The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – The Extraordinary UnOrdinary You: Follow Your Own Path, Discover Your Own Journey by Simone Knego

Episode Date: March 2, 2021

The Extraordinary UnOrdinary You: Follow Your Own Path, Discover Your Own Journey by Simone Knego Do you wake up every day feeling like you're going through the motions, that the hundreds of choices you make have almost no impact on the people around you? Many motivational books will tell you that in order to better the world, you must first better yourself. But you really only need to change the way you see yourself and the world around you will change. What you do every day matters and inspires others. By sharing your story, you can motivate and encourage those around you--and in doing so, change the world. Everyone has a story, and in The Extraordinary UnOrdinary You, Simone Knego takes you inside her unique journey and the extraordinary moments which have shaped her life and defined her mission. Sharing the lessons she's learned from life's ups, downs, and laugh-out-loud moments, you'll be inspired to discover your own journey, and to go out into the world and be the good. The world is waiting for the Extraordinary UnOrdinary You, and you already have everything you need to get started, simply by being you. About Simone Knego A former CPA, turned equestrian entrepreneur, turned teacher who's the mother of 6 -- 3 adopted from S. Korea & Ethiopia -- Simone Knego has the uncanny ability to both motivate and inspire others to be the good in the world. An international leader and keynote speaker who recently scaled Mount Kilamanjaro -- a dormant volcano in Tanzania, it's the highest mountain in Africa -- she believes that changing the way you see yourself can help the world around you change. In her new bestselling book, Simone shares her real-world and highly actionable insights via stories of her own life's both humorous and moving everyday moments -- and how others can similarly discover they too are Unordinary...in the best possible way.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain now here's your host chris voss hi folks this is voss here from the chris voss show.com the chris voss show.com hey we're coming with another great podcast we certainly appreciate you guys tuning in thanks for being here we certainly appreciate you guys tuning in. Thanks for being here. We certainly appreciate you doing this. Be sure to watch the video version. They have it on video nowadays.

It's 2021. You can go to this site called youtube.com forward slash Chris Voss. You can hit the bell notification so you get just all the wonderful things and media that we put out on the Chris Voss Show. There's almost 4,000 videos over on the Chris Voss Show over there on YouTube. Why don't you go watch them? Because you're in quarantine.

You got nothing better to do. Go to goodreads.com forward slash Chris Voss. See what we're reading over there and what we're reviewing actually as well. All the five-star reviews we've given, all the great books we've done. You can see us in lots of different groups on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram,

and holy moly, Clubhouse as well. That becomes the new hottest thing. Hopefully, we'll have the Chris Voss Show group up this week. I hear they're rolling out groups. Today, we have a most amazing author on the show. She's the brilliant author. Her name is Simone Canego. She's the author of the best-selling book,

The Extraordinary Unordinary You. She's a motivational speaker, mother to six whole children, and an entrepreneur in her new best-selling book, The Extraordinary Unordinary You. She details her journey of adopting three of her six children, her climb of Mount Kilimanjaro, I'm not sure which is harder, and all the funny, scary, and inspiring stories that came along the way. Simone holds both a bachelor's degree of science and accounting and a master of accounting in the University of Florida. Not in, but of. You can't hold a university degree of, can you?

Simone, welcome to the show. How are you? I'm show. How are you? I'm great. How are you? Thanks for having me here today. I am good. Welcome. So you've written this extraordinary book that just barely came out.

Give us your plugs so people can find you on the interwebs. Yeah. First, my website. The cool thing for me is that I am the only Simone Canego in the world until one of your guests decides to name their child after me. But right now, I'm the only Simone Canego. So my website is SimoneCanego.com, LinkedIn, Simone Canego, Instagram, author Simone Canego, Facebook, at Unordinary You, Simone Canego. You don't know how special it is that you've got a really unique name or maybe you do, but

man, if you got a name like some of my friends are like me, you've got copycats out there that are stealing your name. So it's cool. It's unique. So what motivated you to want to write this book? I had been doing some public speaking for the last few years through actually through a volunteer organization. And every time I got on the stage, I would get off and people would say, have you written a book? No, I haven't written a book. You should write a book. And so I thought about it and I was like, okay, we're at a time right now that why not? There's no better time than right now. And so I did. I was really thinking about how to tie everything together. And really the underlying message is about realizing what you're capable of and recognizing that the things you do every day

truly inspire the people around you and that you matter. So my whole book is my family stories and all our chaos. And it's pretty interesting. From the PR sheet here, do you wake up every day feeling like you're going through the motions that hundreds of choices that you make have almost no impact on the people around you. So would you say this is a motivational book to help you through that? Yeah, I don't give specific steps on because I truly believe that we don't need to change who we are, that we need to change the way we see ourselves. So it's really looking at my journey of, again, I'm an ordinary girl, but, and we're all ordinary people, right? But within our lives, we are unordinary and we have these extraordinary moments that really define who we are. And so that was like the whole basis for

the title and the background for the book. That's brilliant. I like that. That's inspiring. There are moments in our lives where we hit that high point and we go, yeah, that's why I'm here. That's why I'm alive. That's why I matter. Yeah. And that's where I am. I struggled for a long time trying to find my purpose, always what someone else was telling me to do versus what I wanted to do. And it was that realization of where I wanted to be, what I wanted to do, and that I was making an impact just by the little things I was doing every day. And if I can inspire one person, if I can impact one person with my messages, then I've done my job. There you go. What you said earlier, where you don't have to change yourself, but you have to change what you're thinking inside, I think, or something like that. Basically, my opinion is I don't have to change me. I just have to change everyone around me.

Okay. That's a way that you can look at it and that's totally fine. But I think your book is better. I think I don't think that's working out quite for me because I seem to be strangling a lot of people during the day, but maybe it's me. Another thing from the book here, what you do every day matters and inspires others. By sharing your story, you can motivate and encourage people around you. And in doing the same, change the world. And I guess a lot of that is your unique journey that you document in the book. Yeah, a lot of it is.

And a lot of it is also looking at other people. And for me, what I've realized is that this human connection piece, now it's even more difficult, right? Because the connection piece is on Zoom most of the time, but that human connection piece is so important. And not just sharing our shiny stuff, but sharing our struggles as well, because you never know what someone else is going through and taking the time to reach out, have a conversation, even a couple of kind words can make the difference in someone's day. It really can. What you speak to is I found really important over the years. There's been several times in my life where on Twitter, actually, there's two times over the last 12 years that I tweeted out something. It was just like a feel good quote. And somebody went and

two people told me, and this wasn't consecutive, but just over the years, but two people told me, and this wasn't consecutive, but just over the years, but two people told me they were going to commit suicide that day. And somehow that quote, whatever I shared, just sometimes by automation, turned them around and they shared that with me and said, today was the day I was going to do it. And I was at the bottom and that quote did it. And it was random. Like you don't know how much you inspire people. There's been times where I didn't want to share the dark things in my life, like when my dogs passed and how I felt about it and how painful it was.

But I just made the decision to bleed out online because I'm single. I don't have anybody I can cry to here at the house. But it was amazing to me how much sharing my pain, sharing my experience affected others. I had people that cried and said, until I saw you bleed out online over losing your dogs, I didn't, I realized I didn't have closure with my father when he passed, or I realized I hadn't fully circumvented some of the different things. So it's amazing how much of a difference you've made. So let's talk about your journey. You have six kids.

Let's talk about building your family and stuff and how you got this done. So we actually adopted our youngest three. We had, we, I gave birth to three kids. They look a lot like me. And we said, this is the moment in time, kind of, do we want to, do we want to, do we want to adopt what, how do we want to, I did not want to have another baby. So that was not part, even part of the equation. So it was either three or we kept going with adoption. And for us, it was really the right decision. It was an amazing, each adoption really opened my eyes to other parts of the world and patience, kindness, humanity, all of those things. And so we have two children from Ethiopia and they're

now 16 and 13. And then our son who's 14 is from South Korea. Wow. That's amazing, man. You got, you got a multicultural family right there in your home. Yes, we do. Chaos and multicultural, chaotic and multicultural. Well, you've got six kids. I can't handle, I I'm barely handling two dogs. I'm barely handling two dogs i'm barely holding it down over here like they they're they have me up a wall half the time i can't even imagine but i have three dogs on top of it so that's right too yeah yeah actually my daughter would like a fourth and i'm like we are we are full we are full that is uh that's that's the whole house you got going on there stuff how how then, and then at some point you decide to go climb Mount Kilimanjaro.

Are you, are you, are you a masochist or something? Like what's going on over there? No, I just, it was a moment in time where I was, I was asked again, am I a climber? No. Yes. I've gone camping a couple of times. Does that qualify me for the job? Probably not.

It was something that when I was asked to do it, I really wanted to do it. It was mixing a challenge with philanthropy. We were raising money for the Livestrong Foundation. So for me, I couldn't imagine a better experience. And so I said, yes. And I went with complete strangers and 16 of us that learning leadership skills as you go, forget leadership in the boardroom, but leadership at elevation is a completely different ball game. You can't, you can't leave. Where are you going to go? That's true.

There's no quitting at that point. Yeah. So we, and we, it was an amazing group of people. I had a, a tent mate. So in addition to just being with people that I didn't know before that I hadn't met before, I'm also now sharing a tent with somebody. And she was amazing. She's a breast cancer survivor.

The whole trip was so motivational. It really was. Every morning I woke up thinking, how lucky am I to be here doing this? And yes, it is going to be a painful day, but it is an amazing day. Did you train for it? I trained for about six months. That's all I had because when I signed up, I had six months before the climb. And yeah, I worked out like crazy. I went around town wearing this elevation training mask. My kids thought I was crazy. You can adjust the filters to the valves to let in. You have to struggle more

to get the air into your lungs. So it would build lung capacity. Didn't really help with the oxygen part is a chemical change that happens when you get to a higher elevation, but I was able to build lung capacity to the point where I could actually hold my breath underwater for one minute, which was very exciting. Wow. There you go. You never know when you're going to need that skill. Yes. I live in Florida. I might need it every day, honestly. Were your kids going, I think she's trying to get away from it. No, I don't think so. I got to think about it for a second. She's trying to climb mountains and go places where we can't get to her. I think mom's finally hit the breaking point. I think she's lost it. Yeah. Trust me. I think at first they

probably thought I was a little bit crazy that I, that this was something again, I'm not a climber, but what a great lesson for them that if if if there's something that you really want to do, and you work hard and you put your mind to it, you can accomplish it. And so they were really they were really proud. Like they were like, Oh, yeah, at first, they were like, Yeah, my mom's gonna climb a mountain. I was like, and after I did, they're like, my mom climbed a mountain. So there you go. And it's a good lesson. You're teaching them and stuff. My mom's version of climbing a mountain was throwing us out of the house every day and being like, don't come home till dinner, which is really weird compared to how parents are nowadays where they're just like, don't, don't leave the house. But so what lessons

did you learn? Imagine talk about this in the book. What lessons, where were some of the things you learned about yourself probably making that sort of journey? Yeah, I think the biggest thing is not to limit myself. Like I, we have these ideas in our head of, oh, I can't do this, or I shouldn't do this versus why not? If this is something that you want, you should, you should try it. And so I think that for me, that really opened up a bit more of the world for me to look at and say, and that included writing a book that I could say, doesn't matter. If this is what you want to do, just do it. And that's my attitude now. And I take the failures along the way as well, because that's just part of life and how it works. But, and looking back down, I think sometimes we look at our lives and say, oh, I struggled

with this so much, or I struggle with that, or I can't move forward from here. And really looking back down that, that mountain and saying every moment in time brought me to this place. So every struggle I had, if that didn't happen, I wouldn't have gone with the left turn and then the right turn. And that's how I got to the top of that mountain. Really appreciating all those moments where probably at first I wouldn't have talked about them or really taken a step back from it. Yeah. And you're right.

It's not something you can quit. Once you're in it, you're in it. I've had a few situations like that where you're just like, I guess this is the ride we're on. There's no turning back, which is probably the same as having six kids. What are some of the lessons of living with children from two countries and cultures provide you personally? What surprised you and stuff? Oh, there were a lot of surprises along the way. I think number one, I thought, okay, I have three kids. I can do this and I could do it. It's not that I couldn't, but there were lots of surprises.

Like Noah, who we adopted from South Korea, he had a lot of sensory issues and he cried 16 out of the 18 hours on our flight home from Seoul to Chicago. And if you want to talk about feeling like you're not capable of anything, if you can't quiet a baby for 16 hours and you're a mom of three,

that's like a big moment of reality. Wow. Wow. That's a heavy road. Did you adopt them? What were their ages when you adopted them? So Noah was four months old. So he's from South Korea.

Our son Ari was four and a half years old. And Millie was two and a half years old. And Ari and Millie are both from Ethiopia. And just seeing, again, one of the things I always like to make sure I say is that adoption is, our kids started at a place of loss, right? This isn't like the savior story. We're not a savior for our kids.

We really, we look at their lives and they had such hard moments before our family. And so we're not there to rebuild because we can't replace anything, but that we're there to build. We're there to build them to a place where they feel good and make sure they feel loved and confident. Do they often, do they have questions about their, their origin of country and, and, and their prior lives? And, and Patty, there's a balance there of who you are and where your country is and things of those natures. Do you, do you find that in your parenting? So a little bit, Ari, because he was four and a half years old, he has some memories.

The other thing is we're very open in our conversations. We, whatever questions they have, we always answer. We made them books of all the pictures that we have from when we went to Ethiopia, when we went to Korea. And the only, the only child that really has asked questions was Millie. And when she was younger, she said, why did, why did you pick me? And I said, it doesn't, it doesn't, it doesn't work that way. We went through an agency and they match you with a child. And she's, I know your answer is going to be no, but did you, did you meet my other mom? And I said, my answer is no, because your other mom had already passed away. So those are really hard conversations. And, but it's funny, Noah. So Noah is, he's now 14. He is on the autism spectrum. He's highly functioning. He also has ADHD and he, he is the sweetest, kindest kid.

He does not ask any of those questions. He's, he doesn't, it doesn't really. And hopefully later he will. I think it's really important that the kids understand and that hopefully we can go back and travel and see and meet and all of those kinds of things. Cause it's, it's part of who they are. Yeah. Yeah. I think we all go through those origin sort of journeys sometimes as we get older where we're like, who the hell am I? Where am I from? And what does it mean? And that search for meaning and things that go on.

One thing you say is change the way you see yourself and the world around you will change. I don't know if that's the same as what we talked about earlier when you talked about changing yourself. I think it is. I think it's a big, big piece of it because I think that, again, that we go through these things where we kind of are in our little place and thinking that, oh, we have to change. We have to change. Let's do these four steps.

And if we do these four steps, then we can be someone different. We can be that person on TV. And I think it's going back to really looking at who you are and, and then understanding that by these little things that you exactly the example that you gave of the quote that you put out, you changed the world, right? Like that two people let you know that you changed their world. And I think sometimes we forget that. I think we, we really don't give ourselves enough credit and we don't believe in ourselves enough to understand that the things that we do really do change the world around us. It doesn't have to be the entire world. It can be your corner of the

world, your neighborhood, whatever it is, your fam, but those decisions that you make, especially when you start believing in yourself, you really can affect change. That's so beautiful. I think more people need to have that sort of attitude and realization and concept in how they behave and how they operate. Fortunately, years ago when I was still, I think 2019 or something, I saw Bobby Kennedy's speech in South Africa called Ripples, commonly referred to as Ripples of Hope. And he talks about how each of us, may you live in extraordinary and interesting times. Each of us contributes to the future of our world. And we send forth waves and ripples of hope by each of our beings of daring. And I, of course, can't quote it from memory, but we make a change in the world.

We each influence those changes. And I think a lot of people need to realize that that's the difference they make. And whether or not you're conscious of it or not, you're either making contribution and sending ripples forth that build a better world, or you're being a horrible person and destroying it and very selfish. Yeah, I think that we don't always see it that way, right, though? We really don't see, oh, I talked to someone on the elevator today. That's a big thing for me. I get on an elevator and I say hi to people and it probably freaks them out because that's not the protocol. You start a conversation with somebody

and that might be their only conversation for the day. So those things are so important, even though we don't see them that way. And we should see them that way. It's like being patient, talking to the customer service person and not yelling at them. That's not, that's not going to help anything. And my, actually my husband created a term for it now because he watches me interact and he's, Oh my gosh, why, how do you have the patience? And, and so he'll call me and say, I pulled a Simone today and I love it because it like cracks me up and it's a positive thing. It's not a negative thing. It's a positive thing. And he's, I was on a call with somebody and I wanted to lose my temper. And then I was incredibly patient. And then we got in this, into this amazing

conversation. I learned all about their life and let me tell you about them. So I pulled a Simone today. I'm like, okay, I love it. There you go. I think I need to make that a hashtag, not a viral thing. I think that's brilliant. It's really interesting what you just described there. When we learn about each other, we break down those barriers of why we get angry or short with people or why we don't value them as much. And then when we learn about them, we value them more. Yeah. And everybody has a story. And that's like a big part of my book in that when you reach out and talk to somebody and sometimes they don't think they have a story. They're like, Oh, I don't have much to tell you. And they start

talking and they have this amazing family history, or they do this really cool job that they don't think is so cool. And all these kinds of things where you're like, wait, everybody, everybody, everybody has a story. I always, I always like talking to people in elevators and especially on planes yeah and part of it is i hate the whole uncomfortable nature of it and i probably saw i remember when i was young i saw steven oh boy it's gonna slip but he was the comedian back in the 70s and 80s and he used to do that really dry delivery and he'd be like i spent the day putting slinkies on the escalator macy's just stuff that you'd think like that's really i spent all last night trying to round off infinity stephen wright stephen wright that's the comedian and one of his things is is he turns to people he

he has some bit he does where he says my grandfather uh taught me in elevators you have to stand there and and not say anything to other people so when i go in an elevator i turn to people i go did your grandfather teach you to do and so it's a fun place to fuck with people especially it's just so weird because you're like we're gonna go stand really close to each other and we're not gonna make eye contact or talk to one another it's like it's the weirdest thing it It's I don't know how that even started. Cause you don't do that in any other part of your life. The airplanes are a little weird too, but I always, when I sit down, I'm like, Hey, how's it going? And if they're willing to start a conversation, we start a conversation. And I've had conversations that lasted the entire flight and moved on into the lounge because the conversation was that, was that amazing.

And then the things that I learned something from everyone I meet. And so that's why I think it's so important to have these conversations. And my kids, what I love is that it drives them crazy, right? Because they're like, oh, here mom goes again. She's gonna start a conversation with that person. I see it coming.

Yeah, usually the best way to do is break the ice right away. So when I sit down on a plane, I'm a fat guy. I hate being on a plane because whoever sits next to me is break the ice right away so when i sit down on a plane i'm a fat guy i i hate being on a plane because whoever sits next to me is just gonna be hell for them and they're just like ew i actually i actually had a gal one time she she actually has to be moved because she didn't want to sit you can tell she was really offended by some big fat guy in shorts and flip flops and and of course looking like me half homeless half the time and which is fine

because then i had a spare seat next to me i'm like this works really well in fact one of my tricks that i used to have is i would when you could get any seat you wanted i go all the way to the back of the plane get the last seat on the edge of the row and i'll and i will lean out and try and throw as much fatness of my body out across the thing and i'll leer really creepily down the row come on down i don't want to sit you know i haven't bathed in five days and it's amazing no i'll sit by me and i'm like fucking winning but but so a lot of times i feel bad for somebody's gonna sit by me because i've got big elbows i got big everything i'm banging them and so usually i sit down i introduce myself hi guys i'm chris voss chris voss show that gives me a way to plug the

show and also they're like why the fuck are you talking and if i find if you're just friendly with them from the get-go and then sometimes i'll tell some jokes if i could tell i've got one of those people who's fucking talking to me and so i'll tell some jokes and I'll banner with the lady. I'll buy drinks for the row. And then usually by the time we're done flying somewhere, I have like my row laughing and I'm doing jokes. I'm doing impressions of like people in the thing. And then I'm making fun of the people next to us.

And I got that row going. And sometimes I've had like four freaking rows going. I'm just doing stand-up or something in the in the thing but it's so much funner and you meet and you get interesting stories and you make people laugh and flight's a horrible fucking experience it's not fun you're like in a little box so i pull a simone on the plane when when flying becomes like a real thing again i'd like to find my way onto one of your flights just to experience the Chris Voss show on a flight. Fortunately, I'm built with some sort of psychosis or some mental damage from my childhood.

And so I have this bit where if you put me in a bad situation, something where there's some sort of struggle going on, that's just how I react. I go to jokes. And it's really hard sometimes because sometimes it's not appropriate like i'm not allowed to funerals anymore according to judge no i'm just kidding i don't do that you know i remember one time one time with my father my father called from the hospital and and he he'd had one of his strokes and he was really fucking scared because he hated hospitals he hated doctors like he'd tell doctors he hated them as they work on him i fucking hate you people you people are full of shit

and you're like he's like he's like that old man we like calm down yes be nice to the nice people they're trying to help you and he's and then he called me and he had fear in his voice and i think it was the first time i ever heard him that fucking scared. Like you could tell it was one of those bottom fears. And, and I was afraid for him too. And he called me and I was giving me, I think this is it speech. And I, and, and I didn't know how to deal with it. And so I just started telling him jokes. I'm like, well, that's great, dad. I go, Hey, what's that nurse look like? You got a hot nurse? She pretty hot? You've been hitting on her? What's going on with the nurses there? And it took me a little bit to turn him, but I finally got him turned. I got him laughing. I got him being funny.

I just started telling jokes. And by the end of the call, he was laughing, having a good time. I put his world in perspective. He didn't realize that, you know, the world was going to end. And he was loved and having fun. And sometimes that's all you need. Yeah. Change of mindset and stupid people to help you tell jokes. I think it's so important. And one of the things that I love to say is that I lead with humor and we have to be able to make fun of ourselves. That's an important thing because we do ridiculous stuff. And sometimes that's exactly what people need is that how do you

break the ice when someone is in such a down situation? How do you bring them back up? And for some people that humor works. So there you go. Have you ever seen those videos where people do weird things when people get on elevators? Like sometimes they're dressed up as all these videos that do that. But can you share one of the funny stories from your book that you have? I thought you were going to tell me an elevator story, but yes, of course. I was like waiting elevator. That was a, that was a trick bait. We're going, we're going, why? And then we're going again, left versus. Okay. So yeah, one of, um, I'll tell you my, I'll tell you a story about actually about my husband, because since you brought that up, he is a physician. So I guess that's an issue right there. But he, we were in Italy and he, there was a day that my best friend was getting married. And so there was a day where they were doing this winery, a wine tasting, this winery tour. And my husband was like, I'll take the kids, you know, you, and then we had three kids at the time. I'll take the kids. You go to the wine tasting.

I'm like, I like wine. Yes, I will go. And so he took the kids into the little village, San Gimignano. And as soon as they got there, our youngest daughter at the time had to go to the bathroom. So the way the bathroom there worked, he did not know this. It was electric, basically. You push a button. It opens. You walk in.

You go to the bathroom. You finish. You come back out. And after you come back out, the door closes and the wash cycle goes on. It washed down the whole bathroom and, and then it's ready for the next person. The woman, my daughter had to go to the bathroom really bad. The woman walks out of the bathroom. My daughter walks in the door closes on goes the wash cycle and they can't open it. You can't open it during the wash cycle. It's sealed. So he is screaming her head off and they're trying to open the door. Nothing, nothing. And finally the wash cycle is done. The door opens and there she is soaking wet from head to toe. And the best part of that about it is that she was able to use that for a college essay

because she's so traumatized from that moment in life. But even better for that day was that after that moment, they still walked around the town. She dried off and she was complaining that her feet hurt. And I'm sure my husband thought it had to do with the fact that she got all wet and they get back to the house after their great outing. And a friend looks at Olivia and says, Rob, she's had her shoes on the wrong feet the entire day. So this is my husband put the shoes on, on her feet on the, on the wrong feet. And this is parenting, right? Like sometimes you fail, you pick yourself back up, you move on. So she got washed by the toilet washer and had her shoes on the wrong feet the entire day. That's when you call CPS. No, I'm just, if I ever go to that city, man,

I'm going to, I'm going to be punking my friends. Go in there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Do that. Yeah. The time I got human flushed in a bathroom. Yes. She, again, it's, it's still one of those traumatic moments that she, again, using it to your benefit shit happens. And then you say, how do I make it into a, how do I turn it into a positive like okay i'll make it into a college essay that'll work someday this will be a ted talk exactly how not to get washed by a bathroom things you learn yes a human toilet the no that's that's that's pretty freaking amazing i i don't challenge it being a parent i i do a joke bit about how your job as a parent is to scar your child with some sort of psychological damage that they have something to spend the rest of their lives

in a psychologist's office with. Otherwise, they're just sitting there going, what does your mom do to you? And you're like, nothing really. She'll love me and hug me. And the psychologist is like, why are you here? And I don't everyone's everyone has problems and I just want to have some problems that's your job as a parent is to help them fulfill I'll add that to my list of things that I want to be yeah if I was a parent I'd have I'd be like how are we doing on our psychologist list uh what sort of damage do we have here let's see I haven't hugged them for a month so that's good I'm not telling them i love them i put them in cages no oh wait there's a reason i i i torture my nephew and niece whenever they they start complaining about their parents that's the fun i have i'm that uncle so they'll

complain about their parents they're like our parents are so mean to us they they they grounded us and i'll be like really and what did they do they sent us to our room they took away our xbox and and i'll be like do they put you back in the cages and they're like what i'm like yeah you're my house on the ground are you being the cages with the dogs oh my god you're a horrible parent and i'm so glad you're not our dad and i'm like there you go go back to your parents and tell them you love them because they're a lot better than the alternative and they're like wow i had no idea so uh i helped spin that back on them what is what are some other things we haven't touched on about the book and what you do that

we want to talk about there's a lot a lot in the book right talking you do that we want to talk about? There's a lot, a lot in the book, right? Talking about like the, for example, my daughter who is now she's 18 last year, she was diagnosed with Crohn's. And, and the reason I talk about it is because I think that people don't like to talk about stuff like that. Like she, she had a really hard time. Basically she had, she was diagnosed with Crohn's. She was home for a month and they started getting her on medication. She was on steroids for three months. She was miserable. And then, and then COVID happened and that was her senior year. So that was, that was, that was the rest of the year. And now she's away at college and she's, she's very happy. She's doing really well, but I think it's important

to talk about the, all those, all those pieces of our lives that, and they do connect us. We tell, I tell like funny, other funny stories. You want to hear one more story? Sure, let's do it. Okay. And this is not the funny part of the story. So don't think I'm a bad parent. Okay.

So I have to put that out there. So our kids were away at summer camp and I was actually in Israel and my husband calls me and he says, Noah was bit by a poisonous snake. I have to get on. I'm going to get on a flight. And I was like, can you tell me more? And he's, I can't tell you anymore right now. Call the camp. Okay. So again, not the funny part of the story, but he ended up having to be in the ICU for three, three days and multiple vials of anti-venom. He did fine. I wasn't able to get there because the flight situation. So fortunately my husband got there very quickly.

Anyways, I met them back in Florida and his arm was basically locked in place because of the swelling. And so I had to take him to physical therapy. And here comes the funny part. So we get in the van and we are backing up out of the driveway. And I look at him to make sure he's buckled because with one arm, it makes it a little bit more difficult. And I'm like, why is there popcorn all over the seat? And he's, I don't know. And I'm like,

I swear I cleaned the car before I left. It is a moving trash can. Again, it's a minivan. It's our moving trash can. There's shit everywhere. And yeah. And then I start pulling out of the driveway. And then I realize, I'm like, that's not popcorn. I was like, get out of the car. Get out of the car. And he's like, what? I'm like, get out of the car. So we get out of the car.

I look in there. It's the foam from inside of the seats. So a rat had gotten into our family of rats could have been 20 rats. I have no idea, got in through the engine block and basically had a feast on every seat in the car. And yes, rat shit everywhere, foam everywhere. It was so disgusting. I called my insurance company. There's a long story behind that. But anyways, what finally happened is the car, the minivan gets to the adjuster. He looks at it and he's like, I've done this for 20 something years.

I've never seen anything like this. Of course, this is a Canego story. And so he, he said, he's give me a couple of days. I got to figure out the cost of this. And he called me after two days and said, like I said, I've never seen anything like this, but we're going to have to total your car because a rat ate your seats. And I was like, oh, that sounds like a commercial. And I was like, I was like, well, I'm glad I added something to

your day. Something that never happened to you before a rat, a rat ate my seat. So therefore my, my car was totaled. And that's what happens when you have six kids that imagine that like the feast for the rat, all the crap in the nooks and crannies oh yeah they were going after all the stuff oh yeah yeah so that's like another story of my life and my friends will say only you simone i'm like really i don't know so i share it just in case it is only me and if it's not someone else should know that there's someone else out there that too had their car totaled because a rat ate their seats you guys should be on that commercial that they do is it nationwide or oh i can tell you what it is yeah yeah we are farmers and they have that museum of crazy car things that happen yeah you guys should be i just did it maybe they should give you some kind of fee right now because i just

did their commercial yeah we probably should you might want to read yeah you might want to reach out to them yeah there you go probably they they there you go. They should just give you a car. Yeah, there you go. They should put you on the show. I need to get six kids. My life is so boring. What I've learned here is boring. There is never a dull moment.

There is no such thing as boring in this house. As soon as you think things are calm, something happens. My son had surgery three weeks ago for a torn ACL and meniscus. I was like, the one basketball game I didn't go to. And he said to me, as soon as I saw that you weren't there, I knew something bad was going to happen. I was like, oh my gosh, put that on me. And not 15 minutes into the game, one of the moms calls me and I'm like, he's injured, isn't he? That was literally what came out of my mouth. He's injured. She's like, it's bad. I'm like, oh, so yeah, never a dull moment. But again, we try to keep things in a really positive light here. It works really well for us. Otherwise we would be out of our minds all of the time. That's a really good question.

How is it? What makes it so you can always take the positive spin? Is it just your outlook and some of the things you've talked about in the book and stuff that we talked about today? Is that what really keeps you grounded and makes you go, well, we can find a way to positively get through this? Yeah, I think so. I think for a long time, I didn't have that attitude. For a long time, I would do the bitching and moaning about everything.

And then I'm like, where is it getting me? It's getting me nowhere. And you know what? When I take the time to take a step back and say, let me look at this from a different light. Okay, yes, now he has to have surgery. So how am I going to help him with this recovery so he doesn't go down that road of being negative or what kind of cool things can we do while he's laid up in bed?

So that's really how we try to spin things all the time. And again, the pull the Simone kind of thing. But I used to be, I used to definitely not look at it that way. And I still have moments where, you know, I, I, I need my own reminders. I was telling this story the other day where I was waiting in the Starbucks drive-thru and I was waiting in such a way that I was trying to give everybody their space. So if a car needed to pull out, whatever, and of course what happens, someone cuts in front of me and goes into the drive-thru.

And I was like, God, like I started losing my temper and my daughter who's 13 was with me. And she's, I'm not sure why this is such a big deal, but I think you need to reread your own book. And I was like, okay, take a step back. You're right. This is dumb. Why am I upset about this? Like here, I think I'm doing the right thing. And, and then of course we get up to, we get up to the window to pay and the person who had cut us, cut us off, paid for our drinks. And so then my daughter said, since they paid for ours, can we pay for the people behind us? And I said, absolutely. And she's like, how long do you think it will last for? I'm like, I have no idea, but just the idea is great. So, um, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's why welcome to the family that again, like we are hello focus, but yeah, I think it's really,

it's really, it is a good reminder. Like we, there's never going to be a time in my life where I don't have moments, the things that ground me. Okay. Those kids who say to me, you know, what would you tell me? What would Simone do? You know, that that's another one that they like to say, what would Simone do? I'm like, I guess not this. Cause that didn't work out so well. And what you talk about in your book and what we described here today is, is the perspective because anything that happens to you in life, you can, you can take at least two roads of perspective. You can go very dark and depressed and ugly or mean or angry,

or you can look at it and go, how can I learn from this? How can this be a moment to take and improve things? And I think it's important we have that. I guess I need to get a kid to follow me around and call me out on my stuff. Remind you? Yeah. Like you said that one, you had Simone on the show. Why aren't you pulling a simone

stupid dad i need to get i've been trying to write a book for 10 years i think i need to like get like some kids adopted i thought about adopting some kids when i got into gaming and of course we have the whole gaming side of the chris voss show and review products and stuff so we have a discord and all sorts of gaming crap but i'm old man i'm slow with fingers and eyes and trying to hit the buttons and little kids are running around me killing me and marating better than me i think you're stupid they got those fast fingers and the and you're building up their self-esteem come on yeah that's that's what i'm doing there you go i should have had that that in the tank my brother had had a 12-year-old son who could do all that stuff.

And he could do all the raids and all the stuff that I struggle with. And I'm like, I would have had a kid if I would have known I couldn't have gotten him to. Hey, go get dad that gun thing, the exotic gun quest. Go do that for dad so that you want some food, you're going to have to do the exotic gun quest and beat the raid for dad today. Because dad's just not keeping up with the 12 year olds with the flipping crazy flipping fingers so yeah i might i might still adopt some kids but i don't know i can't do the diapers thing i'd have to find a good trajectory for them but then i also want i don't want kids that they're going to start dating and wanting cars and crashing cars and stuff so i don't know i have to find like that's a really big problem then yeah because basically a kid

crashes a car that's what happens at a certain age and then a certain age i can get rid of them like i can adopt them at 10 they can play my video games and then like at 13 i can be like you're a teenager sorry you got to go no no but what you if you want to just skip the child phase and go to the parent phase and go to the grandparent phase, that actually that's that's that's a suggestion for you is become someone's grandparents. And therefore, then you can keep them for a few hours and then send them home. You can make them play video games for hours and hours, fill them full of sugar and then send them home to the parents. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah yeah yeah every loud noisy thing you can think of see i like being a niece i like having a niece and nephew because i can do that with them and then i'm like yeah yeah go whatever your thing is go go but get it out of my house because i'm your uncle and uh you can't stay here but yeah they're they're

they're good kids and i'm i like having the. So I guess that's the grandparent experience. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can spoil them and then piss off. I don't know if it's your brother or sister or whatever. And you can make them really upset by sending them home with all this cool stuff that they said, no, they couldn't have. And you're the cool uncle. They hate me because I'm the cool uncle and I have all the cool stuff.

And they're like, Chris has a whole fun house of all of his toys. This has been fun to spend some time with you, Simone. I think every time I do something good now, I'm going to be saying, I pulled a Simone or I did a Simone. What an honor. What an honor. I think you need to make this like a hashtag campaign.

You need to turn it into like a thing for you, man. Like I pulled a Simone. I think you really do. Maybe that could be your second book, Pulling a Simone. Pulling a Simone. Actually, that really do. I can, maybe that could be your second book. Pulling a Simone. Pulling a Simone. Actually, that's interesting. Thanks for that.

Yeah. I seriously think I would, I would hashtag that and make this thing. And people are like, what is that? I have a friend, he wrote a book called Don't Be a Dick. I think it is. Or Be a Dick. Anyway, the book is about how he met a guy whose name is Dick. And the guy changed his life.

He was in a real bottom. And this guy had a name is dick and the guy changed his life he was in a real bottom and in this guy had a lot of different ways that he changed his life just with his outlook and his perspective and stuff and so he basically wrote this book and it's the the the word dick is like basically referring to the dude and and how to follow what he does but the play on it's really funny so yeah people would be like what does does that mean? And give us your plugs as we go out and tell people how they can order the book and get to know you better. Yeah. So again, the book is called The Extraordinary Unordinary You. My name is Simone Canego. You can find me at my website. Again, the only Simone Canego in the world. So Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and you can find my book on Amazon,

really any online book site, you can, you can find it. And I'd love to hear what you think. So if you read it, shoot me an email, send me a review. Again, my goal is to impact that one person. And if that's you, I want to hear about it. There you go. Awesome sauce. Any more mountain climbing and thank you for being on the show with us today, Simone. I really, I really enjoyed it. You know what? Again, I'm going to do the never say never, whatever, whatever comes my way. I love challenges. So when something jumps in front of me, I'll be willing to say yes. If someone out there is listening and has a challenge for me, let me know. Somebody put her on Everest for hell's sakes. Let's go. Oh God, that's a lot of work. I got to really get myself in shape.

That's a lot of work. I'm like in COVID shape right now, so I've really got to build it back up. It'll take me a bit. Yeah, you and me. I really need to work out after this. Anyway, thank you for being on the show, Simone. It was wonderful to spend time with you and learn a lot from you today and get inspiration because we all need that these days.

Thank you so much. I really enjoyed being here. Thank you. And thanks, Simone audience for being here. We certainly appreciate you guys tuning in. Be sure to check out Simone's The Extraordinary Unordinary You. Follow your own path. Discover your own journey.

You can order that up on Amazon or other places as well. Give a review. Reach out to her. Get to know her better. I think your life will be better for it. Go to youtube.com the fortune is chris voss to see the video version of this and share with all your friends neighbors relatives go to uh goodreads.com fortune is chris voss of course you can find us on multiple

accounts on instagram uh twitter uh facebook uh linkedin you name it also on the new clubhouse app so all the good stuff and i believe you're over there too aren't you simone yes i am i love you i love clubhouse i've learned a lot from it so it's been great it's an interesting place especially where we're all in quarantine so you're just it's like the audio zoom yeah yeah i don't have to i don't have to do anything i can sit there in my pjs it's fantastic i know i i love it i've fallen asleep listening to it i'll be like laying braids on my pillow and i'm like and then sometimes i'm like i i hope it i've fallen asleep listening to it i'll be like laying brains on my pillow and i'm like and then sometimes i'm like i i hope no one heard me snoring as long as you're not a speaker at the moment you're okay that's the other good thing so you know they sometimes they mod me and

they'll come to me and you'll hear them go chris hey chris man you're up what the hell's going on you're like uh napping napping yeah there you go i always tell them i'm in a meeting or something yeah that works too thanks for tuning in stay safe wear your mask and we'll see you guys next time you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you