The MindShift Podcast

The Extraordinary UnOrdinary You with Simone Knego

1/19/23 3:02 PM

4 Minutes Read

Episode 62

Simone Knego is a motivational speaker and the author of the best-selling book The Extraordinary UnOrdinary You. During today’s show, you’ll discover how Simone found her purpose as a motivational speaker. Her thoughts on inspiration before motivation. What her ultimate goal is and about her book, The Extraordinary UnOrdinary You.
Curious to know why she wrote a book after saying she was not an author? Tune in to this episode.

Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full Episode:

How did she find her purpose?
What it was like climbing Kilimanjaro.
What is the mind shift that people around her attribute to her.

Episode Highlights

Who is Simone Knego

- Author of The Extraordinary UnOrdinary You.
- She is a motivational speaker.
- A wife of 28 years.
- A mom to six amazing children.

The idea of motivational speaking

- She loves sharing her stories.
- If she can inspire one person, she feels her job is done.
- She didn’t realize that she had all this material to share.
- Thoughts on being an inspiration to other people

Simone Knego shares how she views inspiration and motivation

- Motivation comes after inspiration.
- When you inspire someone; sometimes they don’t realize it.
- She likes the idea of inspiring someone, which then motivates them to realize what they’re capable of.

When was the MindShift?

- It all started in high school.
- She led her life thinking that this is what everyone else wants for her.
- She didn’t feel good about herself.
- The moment sitting at a women’s empowerment luncheon where she felt bad about herself.

Her heart for impact

- How other people have impacted her.
- She says that we have to care for the people around us.
- How people around her say, “I’ve pulled a Simone today.”
- She encourages us to impact the world positively, and it doesn’t have to be monetary.

Climbing Kilimanjaro

- She climbed with the group LIVESTRONG.
- How her husband was first asked to go and declined.
- She walks us through how she readied herself to go on this climb.
- Failure to her is just a bump in the road.

Challenges with climbing Mount Kilimanjaro

- Before the climb and having knee surgery.
- She told herself every day, “You got this.”
- How many days it took to do the climb.
- She discusses what training she completed before the climb.

Learning and becoming someone during the climb

- How it’s not just about one person but the team.
- She explains that the instructor advises them that they need to use their voice, words and tell them what they need.
- One team member had difficulties, what decision was made?

What’s the one common theme that Simone finds her audiences struggle with?

- She likes to talk about the idea that we don’t need to change who we are and change the way we see ourselves.
- It takes 6000 photos to get that one, and most people don’t post that on social media.
- Her message is that she is human and that she makes mistakes all the time.

Contributing factor to write a book?

- She realized she was limiting herself by saying she was not a writer.
- She set a goal, had a timeline and didn’t want to leave it on the table.

How long did she give herself? Did she have coaching?

- She gave herself a year to write the book.
- She had an editor’s help after she wrote it.
- When she hit a wall, she would enlist the help of her daughter, Olivia.
- She didn’t want anyone to read her book while writing it because we all have different perspectives.

Where did the title of her book come from?

- She was going for a play on words because she always calls herself an ordinary girl.
- We are all unordinary. We are all unique. We all have extraordinary pieces within us.

Chapter six in the book, what does it mean to her?

- She says that she is a believer that everything happens for a reason.
- Sometimes the reason isn’t realized until later in life.

What does she think about people’s reaction of between laughter and tears reading her book?

- The tears, she explains, comes from talking about her kids and their adoption stories.
- The funny stuff she attributes to being real stories.
- She had a rat destroy her minivan.

What does she wish she would have known before writing the book?

- She initially thought writing would be the most challenging part.
- She found out that the distribution of her book was the hardest part.

Are there myths about international adoption?

- She shares how people always say that her kids are so lucky, and for her, it’s the opposite.

How does Simone want to be remembered?

- She wants to be remembered as good human.
- She and her husband raised good humans.

3 Powerful Quotes from this Episode

What we can change

29:12 - “We don’t need to change who we are. We need to change the way we see ourselves.”

Share stories

8:49 - “When you share those stories, and people are inspired. They’re then motivated to do more things to put themselves out there to try new things.”

It’s about us

28:27 - “So much of how we live our lives, we start off thinking about me. And as we move forward into a workspace, it is about us.”

About Simone Knego

As an international leader, best-selling author, and keynote speaker, Simone Knego has the uncanny ability to motivate and inspire others to be the good in the world. Yet, if you were to ask her, Simone would tell you that she leads an ordinary life filled with extraordinary moments.

As a mother to both dogs and children, a serial entrepreneur, and a popular speaker and author, Simone treasures each small moment, she gets to make a difference. Splitting her time between her family, businesses, and personal growth, she’s realized that the small choices she makes every day to do good, has the power to inspire others to see the extraordinary moments in their own ordinary lives.

Simone holds both a Bachelor of Science in Accounting and a Master of Accounting from the University of Florida. In 2015, she climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro to raise funds and awareness for the Livestrong Foundation. In addition, Simone served as the 2018-2019 Co-Chair of the Jewish Federations of North America’s National Young Leadership Cabinet and has traveled around the world on several philanthropic, international missions, including medical missions, with her husband Rob, who is a Neurosurgeon. They have been married for 27 years and have six children.