Sarasota best-selling author, speaker overcame teenage trauma

What Simone Knego called her first serious boyfriend, when she was 15 years old, turned out to be a horrific, three-year mentally and physically abusive relationship. 

It happened when she was in high school in the Gainesville area. She dated him through her first year of college. The abuse was a pattern and pathological. He would tell her she should eat more salads. Or lose weight. Or put more makeup on. One time he punched her so hard in the face, he gave her a black eye. Another time, drunk, he tried to choke her. 

Knego eventually escaped the relationship. She began to rebuild her life.

Now, some 35 years later, the remarkably resilient Knego, 53, based out of Sarasota, has found her life’s work in helping others, especially women, find the confidence and self-respect to lead healthy and productive lives, at work and beyond. 

Kengo's ife and work accomplishments cover a wide range. In non-chronological order, the list includes:

• Earned a bachelor’s and master’s degree in accounting from the University of Florida
• Flipped houses
• Worked as a CPA
• Worked as an elementary school teacher
• Taught horseback riding
• Started a summer camp
• Started a medical sales business
• Along with her husband, Sarasota neurosurgeon Dr. Robert Knego, raised six children — three biological, three adopted — and three dogs
• Climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro, in 2015 
• Served six years, including one as co-chair, of the National Young Leadership Cabinet for the Jewish Federations of America
• Wrote two books
• Started, with her daughter Olivia, a podcast called “Her Unshakeable Confidence.”
• Gave two TedX talks
• Became a sought-after speaker for business and nonprofit leaders, women’s associations and professional development groups. 

Knego is in the spotlight now with her new book, “REAL Confidence: A Simple Guide to Go from Unsure to Unshakeable.” REAL is an acronym for respect yourself; embrace failure; ask what you want; and live without limits. The book debuted Feb. 17, and its first week was No. 35 on the USA Today Bestseller list.

Photo by Tracy Croushorn

Kengo has also built a solid network in Sarasota with her brand of straight-talk leadership. She held a book launch event Feb. 18 at The Ora in Sarasota, where some 200 people heard her talk about the book and how she developed her REAL Method. Proceeds from the event went to the Women’s Resource Center of Sarasota.

Jaime Marco, a keynote speaker and author based in Lakewood Ranch and close friend of Knego, says the REAL Confidence book and Knego’s approach resonates because it doesn’t talk down to readers. “She uses language everyone can relate to,” Marco says. “She allows you to be you and be comfortable in your own skin.” 

Dump the doubts

The book details the abusive relationship Knego had as a teenager — how she got in it, and got out of it. It also goes into what Knego calls Kitchen Table Leadership. According to a book promotion, that’s “the invisible leadership people practice every day at work and at home without recognition or authority. When responsibility grows without validation, confidence quietly erodes. This book helps readers recognize that invisible load and rebuild self-trust from the inside out.”

One of my favorite chapters of the book is 11, “Turn Down the Volume on Your Daily Doubts,” which I think is relevant to any leader, at any stage of their careers or lives, who is looking to be disruptive, to go against the status quo. In this chapter, Knego writes about the doubters around her when she and her husband were adopting children, one from South Korea and two from Ethiopia. Those children are now 21 and 18. Earlier in the book, people doubted her resolve to get to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro.

Each time Knego turned down the noise. “When you’re going after something big,” she writes, “not everyone will support you. But you can’t let their doubts become your truth. You have to know where your confidence comes from so that every yes is rooted in your own wants, desires and authenticity. You have to be able to separate your own thoughts from the noise of other people’s opinions. And above all you have to believe you are capable of growing into whatever your yes requires of you.”

Where there's a will 

Knego breaks down the REAL pillars throughout the book. The themes include: 

Respect yourself: She spells it with the emphasis on you. “Respecting yourself means valuing and appreciating yourself as you are. It involves acknowledging your worth, embracing your strengths and imperfections, and treating yourself with kindness and dignity,” she writes, in part. “It’s seeing yourself with the same respect and care that you would offer to your best friend. … The words you say to yourself and about yourself shape your self-trust.”

Embrace your failures: Many business leaders talk about the power of failing, failing fast and learning from it. Knego’s take is to look at a time you tried and came up short, and maybe “you felt embarrassed, disappointed or frustrated. But what did you learn? What did it teach you about perseverance, courage and grit?”

“Embracing failure is trusting that growth lives in the mess….It’s naming your strengths even when they feel hard to see…Failure doesn’t get the final word. You do.”

Photo by Tracy Croushorn

Ask what you want: This pillar is Knego’s version of getting comfortable with being uncomfortable. “It’s easy to stay on autopilot,” she writes. “It’s easy to do what’s familiar. But life is too short to not chase the things that light you up…and whatever you do, don’t let anyone tell you that your dreams are too big.” 

Live without limits: Another way of saying this pillar is go big or go home, or even more pointedly, Knego says this pillar is finding your Mt. Kilimanjoro. “Living without limits means remembering who you are when the world tells you to play small….It’s about facing your daily doubts — and choosing confidence anyway. It’s refusing to settle for ‘good enough when you know you’re made for more.

“It’s flipping,” Knego writes, “the ‘I can’t’ into ‘I will.’”