fantastic.

A Story That Shaped Her

SPEAKER_01 1:54

Good, good. Well, I hope you've kind of come down out of the clouds. We talked about this a little bit for recording on the best-selling author status. With six children, it doesn't give you a lot of time necessarily to get ready and write books. We're going to talk about that, how you even did that with regards to writing a book and how you spent that time. But I'll start you off with the first question that I always start off my first-time guest before we get into your book. That's to tell me a story from your childhood that still impacts who you are today as a person or as a leader.

SPEAKER_00 2:21

It's a great way, great way to jump in because it is a big story. So this is really what impacted my life and something I didn't talk about for years in that I when I was in high school, I had an abusive boyfriend for three years and stuffed it down, didn't talk about it. Even to my parents, I really held back on stuff. Like I didn't tell them the whole thing. And actually, when I wrote the book, I actually said to my mom literally two days ago that just be prepared when you read it, because she hadn't read it yet, that I told the story about let's call him John. And she said, I'm so glad you did, because I think it will really help a lot of people. And so that part of my life impacted me negatively for so long, but now I see it as a positive because all of the things that I struggled with, I can now use to help other people realize what they're capable of.

Confidence As A Trainable Skill

SPEAKER_01 3:08

Yeah, and we know with our friends at Brand Builders Group, Rory Vaden, everybody else steals this quote, but I always give him credit. We're most powerfully positioned to help the person that we once were. And I can see that in the in the stories inside of your book and who you are and who've you who you've become over time as well. So let's start off with a tough question right off the bat with regards to the book. You say that confidence is found, okay? Why do so many other people believe it has to be built? You say you say that it's found. Tell me more about that.

SPEAKER_00 3:35

I do say it's built. It's a skill that you build from the inside out. And it's not something you have or you don't. I think that's what I used to think is that other people were confident and I just wasn't. But it has nothing to do with that. It's something you work on every single day. You know, we talk about learning a language. We don't take one Spanish lesson and become fluent, right? You don't go to the gym one time and become buff, although that would be fantastic. But it doesn't happen that way. And the same thing with our mindset. Like, why should that be any different than the other things we do? We have to work on it on a regular basis. And so I think that's such an important piece is that we understand that it's not like you're born this way. It's that you have to work on it just like we work on everything else.

SPEAKER_01 4:15

The skill in and of itself, and that's a great point in terms of it having to be developed over time and you have to work at it. What are some of the things that when you come in contact, whether it's you know folks that you talk to as a speaker or whether it's folks you come in contact with as a leader that keep them from building the skill of confidence?

SPEAKER_00 4:33

I think a big, big piece of it is that they don't understand that they can build it, right? And they compare themselves to others and they look at other people and say, Well, they're just so confident, and that will never be me. And that has nothing to do with it. And that's a big limiting factor. I think that the comparison game we play, like it serves no value because when you're comparing yourself to somebody else, they don't even know what's happening. The only one that it's affecting is you, negatively affecting you. And so again, that idea that we need to build it from the inside out, the way we talk to ourselves, the way we talk about ourselves, those are things that are so important. We need to treat ourselves like we would our best friend, right? If you wouldn't say it to your best friend, don't say it to yourself. But we definitely don't do that, right? We do the opposite. And so it's really reframing that to understand that we're gonna live with ourselves for the rest of our lives. We need to treat ourselves with complete respect.

Stop Hiding Behind Self-Deprecation

SPEAKER_01 5:24

That's not always easy. A lot of folks will talk about the word self-deprecation, and that can be good. You kind of talk about that a different way. Tell me more about that with regards to the the damage that self-deprecation can cause.

SPEAKER_00 5:36

Yeah, I feel a lot of times we use self-deprecation as um a way to, a shield, to protect ourselves. Like, let's make fun of ourselves. Other people will laugh, they won't really know that we're struggling. And I'm kind of the opposite. Like, I will tell funny stories about myself, but because they're real. Like I tell a story about being in Sweden and walking across the street in heels. I gave up heels because in this moment, as I was walking across the street, one of my heels got caught in one of the rail tracks and I did a full-out face plant in the middle of the street. I'm like, why am I wearing heels? I don't even like them, right? And so now I wear sneakers everywhere I go. I wear sneakers on stage. And but so often we put up this shield and we make fun of ourselves to comfort others. Because if we tell the real things that are happening, it might make people uncomfortable. And I'm all about making people uncomfortable in a good way. Like tell the real story because when you share what you struggle with, that's where other people truly connect because they don't feel like they have to perform anymore. And so often we go through our lives performing, and that's what we do.

Kilimanjaro And Choosing Discomfort

SPEAKER_01 6:37

You know, you say that word comfort or uncomfortable as well. I mean, this conversation of itself and and many of the stories that you share inside of the book are really a permission slip to be uncomfortable. Let's just go to the big one that I'm like, oh my goodness, I can't believe this actually occurred, and that was the Mount Kilimanjaro expedition. What in the world were you thinking? And and you know, just oh yeah, but I'm gonna decide to go climb Mount Kilimanjaro.

SPEAKER_00 7:04

Yeah, so you know, for so long I was the people pleaser. I called myself the yes girl, right? When someone asked, I had to say yes. It didn't matter that I had six kids. If someone said, Oh, can you pick up my kid? I have to go get my hair done. I'm like, oh yeah, sure, sure, I can do that, right? So, like, that was me. Yes, I'll do that. And a friend of ours had climbed Kilmanjaro the year before I did. And he actually called my husband and said, They're putting together a team for next year. Would you be interested? And of course, because it's my story, the way I tell the story is that my husband said, One, two, three, no, thank you. Call Simone. Now, of course, the way he tells it, he's I was thinking about like the amount of time my brain would be without oxygen. And like he goes through this whole thing because he's a physician. And so, and he called his his friend called me and I said, the answer is yes, because I understood at that moment that I really needed to get out of my own way. I was really struggling, still wasn't talking about the things that I had struggled with when I was younger, and felt like I wasn't making a difference in the world. And that's how backwards my mindset was back then. I mean, I'm raising six amazing kids. We adopted our youngest three kids, and I'm still thinking that I'm not doing anything important in the world. And so that experience gave me the opportunity to realize what I was capable of. And honestly, it could have been something different, but it was the thing that kind of arrived at the moment that I needed it. No, had I climbed anything before? Absolutely not. I live in Florida at sea level. I have 16 steps in my house, right? I've gone camping twice. So when I say out of my comfort zone, completely out of my comfort zone.

The REAL Framework Explained

SPEAKER_01 8:31

Yeah, dude, that I mean, that's I mean, there's there's some things that are kind of crazy. Okay. I mean, again, 16 steps in your house, living at sea level. Oh, yeah, the climb Mount Kilimajaro, Africa. Yeah, great idea. I would imagine, and we're gonna talk, we're gonna come back to that story here, but I would imagine you had to use some of your frameworks, and you may have even doubted some of those frameworks as you did that exercise. So your book is Real Confidence, the name. It's it's a play on words, it's an acronym, real, which is really cool. Tell me about this framework, these four steps in real and how it will help me or the listeners to build confidence.

SPEAKER_00 9:01

Absolutely. So it actually came about after Kilimanjaro. I figured out, okay, how did I go from point A to point B? Right? I used to go down with my with my head down, like just get it get through the day. And Kilimanjaro was really a big awakening for me. And I guess it sounds cliche. She climbed a mountain and her mindset changed. But it really is true that I was like, why am I worrying about what anybody else is thinking? Why am I comparing myself to other people? None of that matters. And so what I when I looked through everything, what came back to me was that I needed to respect myself. So the R is respect yourself. E is embrace your failures, A is ask yourself what you want, and L is live without limits. And I started with respect yourself because, well, not just because I like the word real better than authentic, but I think that self-respect is the foundation for everything we do, right? If we don't respect ourselves, how can we expect other people to? And for me, it's not about demanding respect. I so often hear people say, I'm gonna walk into that boardroom and I'm gonna demand respect. And I think it's the opposite. I think you need to demonstrate it to yourself so that other people realize how you deserve to be treated, right? That it is, hey, I'm not doing that. I'm setting boundaries. Like this is not my role. I don't need to take on everybody else's work. Self-care is very important. Like there's so many pieces to that self-respect piece. But I don't know about you, but for me, when I was a kid, I was taught to respect my elders, respect my peers, but never once do I remember that the most important person to respect is myself. And that's something it's really important for me with my kids so that they understand that. And I again had amazing parents, but I wonder how different things would be if I looked at it differently, if I understood like saying no is a full sentence.

The What If Whisperer Reset

SPEAKER_01 10:46

Saying no is a full sentence. Love that. There's those isms. You had those isms in those quotes all the way through. I didn't see that one. That's a really good one. Saying no is a full sentence, no doubt about it. And that self-respect component is very good. And we can talk about even that one, what are barriers to that? I believe you refer to it as the uh I'm looking for the word, the what if whisperer. What is the what-ifer whisperer, whisperer?

SPEAKER_00 11:08

So we all have that voice inside our head that likes to tell us that we're not enough. And, you know, for me, especially on the mountain, it was no, not just on the mountain, every day in life, right? Ooh, what if they judge you? What if you're not enough? What if you shouldn't be doing this? Like, don't take that risk. And so I call that voice the what if whisperer. I've also named her Sally because that way I can like, I mean, it sounds crazy, but I can actually separate it from myself, right? Like, that is Sally talking. That is not real. And for me, that was really important because it's the stories that we tell ourselves, right? So if we talk about like a mindset hack that I think is my most important hack that I use on a regular basis, it has a very creative title. Came up with it myself. It's called control alt delete. So back in the day, uh, that was how we would reset a frozen computer. Now it brings up task manager. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 11:57

Okay, here we go, Simone. You're gonna share our ages with us. I remember that.

SPEAKER_00 12:00

I know, I know, I remember that. Now it brings up task manager, it does not manage my tasks. So I actually don't know what it does, but somebody said a task manager. No, it doesn't do anything for me. But you know, sometimes our minds freeze too. We get stuck in that comparison game, we spiral in self-doubt. So control is about awareness. So often we are not aware of what we're saying to ourselves, what we're saying about ourselves. There's a study out of Queen's University in Canada that shows that we have around 6,200 thoughts every day. Now, there are other studies that show we have 60,000 thoughts every day. Who knows what the real answer is? But the point of the 6,200 is that when they kind of evaluated it with they did different studies with it, that 80% of those thoughts are negative and 95% are repetitive. So day after day, the same negative thoughts on repeat. So that awareness piece is so huge. What's the story you're telling yourself? Is it real? Is it helpful? Most of the time the answer is no. Alt is a bad alternative. Tell yourself a better story. Instead of telling yourself that you can't do something, yes, I can, watch me. Instead of asking yourself, what if I fail? How about when I succeed? And finally, delete. Delete the habits and beliefs that don't serve you. Delete the comparison game, delete the belief that you're not enough. The biggest one, delete the idea that you need to wait until you feel ready. I love to say that waiting until you feel ready is like waiting for IKEA instructions to actually make sense. It is not going to happen, right? So for me, like especially on Kilimanjaro, that was a big thing that I use because that voice in my head was like, You left six kids at home. I can't believe you're doing this. Like, you don't know what you're doing. And it was like, no, this is this is a story that I'm telling myself. This is not real. Like, I am doing this, I am in shape, I'm doing it.

Ask Yourself What You Want

SPEAKER_01 13:43

Are you tired of being tired? I know I was. That's when I was glad to find own it coaching. Now my resting heart rate's down 20%, sleep quality up three hundred percent. You know, I just ran my first Spartan rage at age 56. I feel better than I ever have. So if you're ready to stop settling and start owning your own health, go to coachjohngallagher.com forward slash own it and set up a free call with the own it coaching team. That's coachjohngallagher.com forward slash own it. Now, let's get back to the episode. I love that. Some of those isms I know we're gonna have to rewind and hear that one again about waiting, but that simple framework of control alt delete and what we can do to turn those around. And to your point, it it brings comes all the way back about being able to build confidence because you have to keep working that over and over again. It doesn't just happen the first time you do it when you go through this. You got to keep practicing, you got to keep exercising to make that happen. You talked about that. I'm not gonna go through all four of them. I appreciate you sharing the respect yourself component. I'll let the others buy the book to really figure out all four of them because I think they're really good. I'm curious, and it's more selfish about me, is the A, ask yourself what you want. Tell me more about that.

Childhood Dreams And Stage Energy

SPEAKER_00 14:54

That's a huge one. So we go through life doing everything for everybody else, right? We and if you're a parent, probably even more so because you're like, oh no, I have to give everything away for this kid, or they need to come back for this, and I've got to take care of this. And, you know, John and I were talking right before the episode that I have a couple of kids home from spring break. And it's fascinating when they come home that all of a sudden they've forgotten all of their life skills. Like they no longer know how to do laundry. Oh, when's dinner gonna be ready? Like all of these things that they're capable of doing on their own, but all of a sudden they're home and they can't do it anymore. You know, for so long, I went through just doing everything for everybody else and never asking myself, what do I actually want? And so the life that I have now was because I asked myself that question. What am I passionate about? What do I really enjoy? Sure, I enjoyed raising my kids that it has nothing to do with it, but it's adding that extra piece to it. We get stuck in the cycle of we have to do this job because we have to make the money and we have to do these things, but there's other things you can do. So I'm not saying go quit your job tomorrow, but what fills your cup? Like what can you do on the side and eventually could become something different for you that you haven't thought about in years? I always say look back to the kid who wanted to be the rock star, right? The astronaut, the actress. When I was younger, I really wanted to be an actress. And when I went to school, I went to school for I thought I was gonna go to medical school. Both of my parents were physicians and I failed organic chemistry. I took it again and got a D. So obviously medicine was not gonna be the path for me. But so I said to my dad, I really want to go into acting. And my dad said, accounting it is. And I was like, okay, those are those are similar letters, but no, that is not the same thing. But you know, he was like, Well, you live under my roof and I pay the bills and and but uh what I'm doing now is trust me, I'm not an actress, but I I love being on podcasts, I love having a podcast, I love being on stage. So a lot of what I do now goes back to what I really wanted to do when I was a kid. And I think if we all looked back and said, Oh, wait, I really loved painting, I really loved singing. There are so many things that you can do on the weekend, in the evenings, to really fill your cup. But so often we don't ask ourselves that because we feel like we have to do everything for everybody else.

SPEAKER_01 17:11

Actress, who was your who was the actress you emulated growing up?

SPEAKER_00 17:15

You know who I really liked, and you know, I'm trying to think of when I was really little. When I was really little, our big thing was fake karaoke because they didn't have karaoke machines back then. And so we would go into my neighbor's basement and we would sing along to Donna Summers, and I was really good. No, I wasn't. I couldn't sing at all. But you know, I thought I was really good. But I would say Julia Roberts was someone when she first came on the scene, I was like, this is a good thing. So there's so many and and then watching her career growth. You didn't think I you probably didn't think I knew that, did you? I know, I know, I'm pretty impressed actually. Good job. But yeah, I you know, I look back at when I was younger and I think, okay, I'm doing so many of the things now that aren't exactly but pretty close to what I really wanted. And I love this even more because I feel like the work I'm doing now really, when I when I get up on stage and I have women come up to me and say, What you just said really has changed the way I've been thinking about my life. That's huge for me, you know. And it's not about me. So I mean, it's not like, oh, good job, Simone. It's about wow, like the power of words is incredible.

SPEAKER_01 18:22

Sure. About the impact. I love that. It's so funny. Like beforehand, I was uh listeners, I was chatting with Simone and I said, What's like you know, she's been on like three 300 podcast episodes, she's getting really good at this. She does really love this acting. And I said, What's a question that somebody hasn't asked you? But I had one and you almost walked right into it because I the question I like to ask this to get to know folks is what's their karaoke song? So you mentioned Donna Summer. Oh, that's so funny. Which Donna Summer song? Yeah, I mean, I could say it was written down, but what's your what's your karaoke song that you like to sing?

SPEAKER_00 18:52

Oh my gosh, what is it called? Something nights. See, you got me. You got me. Now I feel like I have to look it up because it's been so long since I sang it. But it actually reminded me I was at my my daughter's apartment in Nashville, and her boyfriend had just shipped like all of his records, yes, records, from his house in in Washington State. And I was like, Oh my gosh, you have a Donna Summers record. Like that is what we used to sing to when I was a little kid. It's been a lot of years, so now I feel like I need to bring it back out. And then I'll call you and say, This was the song.

Who The Book Helps Most

SPEAKER_01 19:21

All right, we'll get it, we'll get it in the show notes somehow. You'll remember what it is, but we'll get it in there. So that's so cool to kind of think about that song. Back to the book here a little bit. We could we could keep driving down these things, but I mean, again, you primarily, your your group that you speak to is women. We're talking to leaders on this podcast as well. But you know, your book, Real Confidence, the impact that you want it to have, the the book tests that I often talk about. Folks are gonna read it, they're gonna put it on a shelf, just like the one behind us. You know, you see, I see a couple of your books sitting there. Yeah. And what do you want them to feel and what do you want them to do uh when they see it a year later kind of thing? They see your book there.

SPEAKER_00 19:56

Yeah, I want it to be a reminder of what they're capable of. And what I found really interesting about this book is that I did write this book specifically where for women. Now, a lot of my keynotes are for women. I speak to men as well, but what I found most interesting was that I had so many men come up to me, like their wife bought the book, and then they read it and they said, This was my story. Like I connected with everything here. And I was so shocked by it. Not because I haven't thought about men struggling with confidence before, but just hearing that out loud, like, and I feel like wow, that really opened a whole new realm of for people to say, Here's what I struggle with. Because I noticed that with like for me, I'm I'm open and honest about everything now. Like, I am an open book. You ask me a question, I'm gonna answer it even if it's uncomfortable. And we were at a dinner a few months ago, and we were talking about the book, and my husband was saying, you know, when I was younger, I was really horrible at sports, and I really struggled with confidence because of it. And his friends just kind of looked at him at first and they were like, I don't struggle. And I was like, You guys are all liars. Like, there's no way you've gone through your life and not have struggled with something. And maybe you've, you know, grown through it now, but you have to look back and you can't say pretend like everything was okay. And that's such a big part of this book is giving people permission to say, Here's what I struggled with, or here's what I struggle with.

Kitchen Table Leadership Defined

SPEAKER_01 21:19

Yeah, back to guys are really good at trying to deflect that. I mean, let's just face it, absolutely what they are. And you know, the another point you had, we talked about self-deprecation, is you compare that to self-awareness and the different like within the realm of self-deprecation, there's a level of awareness that guys aren't comfortable talking about often. The questions that I ask, I'm I'm selfish. Most of them are like a coaching session for me to work my way through. Whether you're talking about limiting beliefs, okay, you're talking about that inner critic, that word that sits there, that is the what if whisperer exists in my head all day long. And I've got an accountability group of men that we talk about it all the time, those things that keep us from doing what. We want to do so. Yeah, men get over yourself as you listen to this. And even to a certain extent, you have to tell the women to get over it as well. They for some reason we seem to think that it's easier for women to share their emotion. Well, I'm a crier. Uh we could probably get there's no doubt about that. And I've embarrassed myself many times going down that journey. So I appreciate the fact that again, as I read it, I didn't hear you necessarily talking to women. I heard you talking to leaders, influence, people who have influence that struggle every day of their life and need to improve. So that's really cool. The other part of that is parenting. Six kids, bless your heart. And you get some great stories in there about when you adopted uh two children as well. And I smiled at the the attendant who helped you to get your baby to stop crying on the long flight back. But you have a term in there called kitchen table leadership and how it really developed for you. What is kitchen table leadership?

SPEAKER_00 22:51

So I feel like we've been sold this very narrow view of what leadership is. It's the title, it's the corner office, it's it's the boardroom. And to me, leadership, it's the things we do every single day. It's the behind the scenes, it's the messy moments, but nobody's ever called it leadership. So we don't see ourselves that way. But think about how differently people would show up to work already thinking that they're a leader, right? Understanding that, wow, these are leadership decisions. And so many of our biggest decisions happen around the kitchen table. I mean, for us, when we adopted our youngest three kids, those decisions were around the kitchen table. Every kid had to vote, it had to be unanimous. And if that didn't happen, we wouldn't move forward. And so when I look at our kitchen table, like that is a serious place of leadership because every single decision we make, those are think about how it impacts someone's life, whatever decision you're making, right? That is leadership. And so we need to look at it differently. And that's why I think it's so important that we kind of change the narrative there and that, oh, only certain people are leaders. No, we're all leaders, we just lead differently.

Labels And The Stories We Live

SPEAKER_01 23:52

So good. Thank you for sharing that. The uh kind of last question about the book, and then we're kind of moved. I can't believe how fast time is going through. You mentioned this in the list of quotes that you gave me uh that have influenced you or or your quotes. Labels are for wine bottles. Yeah. What does that mean to you?

SPEAKER_00 24:07

Yeah, so you know, so often we we label ourselves, we label other people, and our words become our reality. So the more we tell ourselves what we're not capable of, that's what we believe. The more we tell ourselves what we are capable of, that's what we believe. And so every time we label somebody, you know, we we look at people and we say, you know, we we have this idea in our head before we even start a conversation. So that's a huge thing with my kids to say, don't ever think something before you ask the question, right? Because you have no idea. And so obviously I like wine. So when I talk about, I mean, you can talk about labels on a record album, whatever, but you know, that idea is that it's not made for people. Like we should not be going around and saying this person isn't capable of that. And we should definitely not be doing it to ourselves, right? Like, oh yeah, that's not for me. I'm not ready for that. I'm not capable of that. And we're labing labeling ourselves, saying, like, we're not we're not worthy of this, and it's so not true. And so keep the label on the wine bottle and treat yourself like you would your best friend.

Next Steps And Final Message

SPEAKER_01 25:06

Love that. Treat yourself like you would your best friend, no doubt about it, because we're we're really good at not not doing that as human beings, certainly myself as well, and I have to be aware of that, stay aware of it. Simone, the uh shoot, I lost kind of my track uh where I wanted to go with the last one. Where can folks learn more about you? Kind of who you are and and what you're up to nowadays.

SPEAKER_00 25:25

Yeah, so best place is my website, SimoneConago.com, which S-I-M-O-N-E-K-N-E-G-O. I am the only Simone Canago in the world until someone names their baby after me. I'm waiting for the day. But until then, you can find me, probably however you spell it, you can find me. And, you know, I'm on social media, all the things. I have a podcast with my 23-year-old daughter called Herable Confidence. It is really cool. It is like one of the most fun things that I get to do because I feel like that's pretty good odds, too, that I have one out of six that actually wants to talk to me on a podcast. That's pretty good. We've been doing it for almost three years now, and you know, we talk about all the things that we struggle with. And I think it's really good to have that moment for both of us. It's like what you were saying before, when you're talking to a guest, it's like a bit of therapy. It's a bit of therapy every single week that we get to do that. Yeah, so that's that and you can find my book, you know, Real Confidence, you know, at Real Confidence but book.

SPEAKER_01 26:17

Excellent. I just remembered the question too. My apologies if I was distracted. But uh this the uh put it on the lower shelf for folks ultimately. They they are interested in building their confidence. How do you really tell someone just to get started? What's a small step they can take today?

SPEAKER_00 26:31

Any kind of action. Right? You know, we we wait, we're like, that's gonna be too uncomfortable. I truly believe that it's more uncomfortable to stay comfortable. Sitting on the couch and doing nothing to me is very uncomfortable. Like, take action, whatever the little step is. Don't go go climb Kilimanjar tomorrow. Like, take a take a walk, take like a small step towards something. You know, don't not apply for the job because you think that you're not capable of it. Apply for it anyways. So all of the things that you've been telling yourself you're not ready for, take the step. What's the worst thing that's gonna happen? Right? Someone might say no, and then what? Right? You learn something and you do it again. And that's the thing about embracing your failures. You you learn from it. And so any kind of action you can take, that's what builds confidence. It's when you're waiting around for someone else to tell you what to do that you're like, oh, I'm not worthy. Yes, you are. Take the action.

SPEAKER_01 27:21

Yes, you are. Thank you. Take the action. I love that as a first step. Simone, you've been a very gracious guest on the Uncommon Leader Podcast. I'm quite sure that the listeners have enjoyed it, found some value in it. I encourage them to go out there and get a copy of the book if they haven't already. Real confidence. I think they're going to love it. I know I did as I went through it. I want to ask you one more question, and it's almost there. It might be take the action. We're going to go there. I'm going to give you a billboard. You can put that billboard anywhere you want to. Sarasota, or you can put it anywhere you want to with regards to that billboard. What's the message you're going to put on there for the listeners and why do you put that message on there?

SPEAKER_00 27:56

Yeah, I'd like to have these billboards all over the country, so not just in Sarasota, but the message would be you don't need to change who you are. You need to change the way you see yourself. And for me, that's so important because self-belief drives everything, right? If we if we're constantly thinking, oh, we need the bigger bank account, we need the bigger car, we need to change this. It's not about that. We need to look at ourselves and say, what really matters to us, and that's how we should move forward. So you don't need to change who you are, you need to change the way you see yourself.

SPEAKER_01 28:22

So good. Thank you so much, Simone. It's been a great conversation. I've enjoyed it today. I wish you the best going forward, okay?

SPEAKER_00 28:28

Thank you so much. Thanks for having me here.

SPEAKER_01 28:37

Until next time, go and grow champions.