Welcome back to The Daily Mastermind, George Wright III with your daily dose of inspiration, motivation, and education. And I'm excited today to have Simone Canego with me on the podcast. How are you doing, Simone? I'm doing great. Thanks so much for having me here. Yeah, I am excited about this because we're going to be talking about confidence and leadership. And these are terms that a lot of times people just hear as general terms, but we're going to kind of dig in the weeds a little bit. But before we get going, I want to give you a little bit of an introduction so people know where you're coming from. If you're not familiar with Simone, and I'm going to put things in the show notes, she's an international speaker and thought leader. She's written a book that you may or may not have seen already, The Extraordinary Unordinary You, and she has another one coming out we might be able to get her to talk about. She has a podcast that she's co-hosting with her daughter, which is really cool, Her Unshakable Confidence, and recognized all over in all kinds of media, We're just glad to have you here today. So thank you so much for joining us. Absolutely. Like I said, I'm excited to be here. Well, look, you've been doing the work. You have had a lot of episodes on your podcast. You've been around business leaders, individuals, and everyone else. What brought you into the field of confidence? Because that's one of the primary things that you really are excelling at. What brought you into that field? Just give us just a quick backdrop of where you came from and how it brought you to this. Yeah, so I am someone that struggled with self-doubt for the majority of my life. I actually started off as an accountant. I'm a CPA by education. I was supposed to be a doctor, but I failed organic chemistry. So that's a story for another day. But when I was in my 40s, when I was 42 years old, I was asked to do something completely out of my comfort zone. And I said yes, because I knew I needed something to change. I'm a big believer now in doing the things you think you can't. And the thing that I did was climb Mount Kilimanjaro. and I'm not a climber. I live in Florida at sea level with 16 steps in my house but that moment was really life-changing for me because I was able to realize what I was capable of and that process kind of took me back to, okay, how did I get here? And that's how I created my real method for building confidence that I'm sharing all over because it's a practical way of understanding that confidence is a skill that you build. It's not something you're born with. It's not something that other people have and you don't. It's something that you need to work on. Yeah, it really is. And I've told people that a lot. You know, sometimes you operate in this like false confidence to start, but your actions and things help you to get there. And I'm very anxious to dig in. But I love the fact that you, I mean, of all things to say yes to and then go figure it out, it's climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. I mean, you couldn't have thought of maybe like surfing or doing something a little closer to home. Was it a friend that, here's what I got to ask you. Was it someone that pushed you to do it? Or did you just say, I need a challenge? Or was it an opportunity that came up? Because I do find it's hard for people to just say, okay, I'm going to step outside my comfort zone. But you like leaped out of your comfort zone because that sounds like a big thing. Yeah, it was a big thing. So a friend of ours asked me to do it. He actually asked my husband and my husband counted to three and said, no, thank you. Call Simone. And he did. And I said, yes. Now, I didn't know what I was getting myself into when I did it, but I knew that I needed something to change. and so I mean he probably could have asked me to run a marathon or a 5k even and I would have said yes because I was so in my head about like not doing anything and not being good for the world whatever it was at the time and so he asked and I said yes and I went with 16 people I didn't know any of them and you know so it was leadership at elevation. Leadership at elevation I love it and And, you know, it's funny because in our lives, you know, no matter where we're at early in our career, further in our career, at the end of our career, whatever, I think people get in those places where they're stuck. And what you said, and I always tell our listeners to read between the lines, you not only, you know, said yes, but you also needed that. Like you needed to make a decision to do something outside your comfort zone and the timing was right. So talk to me just a little bit about let's lay out your real method. What is it that you talk about and what is it that you feel? And maybe even as you lead into that, you've seen so many people dealing with so many problems, self-doubt like you talked about and things that the solution for is confidence. Maybe you could give us a little bit of preface and then share with us the real method. Yeah. Again, I think so many people struggle with self-doubt. I mean, across the board, the research shows that 80% of people struggle with low self-esteem. 80% of people. Now, do we like to talk about it? Of course not, right? Because that's uncomfortable. And I want to make it comfortable for people to talk about what they're struggling with. So my real method, what it stands for, and I love the word real. Authentic, I feel, is a little bit overused. So I love to say, be real. 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, not just because I like the word real. But I remember when I was a child, I was taught to respect my elders, my peers, but never once was I taught to respect the most important person, which is myself. And I think that the foundation for everything we do starts with self-respect. We see a lot of people walk into a meeting and say, well, I'm going to demand respect when I go in there. But if you demonstrate it to yourself, that's how people are going to treat you. So I think that's a big change right there is really about showing yourself respect so other people see how you deserve to be treated. Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting you say that. And in a minute, we're going to go back and unpack a couple other things. But when you said that first about respect, I was interviewing Grant Cardone last week. And the very first question I asked him is I said, what's the most important thing to you in your life right now? And it surprised me. He actually said how I feel about myself. and I thought wow like he I mean if anybody's got people out stroking his ego and things it's probably him but it's so important right so the fact that you started with respect and then you said for yourself that really is true I think a lot of people and I hope you agree with me on this I do think a lot of people deal with self-doubt but most people don't let others know that there's some people that deal with self-doubt and it's kind of out there you can tell but most are acting like they kind of are confident, but it's an internal game. And so it is that reflection of yourself, right? Yeah. I mean, I think most people, I don't want to say most people, so many people are performing confidence, right? Because they don't want anybody to find out what they're struggling with, right? We don't want to admit that we struggle because we feel that if we struggle, that shows weakness. And it's so not true. What I've realized is as soon as I talk about something that I'm struggling with, the person I'm talking to is willing to open up and say, you know what, this is what I'm struggling with. Can you help me? Instead of just pretending everything is okay. And that's so often how we go through our lives is we pretend everything's okay when it's not. Yeah. And isn't it critical for someone to sort of have that acceptance of what you are to move forward? Because if you're constantly just projecting that you're confident, even though I have all this doubt you never really accepting it and trying to solve it right Yeah I mean at some point it going to come to a head because you can just pretend things every day long every day and feel happy right I mean I want to be happy in my life. And so if I'm constantly pretending to be something or somebody that I'm not, that does not make me happy. And I did that for years. I pretended I was super strong and super tough. I didn't cry for years because everybody had this idea of me because I have six children that I was this, I was super strong. I was just barely holding it together. And, but nobody had any idea until I talked about it. And so enter depression, anxiety, stress, how does it manifest in your life? If you're listening to this, you know, you may think you're holding it together, but most of the time I agree with you. Most of the time you think you're holding it together, but it's, um, it's coming out as stress and anxiety and, you know, anger, whatever it is, whatever emotions you're trying to do. So I completely agree with that. Okay. So the real acronym, R-E-A-L, R is for respect. Keep going. E is for embrace your failures. You know, again, when I was younger, if I failed at something, that was the end of the line. I wasn't going to try it again because that was embarrassing. What will other people think? But failures, and anytime you make a mistake, it's a mistake. It's a learning process. Just because you failed at something doesn't make you a failure. It's how do we learn? The most successful people in the world fail all of the time, right? Because that's how you learn things. But I think society has conditioned us to say, oh, if you fail at something, you know, that's a really bad thing. No, it's learning. It's not a bad thing. Yeah, it's it is so much a philosophy. I feel like how you view failure is the key. I wrote an article way back with one of my original mentors, where we talked about is failure better than success, because it's really the gateway to success. And it helps you to do this. How do you help people embrace failure? Like what are some ways that they can embrace their failure? Cause it's got it. When you say that, I like how you said it because it's not so much just you got to fail, except the fact that you've got to fail five times faster or whatever. How do you embrace failure? Yeah. So again, when you fail at something, it's in the past, it's already happened. So it's really making a list. What did you learn from it? And what would you do different next time? Instead of saying, Ooh, that was really bad. I mean, you got to feel all the feelings, right? In the moment, it sucks. So in the moment, like, don't hold back, you know, like say, I cannot believe I did that. I mean, trust me, I do things all the time where I'm like, I cannot believe I did that. But it's in the past. So write down what you learned from it, and then move forward. And understanding that every single person fails at something pretty much every single day. It might be really little things, but if it bothers them so much, then you can't move forward. Yeah, I have seen that with a lot of people that I've been around that are super successful is they have failures too. And they can look back at those failures too. But the way they see the failures in the past, they've already done what you said, which is they've, they've defined what they learned and how they moved forward and grew. So when they look at the failures, they're not just seeing a failure, they're seeing a lesson. And I think that is really important. So I like how you you say that. And by the way, I'm going to comment for those of you listening when, you know, when we started and you mentioned it's the real method. I love real, but the methods that you have to be able to go through, which we'll dig into even more. Okay. So respect and then embrace. Keep going. Ask yourself what you want. I think, especially for women, this is a really hard thing, right? We go through our lives doing what we think other people, what we're supposed to do, because that's what other people have told us, right? Oh, you have to go to college at 18 years old and you have to decide what you want to do for the rest of your life when you're 18 years old? Why? No, you don't. You know, it's so hard to go through life thinking, oh, I'm already doing it wrong. So really taking that step back and saying, what did I want when I was a little kid? That kid still exists, right? I mean, I wanted to be an actress. I feel like a lot of what I do now is exactly what I was aligned with when I was a kid, speaking on stage and doing a podcast. A lot of that is part of it. So I'm not an actual actress like in Broadway or probably better than an actress now because you got more influence. And I feel like I'm really helping people. Not that, you know, celebrities don't, they do. But like, I feel that the work that I do can help everybody. And that's the way I look at it. But so often we don't ask ourselves what we want. We are stuck in a job that we hate and we are not doing anything fun on the side. And I'm not saying go quit your job tomorrow, but understand that in today's day and age, there are so many options out there. And it's not about necessarily the job you do, but what do you do on the weekends? Are you scrolling on your phone? Are you doing something that really fills your cup? And I think it's so important to remind ourselves of that. Yeah. And I love how these build on each other because asking yourself what you want, you have to be in a place of respecting yourself and really embracing your failures first. I had one of my mentors early on used to say to me, and it always kind of bugged me a little, and it'll lead up to a question I want to ask you to go deeper on this one. He'd say like, most people would say like, what do you want to do? Well, I want to be this, or I want to do this job, or whatever my identity. And he would always just say the same thing. He'd say, what do you want your life to be like? Because everybody else is trying to figure out what to do. And he'd say, if you figure out what you want your life to be like, the do will get you there. It'll limit it, and it'll change it, and it'll be whatever. So what do you say to someone, Simone, if they don't know what they want? If they say, I don't know what I want. And you know, a lot of people get older in life or in their careers and they're like, I just don't know what I want. What's my passion? Where do I go? How do I do? So when you say, ask yourself what you want, I would imagine a lot of people give kind of a surface answer. How do you help somebody that doesn't know what they want? Yeah. So we look at what are you good at? What are the things, if you could drop everything today, what would you do? Would you go surf in Costa Rica? Would you go learn how to scuba dive? Like, what would you do? So I'm not saying again for exactly your occupation. It could be for your side hustle. It could be for the fun things that you want to do. Is this like for your fulfillment, your happiness? It's about making yourself happy. I mean, it could be about your job, too. Absolutely. For me, that's what happened with me was that I didn't love the things that I was doing. I tried many things over my life. I'm a big believer that it's OK to change your mind. But when I finally came across what I was passionate about, which was storytelling and writing, I mean, I'm an accountant. People are like, you're a writer now? Yes, because I really enjoy it. And if I wouldn't have explored those options, I would have never known, right? I would have just been stuck in that same old daily grind and not understood, well, wait, I can do more. I can do it differently. Yeah, I agree. I think sometimes people are afraid, which is why I think this is all about confidence. They're afraid to just, well, I can't do that. Like that, that's not something that's real. I could go do. I mean, just because I love it. And so I think it all part of the process. So I do appreciate that's part of the steps that you talk about. And a lot of it boils back down to, you mentioned, you know, what did I want to do when I was a kid? It boils back to what sometimes you've got to step back and take off all these filters and layers of beliefs that you created over your lifetime that have made you feel like you can and can do things to truly get at what you want Because some of us are in the we in the grind We been grinding and grinding and you might have a job and two jobs and kids and you know, a side hustle and everything like that. And you're like, man, I don't even know what I want because my identity is my career. So I think it's important. And do you find people struggle with really knowing what they want? Or is it just a starting point for them to go to where they need to evolve to? I think it's a really hard thing for most people because again, we've been doing what we thought we had to, right? And a lot of times we do have to do it. I mean, we have to make money so we can put food on the table. But it's very hard to take that step back. The other thing I've noticed too, is when you ask yourself what you want, it's not about I can't do it, right? It's so often we'll be like, oh, no, I can't do that. What you were just saying, I can't do that. I can't take time away from this. well do you want to and if you want to the answer is you need to I mean for example when I climbed Kilimanjaro I had several people say to me oh I could never do that well yes you could do you want to no I would never want to do that and I said okay well then change your words because your words become your reality your thoughts become your reality so as as often as you tell yourself that you can't do something that's what you believe and the more you say you can't the more your body says, oh, don't even try. It's important that we tell ourselves that we can do things, but we have to ask ourselves, is that aligned with what we really want in our lives? Yeah. Self-talk is so huge. And I think you're right. Once you do figure out what you want, then you've got to make it a need, a must, and then you'll get it, right? So I really do agree with that. Okay. Respect, embrace, ask, keep going. Live without limits. So we limit ourselves from the second we wake up until the minute we go to bed. For example, when I was younger and there was a period of time where I was a stay-at-home mom. That's how I would describe myself. I'm just a stay-at-home mom. I'm just Rob's wife. I'm just a volunteer justifying my existence, right? So that idea that we don't need to limit ourselves. So I have this little mindset hack that I like to use for when we have negative thoughts that come into our head, thinking that we're not enough. And it's really based on, well, okay, the title is self-explanatory. It's really creative. It's called Control-Alt-Delete. So back in the day, Control-Alt-Delete was how you would reset a frozen computer. Now it brings up Task Manager. I have no idea what Task Manager does. I guess it manages my tasks. I don't know. I don't use that. It lets you selectively delete what you want, which is great. Oh, even better. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So control is about awareness. So before we can change anything, we have to recognize the thoughts that are coming to our into our head. I call the negative thoughts the what if whisperer. What if I fail? What if they don't like me? What if I'm not enough? What if I'm going to mess up that board meeting? Okay, that's the what if whisperer. So the control part is awareness, like recognize those thoughts. Are they true? Are they helpful? Most of the time, it's a story that we're telling ourselves a negative story. So alt is about alternative. Tell yourself a better story. Instead of saying you can't do something, yes, you can. Watch me. Instead of saying, what if I fail? How about when I succeed? Again, your words become your reality. It's so important how you talk to yourself. And then finally, delete. Delete the habits and beliefs that don't serve you. Delete the comparison game. Delete the belief that you're not enough. 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. How many parts are you going to be left with? Yeah, I love it. Okay. So guys, you really, you got to put a pin in this one because if you want to live your best life, she's saying use her mind, her hack, right? Control alt delete control being your awareness, all create an ulterior, you know, version of where you can go and delete the habits. I love that because now it's going to be ringing in my mind. And it's funny because I don't usually ask guests this, but I was going to ask you, you just partially answered the answer to this question. And that is, I was going to say, look, there's a lot of people out there teaching mindset. I really love the real method. And I love the things we're talking about to build confidence. We'll tie it up here in a minute. But Simone, what makes Simone Canego unique in what you do with your clients and with the people that you're around? Because you've done a phenomenal job of this. What is it that you have a lot of little hacks and things like that, but what is it that's unique about you that you feel you bring to the marketplace? And the reason I'm asking this question for perspective and for those of you listening is because no matter what you do, everyone is so unique. And if you can express that, it makes a big difference for your business, the market, and even people you connect with. What is it that you do just kind of differently in this confidence-building game and using this real method? I think so often you'll hear the words, well, just go out there, just be confident. Pretend like you're confident and it's going to follow. So a lot of times it's faking it until you make it. But I don't believe in that at all. I believe in saying it until you become it. The more you talk to yourself, the more positively you talk to yourself, the more you're going to believe that, the more you're willing to try new things, the more you're willing to put yourself out there. So what I teach is very practical. It's stuff you use every single day. And for example, that mindset hack, whenever you have those negative thoughts come in your mind, you say, okay, is this real? Is this something I'm just making up? It's something you're just making up. So I think that's really what differentiates me. And plus, I've lived it, right? I struggled for so many years. And I want to help people get there quicker than I did, right? Because, again, I was 42 when I started even realizing what I was doing to myself, how negatively I was talking to myself. so if I can help someone get there quicker that's exactly what I want to do yeah it's a principle I just hammer through the daily mastermind and our community and that is the best way to expedite your progress you're leveling up just like I have with my phoenix the evolve your life it's get around somebody who's been there that can help you accelerate it but I'll tell you I love and I'm going to use this I'm not just saying this control alt delete you get in a situation where you feel like you're not living your best life you're not doing the right you're worried, you're stressed, you're stuck, whatever. Control, awareness, alt, delete. It's almost like a one, two, three, one, two, three, you can get that done. So I love that. I know we don't have a ton of time, but I had some notes here. I wanted to talk about leadership for a second, because it's a little bit of a bridge into another topic, but you had some interesting perspective on that. So rather than set it up, I'd love to just ask you your perspective on leadership for us to talk about for a minute. Yeah. And I think it's very directly related to confidence. So we've been sold this very narrow view of leadership. It's the title, it's the boardroom, it's the corner office. And so a lot of times when we show up at work, we're waiting for someone to tell us what to do because we're not the leader, they are. And that is not how we should be living our lives. So I believe in what I call kitchen table leadership. And the idea is that it's leadership is what happens behind the scenes. It's the messy moments. It's the everyday decisions. We are all leaders, but we've never been told that. So we don't believe that. But imagine how different you would show up at work if you truly believed you a leader It doesn matter if you have a boss or not but you would work differently because you believed in yourself You believed in what you doing And the reason I call it kitchen table leadership is because so many important decisions happen around the kitchen table. I mean, for our family, we adopted our youngest three kids. Every decision about adoption happened around the kitchen table. Those are huge leadership decisions because they changed the trajectory of our lives. and so I really want people to see leadership differently because we're doing it every single day but nobody's ever called it that so we don't believe it is. Yeah, I love the term you use and I have not heard it before so I love that kitchen table leadership because I'm a big believer in that and I think you're right. It ties directly to confidence because when you accept the fact that you are a leader and like I talk about on our Franklin Planner podcast, you lead your life. it's about you leading your life you've got to do it in a confident way and when you accept the role as a leader whatever it is you might be a lot of our listeners are owners and founders and investors but you might be you know a husband spouse kid parent whatever when you accept that you lead your life and you're a leader 90 of those decisions you make are in the day-to-day they are not level five leadership at a company level. However, I'm a big believer how you do anything is how you do everything. So it will extend regardless, right? And so that's really critical. How do you, I want to kind of talk just a couple of tactics real quick. What do you do if someone's feeling really stuck and they are struggling with their confidence? It might be that they have self-belief, limiting beliefs, things like this, but they know they got to get, what can I do to very quickly become more confident, where is the starting place that you start most people? So first asking, you know, obviously asking all the questions, like, what is it specifically that you're struggling with? A lot of people struggle in one area of their lives. They don't necessarily struggle everywhere. Why is it that they struggle in that one area? Is it at work? Is it because their boss puts an incredible amount of pressure or they take on way too much work for from someone else, like someone's dumping everything on them. So that really starts with that self-respect piece. Do you set boundaries? You know, what would happen? What's the worst thing that could happen if you set a boundary? Oh, they might not like you. I mean, you know, so it's really talking through first where, what they're really struggling with and simple ideas to move forward. Now, a lot of times I'm not going to give them some massive 30 step plan. It's like, here's one thing you do tomorrow. Here's one thing you do tomorrow. Because what I've realized over time is you have to make it very practical and you have to make it repeatable and you have to make it accessible. And so, you know, that would be the biggest starting place is saying, okay, first, where do you struggle? Here's one thing to do tomorrow. Yeah. And I think a lot of people, it's one of the reasons I'm a big fan of mentors and coaches and things like this is if they fit what you're trying to do, because it is difficult sometimes to see the forest through the trees when you're struggling yourself. And I get that. So if you are struggling, it is a matter of just starting to become aware of where you're at, where you're struggling with and kind of moving to the next level. I also wanted to ask you because you have your podcast with your daughter, what made you decide to do that? Was it her idea? Was it your idea? Who gets the credit for this? And how is that going for you? It's a combo deal. So it's going great. We've been doing it for two and a half years now. We started off just doing Instagram lives. So my daughter was diagnosed with Crohn's when she was 16 years old. And we started having these really deep conversations about how to live your best life and the things that you struggle with. And, you know, and so after we started doing that, we said, why don't we make it official? Why don't we do a podcast where it can live there forever? And who knows if let's, I mean, the goal is to help people along the way, who knows how that's going to happen. And one of the biggest things, the reasons we started it was because she was the kid who wanted to eat her way around the world. Like she is a huge foodie. She loves hot sauce, all the things. And she had to understand like a little bit about limitations, but also that you can still live your best life. And so when she was diagnosed, we said, or I said to her, feel all the feels, cry it out, scream it out, whatever you need and then pick a day and move forward because you could live here in this moment stuck forever and that's not how you want to live and so that conversation really kind of moved us forward in terms of okay how can we talk about this with other people and so we again two and a half years it's we drop an episode every Tuesday and it is so fun because and we do every other week just the two of us so we can still have those really in-depth conversations like what you were talking about before about anxiety. We did an episode where she's like, I said, Oh, I'm really nervous about something. She goes, uh, you have anxiety and your anxiety gives me anxiety. And I had never thought about it like that before. And I was like, thank you for calling me out. So it's been really, really fun. What a great partner in crime. I actually, one of my sons, one of my twins has Crohn's. And so I kind of have had some of those same experiences. So that's awesome. That's really cool to hear. And you know, what I'll do is I'll make sure if you're listening to this, I'll put a link to her show in the show notes. So Simone, how do we have people connect with you, learn a little bit more about the real method and overall just where's the best place to connect? Yeah. So my website, SimoneKanago.com, S-I-M-O-N-E-K-N-E-G-O. I'm the only Simone Kanago in the world. So you will find me. All my social media is Simone Kanago. And then my new book, Real Confidence, a simple guide to go from unsure to unshakable comes out in February and you can find it at realconfidencebook.com. And it's all based on my real method and very vulnerable stories and very practical tools to use. I love it. That's perfect. So if you're listening to this, I will put all those links in the show notes and let's make sure, you know, if you're dealing with things, if you're struggling with confidence, if you feel like stories that Simone has might help you, you know, I would encourage you to go check it out. And Simone, I really, really do appreciate you being here. I've enjoyed the conversation. We had some talk before. Hopefully we'll be doing, you know, some stuff ongoing. What is any last thoughts, ideas, anything else you'd like to share before we take off? Yeah, I'd just like to leave you with this. We so often talk about that the things that we need to change about ourselves, the things that we need to change in our life. We need the bigger car. We need more money. We need this. We need that. I truly believe that we don't need to change who we are. We need to change the way we see ourselves. yeah confidence starting from within i love that great skill you build every day it is a skill you build that is a great thing to end with as well it's a skill that you build and you can build it repetition frequency consistency you can do that listen i appreciate you all joining us today remember and i always like to end with this as well it is never too late to start living the life you're meant to live but you've got to take action you've got to do what you need to do to move forward. It's the reason we do this show. So share the show. Hit me up on The Daily Mastermind on Facebook, Instagram, pretty much anywhere worldwide. And we'll look forward to talking with you more again tomorrow. Once again, this is George Wright with Simone Canego. Thanks for joining us.
