Keynote speaker Simone Knego shares her R.E.A.L. method, “kitchen table leadership,” and the mindset shifts that turn self-doubt into unshakeable confidence.
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Show Notes:
In this episode of Mission Matters, Adam Torres speaks with Simone Knego, Keynote Speaker at Simone Knego LLC, about her mission to help women build lasting confidence through authenticity and self-acceptance. Simone discusses her R.E.A.L. framework, her upcoming book Real Confidence: A Simple Guide to Go from Unsure to Unshakeable, and how experiences like climbing Mount Kilimanjaro have shaped her approach to leadership and empowerment.
About Simone Knego
Simone Knego is a global thought leader, sought-after international speaker, and bestselling author whose work inspires high achievers to redefine leadership from the inside out. She captivates audiences worldwide with her engaging storytelling, practical frameworks, and actionable insights.
As co-host of the globally ranked podcast “Her Unshakeable Confidence” and author of “The Extraordinary UnOrdinary You,” her voice resonates from keynote stages to living rooms.
Featured by ABC, NBC, CBS, and Entrepreneur Magazine, Simone inspires audiences to overcome self-doubt, embrace authentic confidence, and discover the extraordinary in everyday leadership. Her signature REAL Method and Kitchen Table Leadership framework transform how leaders perceive themselves and serve others, enabling individuals and organizations to build lasting confidence, empowerment, and fulfillment.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest in the show, just head on over to mission matters.com and click on BR Guest to apply. All right, so today I have Simone Knego on the line, and She’s a keynote speaker over at Simone Knego , LLC.
Simone, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. All right, so a lot to talk about here today. I definitely wanna get into what you’re doing as a keynote speaker and also your work, but I guess before we get into all of that, like, how’d you get into this business? Like, did you always know that you wanted to be a speaker and, be in front of a lot of people?
Like, how’d that start for you? No, not at all. I actually started off in accounting and that’s an, hold on, that’s an obvious jump, Simone. I had to, I’m sorry. I know, I know, I know. So, mm-hmm. It, does well in the accounting world. So, yeah, I, struggled with self-doubt from the, for the majority of my life, and it took a moment.
Or 700 moments to figure out really what I was capable of. Mm-hmm. And during that period of time, that’s when I realized I had a story to tell. I have six kids, I’ve been married 32 years. I’ve done all kinds of cool things in my life, but I never saw myself as valuable. And so when I started making that shift was, that’s how I got into speaking and how I got into writing.
Wow. how did you know speaking was gonna be something that you, would continue and you’d pursue and, and writing? how did you know that those two would work hand in hand for you? Hmm. So I actually. Started speaking as a volunteer and, oh, I didn’t realize I was gonna be good at it. I didn’t realize that I had a story to tell, a story to share, but the people around me were like, oh, you have such an amazing story.
And I’m like, well, that’s just my life. And they’re like, no, it’s amazing. And. So I started doing it that way and then when I realized how much your words can change someone else’s mind or change someone else’s situation, that’s what I was like, this is what I was meant to do. This is what I love doing.
And I, you know, I love being able to, and I, majority of my clients are women, but really help women change the way they see themselves. Hmm. how did you find your, motivation for a topic or angle? Actually, let, let’s take it a step back from that. what are some of the topics, I know leadership is one of the things you’re known about, and kitchen table leadership is one of your, angles.
What, what are the topics? Maybe give us a little bit of a, a overview of kind of like your breadth of work and what you’re known for. Yeah, so I would say the main thing I’m known for is helping women build real confidence. Mm-hmm. Created a method, the real method, which, I mean, again, it’s all about being real, but of course it’s respect yourself, embrace your failures, ask yourself what you want, and live without limits.
And so that’s something that I regularly talk about. And I actually have a podcast with my 22-year-old daughter called Her Unshakeable Confidence. So confide is a big topic in our life. Yes. Yeah. One, one out of my six kids was willing to go on a podcast with me, and that’s gone well. So I feel like I’m winning there.
I love it. Yeah. and really the second topic I talk about is leadership and mm-hmm. Because I feel like we’ve been sold this very nar narrow view of what leadership is, the idea that you need. The title, you need to be in the boardroom. But I truly believe leadership is what happens behind the scenes in the messy moments, right?
Everything, the choices that we make every day, that’s real leadership and a lot of those choices happen around the kitchen table, hence the name Kitchen Table Leadership. Mm-hmm. So that’s really my, focus is kitchen table leadership and building real confidence. How’d you go up with the name? Real kitchen table Leadership Confidence.
I love no kitchen table leadership. Oh, kitchen table leader. Like, I’m just like, I love it. I’ve heard, I’ve heard that. I haven’t heard the term in a long time. I don’t know if it’s, that like an official term? Year? Term? Like I just, I don’t know. I feel like I’ve heard it a thousand times, but I haven’t, like how’d you come up with a name?
Yeah. I don’t know. It. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard it before, honestly. But, and I don’t agree with that. I mean, like, it’s one of those things that you, like, you feel you’ve heard it before. That’s what I mean. Yeah, yeah, for sure. So it’s funny because for a while I was a stay-at-home mom. Not that that was funny, that was great.
But for while I was a stay at home mom and the way I would describe myself was. Just a stay at home mom. Just Rob’s wife, just a volunteer. Mm-hmm. Using the word just to basically justify my assistance. I get it. So, big drop the, just a moment. Don’t use the word just to describe yourself. Love it.
Great. take your power back. But. So, you know, a lot of times women will think, okay, when I’m at home, like what is my, title, right? I’m a whatever. I’m a household engineer, whatever I am. Like I’m a kid Wrangler and mm-hmm. So I used to say I’m a kitchen table leader. And so that’s kind of how that started and that pretty much stuck.
Hmm. I love it. it was catchy for me. I was like, oh my gosh. I feel like I’ve heard it, but I haven’t. It sounds like the name you said you write as well. Are you writing? what kind of things do you write? Are you writing a book? Are you writing or have you written a book? Like what do you like writing?
So I just finished writing my second book. My first book came out in 2020. Perfect timing as always. Woo. Congratulations, by the way. Thank you. Congrats. That’s not an easy thing to do. Go ahead. No. Okay. The first book is called, Be extraordinary. Unordinary you follow your own path.
Mm-hmm. Discover your own journey. And that book is all about realizing what you’re capable of and recognizing that the little things you do every day matter. Mm-hmm. And a lot of stories about my kids’ adoptions, climbing Kilimanjaro. Like there’s a lot of pieces in there that which we haven’t touched on that yet, but, Oh, I like how you just dropped that in there, Simone, like, no big deal that time.
I, climbed Kilimanjaro. Yeah, no big deal. Uhhuh, you dropped that like you were talking about, like dropping the kids off at school or something. What are you talking about? Insane. Yeah. I was like, oh, we haven’t talked about that yet. We haven’t talked about that yet. But then my second book, which comes out February 17th, there’s more about Kilimanjaro in that book.
So that book is called Real Confidence, A Simple Guide To Go From Unsure to Unshakeable. Mm-hmm. And now I’m sure you’re gonna ask me about Kilimanjaro, so go ahead. Hmm. Yeah, that’s I don’t even know if I can go there. I wanna, I wanna know what inspires your overall content, because when I think about you as a content machine, two books.
Now, let’s say the second one’s coming up, so one out, one author book coming. You have, you’re obviously going on podcasts like today. Coming on online. You’re also, speaking, you’re also have your own podcast with your daughter, which by the way, I don’t know, can you say the name of that show one more time?
I wanna make sure my audience goes and checks it. I love to support other podcasters. Yeah, thank you. It’s called her Unshakeable Confidence, so it’s really about getting my daughter wonderful quicker than I did. That’s amazing. I love the concept. So what, would you say fuels all of this content inspires you to do all of this?
Because it’s significant. Like you’re putting a significant amount of effort, time, and obviously to create the way you are. I mean, that, that’s a lot of heart. Like what, fuels all this for you personally? I think really it’s based on my desire to help women. Change the way they see themselves. I mean, I struggled for so long to see my value, and if I can help one other woman see herself differently, right?
And understand that the choices she makes every day matter and that she’s more than enough, then it’s all worth it. And so that’s really my focus. When I get on stage, I think of that one woman who’s really struggling and think like, that was me for so long. How can I help her? Mm-hmm. It’s amazing. Going further into the idea of leadership I got kind of a, little interesting one for you.
what’s the most interesting place you’ve learned a leadership skill? Well, there we go. I would say on Kilimanjaro you know, that’s awesome. Go ahead. Yeah, I mean, leadership in the boardroom is one thing, right? Leadership in your daily life. Mm-hmm. But when you’re in a completely foreign environment.
With people you don’t know. ’cause I was climbing with a team. There’s 16 of us, you know? What does leadership mean then? When someone is struggling? Mm-hmm. How do you help? If not everybody is gonna make it to the top, do we all not go? So really a lot of decisions that you think about in the moment, but also apply to.
Life as a whole. I mean, fortunately everybody did make it to the top. Mm-hmm. But there were moments where we had to share stuff from other people’s packs because, you know, it can be a lot in the moment. So. Hmm. did you plan, like what, did it take to plan doing that? Was that like a dream that you always wanted to climb it before?
Was it like a, internal kind of like that? Like, like how, how’d you even come up with that idea? I’m always curious when somebody wants to go climb a mountain. It was kind of a, it sounds ridiculous, but it was pretty random actually. We had a friend climb it the year before raising money for the Livestrong Foundation and they were putting together another team for the following year.
And so our friend called my husband and said, Hey, they’re putting together a team. Are you interested? And my husband basically said, now he doesn’t agree with the way I tell the story, but I believe this is how he said it. One, two, three. No thank you. Call Simone. And they did. Mm. And I was at a point in my life where I was really struggling.
I was not, I did not see my value. I wasn’t following through on things. I had put up this big facade about. What was going on in my life. And so that was a really big step for me to not just say yes, but to put in the work, to take the action and keep the promise that I made to myself. And that’s really how that happened.
Was it ever a bucket list item? No. But honestly it changed my life, so I a hundred percent. Wow. If you asked me would I do it over again? Yes, I would. Hmm. I wanna circle back to, speaking in the keynote that you, do, what types of audiences would you say, or, or I should say, like, did you do conferences, corporate, like in person, virtual, like give us a little bit of a flavor for your business and how, and how you’re getting out there and how you’re serving others.
Yeah. It’s really a combination. I prefer in person. I do some virtual, but I. Now that I’m almost an empty nester one more year and will be completely empty. Mm-hmm. But I really prefer to be in person, to meet the people, to be able to really look them in the eye. But I do virtual as well, and a lot of it is women’s events, conferences, women’s associations, and then also.
The goal is to do more things in corporate in general. Yes, women struggle with self-doubt, but so do men. Mm-hmm. So I think across the board, my messages are, pretty universal. Hmm. Amazing. Simone, this has been great having you on the show today. I’ve really enjoyed getting to know more about you, your work, obviously climbing Kilimanjaro, your, books.
I wanna go through that again one more time. So you have a book out currently. Give, give us the name of that one again. I wanna make sure that my audience has an opportunity to go check it out. And I’m, I’m guessing it’s on Amazon? Yeah. Yes. So the first book is called The Extraordinary Unordinary.
You. And, mm-hmm. the book that comes out, my next book comes out February 17th, and it’s available for pre-order now. Mm-hmm. That one is called Real Confidence, A Simple Guide to Go From Unsure to Unshakeable.
Perfect. and how do people connect? How do they follow Poly connect with you on social websites, all, all that other good stuff. Yeah, so my website is simone cango.com, S-I-M-O-N-E-K-N-E-G-O, and I also have a website for the new book called Real confidence book.com. I am on pretty much every social channel, so you can find me by my name because I am the only Simone Cango in the world until someone names their child after me.
Amazing. Love it. For everybody listening, just so you know, we’ll definitely put some links in the show notes, so you can just click on the links and head right on over. And speaking of the audience, if this is your first time with Mission Matters and you haven’t done it yet, hit that subscribe or follow button.
This is a daily show. Each and every day are bringing you new content, new ideas, and hopefully new experience to help you up along in your journey as well. And so don’t forget, hit that subscribe or follow button. And Simone, thank you so much for coming out. It’s really been a pleasure. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me.
