The Extraordinary UnOrdinary You

[00:00:00] you kind of start thinking to yourself, well, why don’t I try some of this?

Why not? Why not? And that’s kind of how I approached it. And the more that I tried, the more I’m like, okay, I feel better about myself. I feel like I’m a better parent, I’m a better wife. All of those things felt better because I was making these small changes in how I did my daily routine, but I am a big believer in that we don’t need to change who we are.

We need to change the way we see ourselves

Welcome to onward. Live a live stream, focused on encouraging you to create a life you love living. Now let’s go beyond success to significance in clear on our, why is crucial. It requires doing the inner work, finding ourselves, getting to know ourselves, embracing our inner child, shedding social conditioning, and letting go of perfect.

We [00:01:00] know obstacles make us stronger. We can dream big and take action. Believe you can. And you’re halfway there. I invite you to tune in every week and engage with me and my inspiring guests. Invite your friends. Let’s make time for what matters most in our lives. Let’s move onward together.

. Today, I am interviewing Simone and she’s climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. She had six children. There’s so many different things that we’re going to be able to talk about tonight.

I really want to ask her, why would anyone want to climb such a tall mountain? It seems really challenging, so I’m just excited to bring her on and to hear the answers to your questions and what it’s been like to raise six children. I think she said three of them were adopted from different countries like Ethiopia on South Korea, and I’ve always loved learning from my guests.

So [00:02:00] let’s bring in Simone. I’m going to change this graphic here and Simone. Welcome. I’m going to switch us. There we go. Maybe I want to be Emily today. Thanks so much for having me here. Oh, I’m excited to have you. I love the title that you selected for this episode, the extraordinary unordinary you and you’ve even written a book about that.

So can you share a little bit about your life and how you came to writing this book? I’ll start out with that. I wasn’t a writer. I actually went to school for accounting. I have a bachelor’s and master’s in accounting. I’m a CPA by education. And for many years, I didn’t, I didn’t love what I did. I didn’t find my purpose.

I didn’t feel passionate about. Yeah, my, my work, my life. And that was a big part of all of the things I’ve done in my life is trying to figure out my purpose. And I’m a big fan of it’s okay. To change your [00:03:00] mind that, you know, we sometimes, especially for our kids, we look at like how young you have to be and you, you decide that like by 18, okay, this is what I’m going to do for the rest of my life.

Right. I know that’s really challenging on anybody. And I was at an event the other day where we were all in a line and she was calling, she was asking people to step forward, if a statement resonated with them. And one of the statements. I am in a career that has nothing to do with my bachelor’s degree.

And everyone’s definitely well, pretty amazing. And you know, it just, when I look at my kids, I say the same thing, like, yeah, trust me, I want you to go through the process, but I also want you to realize that it’s not forever. Like, you need to figure out what you love, figure out the life that you want to lead, figure out the life that you love.

Because I think it’s so important that we all, you know, there’s there’s barriers, right? There’s things that we feel like we have to do every day to kind of pay the bills and everything, but figuring out what you really love doing [00:04:00] and what you’re passionate about, I think is so powerful. Yeah, but you went and got a bachelor’s and a master’s or your CPA in accounting right before you realized, or, or was it before you admitted to yourself?

Well, I’ll start with that. I was planning on going to medical school. I, both, my parents are physicians and my sister is a physician and I took organic chemistry and I failed it and took it again. And I got a D and I was like, okay, maybe medical school is not for me. And that’s kind of when I went into accounting, because my dad’s like, you’re really good at math.

Why not? Accounting? Okay, sure. I did accounting and accounting is a great job for all you accountants out there. It is a great job. It just wasn’t for me. And again, I’ve tried many things over my life, so it wasn’t just accounting. I, I went back to school to be a teacher that I truly loved. The problem is I have six children, so.

To pay the babysitter to watch the six children back then was more than [00:05:00] what I was making. And my husband’s like, can we rethink the career? Okay. So then I went into medical sales, which again, I really loved, I loved going and because I love talking to people learning about their lives. Yeah. And then I did, I flipped houses.

And, but when I, when I, what I finally realized is what I love is storytelling. And that’s kind of what pushed me to public speaking and to writing a book. And that’s where I am now. And I truly love what. How’d you find out that that’s what you loved volunteer work. I had no idea. My husband’s like, I can’t think of anything worse, not volunteer work, but public speaking, because for him standing on a stage is completely overwhelming.

And for me, I started doing it through volunteer work and I was like, wait, I have a story. People want to hear, people want to listen and I’m impacting their lives. I had no idea. I think so many of us go through our lives with this self doubt. I would say majority of us that we don’t realize what we’re capable of.

We don’t, we [00:06:00] also don’t realize what we want because we’re not willing to take a risk because we’re so afraid of failing. And that was kind of like the big factor for me. So the first few times I got on stage, I was like, do they really want to hear what I have to say? And then when people would come up to me and say, wow, you have the most amazing stories.

And I’m looking around. Are you talking to me? And I just didn’t realize I didn’t. I, I think I was so down on myself that I didn’t know that my stories can impact other people’s lives and everybody has a story. So everybody’s story can impact other people’s lives. Yeah. I wish we didn’t let our minds hold us back.

I mean, even the, you know, I’ve been doing this podcast, I’m almost at 200 episodes for about three years and sometimes I make a post and you know, there’s not as many likes. And so I wonder, well, is what I’m doing, even worth it. And then I get a message from like somebody that I didn’t even know, watch the show.

Emily. I listened to this guest and I want to have her speak to my [00:07:00] group. And I listened to this guest or this your story really touched me. So you just never know who you can touch by telling your story. It’s about that one person it’s about changing one. Person’s mind. It’s about impacting one person in a way that they feel good about themselves and they’re willing to try something different or, you know, move out of something that they don’t love it to me.

That’s that truly is what it’s all about. And, you know, I read something the other day when, where, because again, we’re all, we always so focused on social media, which it’s, that it’s a very hard relationship, right? Like you feel that because of the work that we’re in, we have to be on social media, but it’s the negative part to have that, you know, really do.

I want everything like I’m, I’m putting too much value into it. And, but I saw someone post the other day. It doesn’t matter how much, how many likes you’re getting on something. People are still seeing it. And. [00:08:00] I had someone say the other day, oh, I read everything you post and I’m thinking, but you never mark anything.

Yeah. So, I mean, that’s, that’s the thing. And I realized for me to every comment that I read on something, I don’t necessarily like it or respond to it, but I do read it. So it was kind of a learning lesson for me, is that stops, stop focusing on the like, stop focusing on that stuff. Just put your message out there.

And if it impacts that one person it’s worth doing right, right. Well, I can see it, you know, we’ve had four or five, six, you know, some people watching, but no one’s commented in the chat. It doesn’t mean that they’re not learning something or that they don’t have a question or whatever. I mean, you know, you just can’t worry about that.

So I absolutely, I completely agree with you. So what kind of stories do you like to do. I like to tell real life stories, because I like to tell like, things that have happened to me or my family, something I’ve seen. Because again, I think that [00:09:00] when it’s real, when it’s authentic, people can relate to it.

They’re like, oh, wait, something similar happened to me. I didn’t want to talk about it, but wow, she’s talking about it. Maybe I should talk about it. And again, that’s something that’s really important to me. So what’s your favorite story to tell? So I have a ridiculous story about, and it actually is in my book.

We, I was, I was out of the country and while I was out of the country, and this is not the funny part of the story, this is the scary part of the story. My son was away at summer camp and he got bit by a poisonous snake and my husband calls me and he says, I don’t know much. I’m getting on a plane to fly to the camp.

And I’ll message you when I, once I get there and call the camp to find out more information and. That was probably the worst phone call of my life. And so I call the camp and the campus like, well, we don’t think it was a poisonous sake. We’re just taking every precaution. So we have him in a in an ambulance and then 15 [00:10:00] minutes later, the woman calls me back and says, well, we’ve now put him in air flight and he’s in a helicopter on the way to Emory children’s.

And I was like, okay, this is not the first conversation. Like, I’m like, oh, I’m out of my mind. He did fine. Yes. He was bit by a poisonous snake. He had to have multiple vials of antivenom and he spent three days in the ICU. My husband was there. He did great. I could not get home from where I was. There were no flights that I could get on.

And so when we got home, he was fine. But when we got home, I had to take him to therapy because his arm was locked into place from the swelling. So we get into the minivan to go to therapy and I look back at her. And I’m like, are you buckled? He’s like, it’s hard. I have one arm. I’m like, okay, get buckled.

And as I’m looking at him, I was like, why is there popcorn all over the car? Like, I know it’s the moving trash can with six kids. Like, you never know what you’re going to find in there. And I looked [00:11:00] back again and I’m like, that is not popcorn. I was like, no, get out of the car, get out of the car. And he’s like, what?

I’m like getting out of the car. And so we both get out and I’m looking in there. No, it is not popcorn. It is the foam from the inside of the seats. A rat or 16 or 25 had met. It’s made its way in through. And I hadn’t driven the car in two weeks cause I was out of the country through the engine block and had a feast.

Right. Because it’s the moving trashcan and there’s crumbs in every nook and cranny. So literally. I think the rat shoot on basically every seat in the car, it was the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen. I call the insurance company and they’re like, well, the engine works, right. You can drive it in. And I was like, that would be a no, because if the rent jumps on my head, I freaking have an accident and it’s going to be your fault.

So they, they towed it and guess what happened? They had to total the car because the seat damage was so bad that it was, it was better for them to total the car than to actually fix the seats. So I like telling that story [00:12:00] because a lot of my friends are like, oh, you shouldn’t tell anybody that that’s kind of embarrassing.

I was like, no, it’s real life, like similar or whatever. That’s yeah, we have, we have real life. Right? Like, you know, my, my car is not a clean, clean thing on these days. It’s a little bit better. Cause I’m a 50% empty-nester but back then it was. It was not the prettiest site. And that day it was a really ugly site.

And then it was a really pretty site. And then I got a new car after that. So I was okay with that, but you know what things happen every day, you know? And that was kind of a little bit traumatic and, but it happened and I’m okay talking about it because people are like, oh, wait, my car is messy as well.

And I haven’t had the rats, but, but I have had people say to me, I’ve had rat issues as well. I’m like, okay, here we go. It might make someone clean up their cars. It might then be like, oh my gosh, I never want that to happen to me. So, yeah. So you said when you, and what you [00:13:00] submitted that you’ve climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and I want to know, like, what was that like, how did you train, how high is it?

You know, all of it. Yeah. It so. Yeah, seven years ago right now. So I got in really good shape for it. Right now. I’m in COVID shape. I’ll be the first to say, okay, I got to get back in the gym. Yes, I’m in COVID shape. So it was a friend of ours had climbed it the year before and he actually reached out to my husband and said, do you, you know, are you interested in climbing?

They’re putting a team together again. We climbed it with the live strong foundation and he basically, the way I tell the story is one, two, three, no, thank you. Call Simone. And they did, they called me and I said, you know what? I think I want to do this. And there were kind of there were many reasons that I decided to do it, but the biggest thing was, I think for so long, I doubted myself and this was a moment where I said, you know what?

[00:14:00] I am going to put in the work. I’m setting the goal. I’m putting in the work and. I really want to make this an accomplishment. And even if I didn’t make it to the top of the fact that I tried, I was, I was okay with that. So I worked out really hard. I was in the gym every day. I wore this ridiculous mask, which nowadays would be very stylish.

It was an elevation training mask. It had a gorilla face on it, and it had these valves that you could adjust. So the height, it made you, it increased lung capacity. So it doesn’t affect the oxygen level, but you had to breathe really hard to pull the air in. And it worked really well by the end of my training, I could hold my breath for over a minute underwater, which was never able to do that.

Yeah. So that really worked. And it was truly an amazing experience. I went with. There were 16 of us. I didn’t know anybody. And I had six kids at the time, so [00:15:00] no, I had all six kids and they were my. You know, my biggest cheering squad for it. And, you know, I did it. I, I went, so I was paired up with a, a woman from that is she’s a breast cancer survivor.

She’s truly amazing. And we were tent mates. So we, the first night we were in a hotel getting ready to go. And then we were in a tent together for the rest of the time. And it was hard, right. It was one of the hardest things that I’ve ever done. But there wasn’t a moment where I said, I can’t do this.

There was moments that I said, this is really hard. Because I, I really think it’s important that how we talk to ourselves, how we talk about ourselves, our words really matter. And. Saying I can’t do this is, was not going to be part of my vocabulary. And five days up, two days out, we all our entire team made it to the summit and yes, it was hard to [00:16:00] breathe at the top.

And I was still acting like a mom at the top. When I saw people with blue lips, I’m like, I think we need to start going back down. But you know, our entire team made it and it was such an emotional experience because, you know, climbing with the live strong foundation, we had several people who were still are cancer survivors or climbing in honor of friends and family that either had passed or were fighting.

They, you know, and. It just made it that much more of an emotional experience and truly life-changing for me, because when I got to that summit, I, I, I said to myself that I’m not going to limit myself anymore. And that was a big transformation for me seven years ago. I mean, I’m turning 50 next week. So seven years ago, really, I really changed my mindset because I said that you set the goal, you put in the work and you believe in yourself.

And that’s what I did. Yeah. I was going to ask what you learned about yourself. That was perfect. How high [00:17:00] up is it? A 19,371 feet. I live, I live at sea level that you’re in Florida. Oh yeah. Yeah. So I was like I didn’t know how to use the sleeping bag on the first night and I’m not kidding. I was like, oh, a mommy bag.

I don’t know how to use this. And I was freezing the first night in my tent mate, as well. We had, this was our first experience doing something like this. Yes, I’ve gone camping, but you know, camping in Florida is a bit different and it was it was, it was pretty humorous. And the next morning, what did we do?

We asked for help. And that was another moment for me of that. It’s okay to ask for help. Like, we’re all human, that there is no shame in that. This is, this is how we learn. And, and guess what, the next night I, I was nice and warm and, you know, doing that, taught your kids to follow your dreams, go for what you, you can achieve, what you put your mind to.

It taught them so many things to. Completely. And again, my, so I [00:18:00] actually have a keynote speech where I talk about the Kilimanjaro piece and my I’m taking it as a compliment for my daughter. Who’s 19, but she’s like, it’s really relatable because you’re not the super athlete was like, thank you so much.

I think that’s a compliment. I’m going to take it like that. Yeah. It is a compliment. Yeah. Good for her. Kenny loved the story about your tasty car.

I think it was very tasty again at the total at, for it stays and anger says there’s nothing perfect about life Simone. Thanks for sharing that story with a few little, a little nicer rats or whatever they are. And then she also said, yes, we have to be careful what we say to ourselves. We sure do. I mean, words have energy, right?

Yeah. It’s you know, when another story about how important our words are is when I, my daughter who’s 19, she was, she was a pre-teen at the time I was getting ready for an [00:19:00] event. So that was, this was pre Kilimanjaro and I was getting ready for an event and unhappy about myself, not fitting in my clothes, really frustrated with myself and yeah.

Muttering under my breath. Like, can’t believe you did this again. And how did you gain weight? Like, you know, going, going off on myself and my daughter walks up to me and she said, first of all, you’re beautiful. Second of all, you need to stop. You are giving me a complex, how can you expect me to love myself when I love my body?

When you don’t even like your own? And I was like, Ooh. Hmm. That was a moment where I was like, okay, I need to rethink how I’m doing things. Like, yeah. Why, why am I being so hard on myself? Like, this is who I am. I need to own who I am great. Like, and so that was that was another moment in time that we didn’t have a body.

We wouldn’t be here. So, and everybody has a different body. Like we can’t compare ourselves to others, [00:20:00] like looking at someone else and say, I wish I had that body. No, that person doesn’t even know you’re comparing yourselves to them. You know? Like, yeah. So I have gotten over that and trust me, I want to be you know, fit right now.

I’m COVID fit. Right. So I got to work on that, but I’m not looking at anybody else saying I wish I wish I could look like them or I wish I want to be like them. No, I me, I’m unique. So are all of you. Shannon asks, can anyone join the foundation to take that trip? Or, you know, are there other ways that you can go take a trip?

I’ll go with you, Shannon. Yeah. Well, so I don’t think live strong is doing it well, I know they haven’t been doing it for a while now, especially with COVID. I don’t know if they’re going to be doing it anymore, but there are plenty of ways that you there’s plenty of organizations that, that you can climb Kilimanjaro with.

And there’s plenty of organizations for me. Like when you give me a cause and a challenge together that to me, it’s like, okay, that’s even more motivating. If I just say I’m [00:21:00] going to go run a race, I’m kind of like, so I want to sleep in today, but if I’m doing it for something else, if I’m raising money for me, that’s so much more impactful.

So if you research online, you can definitely find organizations that you can raise money for while, while doing an adventure, like. That’d be a great trip for you, Shannon. He said, okay. So this is in writing. Shannon is going to hike Mount Kilimanjaro with me. All right. Got it. Shannon. That would be amazing.

I can’t wait to see the photos. Yeah. So you’ve also got like six children and I think you’ve got a picture of them behind us. So tell us about that. You adopted Allah, was it two from Ethiopia? One from Korea. Yeah, our our son who just turned 18 yesterday is from Ethiopia or daughter. That’s 14 is from Ethiopia and our son who is 15 is from South Korea.

And it was [00:22:00] when I was pregnant for the first time. So I got married at 21 and I had our first child at 24. And I was like, okay I think I want one and he was a really good baby. But then my husband was funny and then once we had him, I was like, wait, no, I think I want more of my husband’s like, maybe I’m good with one.

He wanted six from the beginning. Maybe I’m good with one. It’s like, no let’s so yeah, we had three kids and we felt, we always felt like there was something missing. And so we had lived in Texas. We had moved back to Florida because that’s where we were. Kind of from, I mean, I’m not originally from Florida.

I have one child that’s now, originally from Florida, which, you know, most people are not, not from Florida, but we, we said, should we do it? Should we, should we jump in? And we did. We said that there are so many amazing kids in the world just waiting for a family to love them. And we want it to be that family.

So. [00:23:00] We adopted Noah. So he was our first adoption. Our age order is out of order because he was a baby when he came home. And so he is, he was four months old. He’s now 15. And then our next adoption was Ari, who is from Ethiopia and he was four and a half years old. So he kind of jumped ahead in terms of the, you know, the line in ages.

And then when we were in Ethiopia, it was such an amazing experience and meeting the children in the orphanage and just seeing how much love they had to give and how much love they needed that literally the day we left the orphanage, we said, we’re going to come back again. And you know, so, so there we are.

So the next year we went back and we adopted our daughter Millie and. Six kids, 50% F empty nester. You know, three of one, one is off the payroll. He’s got it. He’s got a job. He’s doing amazing. You know, and he’s, he’s 25 [00:24:00] and then the next two are in college and then three fell at home. Wow. That’s amazing.

That’s amazing. And you were talking, we were talking before, first off, I want to say Shannon says he’s in. Okay. We got this in writing too. He’s in there. Yeah. Yeah. So you were before this show, I was talking about how, when you first signed up to be on my show, the theme was like facing adversity, moving forward and discovering ourselves along the way, in a sense, switched it to create a life you love living now.

And we were talking about like, how I think when you went overseas, I don’t know if it was to Ethiopia or whatever. You’re thinking, let me bring some stuff and let me help them out. And then you realized. I realized how happy people were. You know, I think we have these ideas in our mind of what happiness means and money is not happiness.

Happiness is being in the moment, enjoying the life that you you have. And, you know, we were in Ghana and [00:25:00] we, we had gone on a medical mission and my husband’s a physician and we collected all of these school supplies and soccer balls, which was amazing. I think we had 12 duffle bags of stuff that my son had collected at his school.

So that, that in itself was truly amazing. But what we realized when we got there is that the kids were the adults too. They were happy. This is the life that they know. And we were, we went to this field where the kids were playing soccer and they were playing with trash bags that were bunched up into a ball and guess what?

They were happy. And it was a moment in time where I said to myself, you don’t need to fix this. This is not something that like. Just enjoy the moment because they are like, don’t take away the bag of balls, the, you know, and, and then give them something that they don’t need, you know, they’re, they love their life.

And who am I to [00:26:00] say, oh, well, you should be doing it this way. That’s not life. Like we need to, we need to enjoy the life that we have and not try to change it because we think it should be something different. We should change it because it’s what we want. I love that. And so many times we look at outside circumstances to make us happy when we can really be joyful inside.

I know I’ve done that in the past. And I told you before we went live that yesterday, I interviewed Alex from Ukraine and we it’s like, why would you be interviewing someone from Ukraine about living a life, you know, creating a life you love living. I mean, we were talking a lot about what was going on in Ukraine.

However, what was really touching. To me is when he, there was a video that he posted on his Twitter of him with his wife and they were singing happy birthday on March 10th to their one month old son. And I just saw joy in his expression and his face. He was smiling. He so happy to have [00:27:00] this baby Arthur.

And that really hit home to me. Like we don’t, we don’t have to go on vacation or leave, you know, this place where that place or buy this new purse or buy this thing to be happy. It’s really within you already, if you can find it, you can. Yeah. And I think we have to find it within us in order to see the world in the way that it is.

Right. Like, I think that are looking at ourselves and believing in ourselves and being happy in our lives, finding joy in our lives. You have to do that first. You have to, before you can, you know, have a, before you can love other people, you have to love yourself. So same kind of thing. You have to find joy within yourself.

So you can see the joy within other people. And that was something I think I was, I was missing for a bit. Was I D I didn’t see that I had joy within myself. So I thought looked at other people saying, well, how can they be happy? Like this? That’s not how it works. Yeah. Yeah. I love that story. Why did you entirely your book, [00:28:00] the extraordinary unordinary you, and, and there’s more to it.

And can you also tell us, this is how you order the book follow your own path, discover your own journey. He tells us a little bit about why you at that book and, and some of the diff what it’s about. Yeah. I, you know, talking about how. It’s okay. To change your mind and really figuring out your purpose, figuring out your passion.

And you know, it took me a while to get there. So I found it through volunteer work and it was through volunteer work that I got to start sharing some of my stories. And I really realized what I was passionate about was storytelling. If I could change one person’s mind, then, then I. Feeling really good about my life.

And so really the, the title is about realizing that we always say, I’m just, I used to say, I’m just, I’m just an ordinary girl. I’m just Rob’s wife. [00:29:00] I’m just a stay at home. Mom. I’m just a substitute teacher, whatever the justice justifying, what I was doing with my life. And it took me, it took me a long time to realize, wait, we are all unique.

There is, that’s what makes the, world’s a really special place, right? That we all are different. There’s not one of us. That’s exactly the same. And realizing that we are all unordinary, all extraordinary. We have all have extraordinary pieces about us and really focusing on that instead of trying to be something that we’re not trying to be somebody else.

I mean, there’s that great quote. Well, they’re already taken. Right. So, and believing in are two different things. So how did you come to believe it? Yeah. A long process. There’s no light switch, right? Yeah. I know. I was, I was hoping someone would install women in my house, but it didn’t happen. So it really was the process of mindfulness changing my mindset, positive affirmations, evening gratitudes.

And when I [00:30:00] look in the mirror, I, my kids are like, oh my gosh, she’s talking to herself again. Yes, I am. I am. Because I think it’s important that we, every morning I have something that I say to myself to start my day off on a positive note and, and no life is not unicorns and rainbows and I get that, but I think we have to think about like the difference that we’re making in our corner of the world.

It’s not like, oh, let me change the entire world today. No, that’s not how it works. But thinking how we can lead with compassion, kindness, empathy, you have a choice in everything you do every day with most things. And so I really think about that when. I’m getting frustrated about something. I’m like, why am I getting frustrated about this?

You know, I, this, if I took a step back and said, wait, see the value in the conversation that you’re having, instead of being irritated by it, you’ll learn something from it. And that was a really important thing for me is to [00:31:00] take that step and say, okay, yes, every day I’m going to have to say to myself, Hey, you can move forward with this.

And it has truly changed my life. And it has changed my family as well, because, you know, they’re able to call me out on stuff when I’m having one of those moments. Like for example, I was with my daughter at the Starbucks drive through and someone cut in front of me in line and I pretty much lost it in the Starbucks drive-through and she was like, Mam.

Hello. I think you, might’ve forgotten a few things about, you know, patience and kindness and understanding you remember practice what you preach and sure enough, we get up to the window to pay. And the person who had cut in front of us in line had paid for our drinks. And so my daughter was like, Can we pay for the car behind us.

And then we had a whole conversation about how long that would last. And it was really, it was, it was actually, it was a moment in time where I’m like, okay, that [00:32:00] was, that was a really good, good thing that my kids can now call me out. Cause they’re like, you know, this is the stuff you talk about all the time.

Like you gotta, you know, hold it together, mom. Well, it wasn’t the main. So you taught your, you, you, you demonstrated some things for your child. You’ve demonstrated that you’re not perfect and that you’re okay with that and that you can’t apologize and that you’re, you’re going to mess up. And then you can, you know, in one of the coaching programs I coach on it’s like you were hijacked by your Salvatore.

You were judging that person. Like, what are you thinking? All these negative thoughts. And then you switched your daughter helped you switch to curiosity, compassion, maybe thinking about, well, maybe that person’s in a rush and maybe they were, and that’s why they. You know, they knew that, you know, probably was not polite to cut, but they just had to cause whatever.

So, so many things that you taught your daughter now, did you all of a sudden just switch to, you know, having this attitude about life and about how words have [00:33:00] energy and, and about journaling and all these things, or did you read books or work with a coach? I mean, I didn’t work with a coach. I, it was really, it was a few things.

It was, you know, being at one of the things was, I was at this, this women’s empowerment luncheon and I was listening to these amazing speakers and they truly were amazing, but all I could think was, well, that will never be me. And that was kinda, that was kind of a light switch moment where. And it’s not supposed to be.

And that kind of brought me into the, okay, what can I do differently so that I’m not going to get back into that rut of, oh, I’m not good enough, or I’m not, I’m not this. Or, you know, so that, that was a really, that was kind of a life-changing moment where I stopped. I want to say I stopped, but I, I started looking at things differently.

And then I started reading a lot about mindset and saying, wait, it’s not Hoodoo voodoo. It actually [00:34:00] really works as do positive affirmations. There’s actually science behind it and how it, you know, there’s a lot. So if you start reading about stuff, you’re you kind of start thinking to yourself, well, why don’t I try some of this?

Why not? Why not? And that’s kind of how I approached it. And the more that I tried, the more I’m like, okay, I feel better about myself. I feel like I’m a better parent, I’m a better wife. All of those things felt better because I was making these small changes in how I did my daily routine, but I am a big believer in that we don’t need to change who we are.

We need to change the way we see ourselves. And that, that kind of was a moment to where I said, okay, How do I change the way I see myself and that was through, you know, that whole mindset piece where, you know, I talked to myself and I do things differently. And how’d, you have time to read, you have six kids and your husband’s a physician.

You have time. I leave [00:35:00] books around the house. I I’m, I’m constantly doing something. And like tonight I was trying to cook dinner before I got on here. And I was like, okay, remind me that I am not great at multitasking. I’m like burning the stakes. And my daughter’s like, oh, no, They’re delicious. Don’t worry.

It’s like, okay. But yeah, I mean, I just, I’m not really good at sitting still and I like to be, so I’ll have a book in the car. I have a book by my bed. I have, you know, like, so by my computer. So if I’m waiting for a call to start, like, I’ll read a few pages and then, oh, wait, that really helps me. So that’s kind of how I do it works for me.

And that’s what people should realize they need to do what works for them. What about doing what everybody else is doing? It’s about doing what works for you? Yeah, definitely. Out of all those books, besides the extraordinary unordinary, you, what books stands out as one that, you know, there’s a book that I, I really loved and it’s because of my connection with Ethiopia it’s there is no me without you.

And it’s [00:36:00] about a woman whose family had passed away and she decided to. Taken aids orphans. And because there was, there was no one that would take them and she created this whole community. And then she started this, these private adoptions where these children could fight and find a family. And it was such an impactful story.

Of course, I see a lot of my children and what, you know, in those stories, but looking at her where she had lost everything and she turned it into something amazing and really helped, I would say the world and how she, how she changed things. And that, that to me was so impactful. Yeah. That sounds inspiring.

I mean, what, what change, what challenges did you face in having children that have different skin color? I’m just going to ask. That’s pretty, you know, that’s a topic now. That’s kind of you know, people are talking about diversity, equity, inclusion and you know, race, and [00:37:00] you’ve got a multiracial family.

I think first thing is understanding that we can’t be colorblind it’s I know, like when I was growing up, that was like the catch phrase oh, we’re colorblind, well, being color blind is, is not a statement of that. You’re inclusive. It just means you don’t want to have that difficult conversation. Really understanding that we need to appreciate everyone for their color, for their background and really looking at things differently.

Yeah, there’s, there’s all my kids. But yeah, I mean, of course there are challenges, like trust me there’s days where I think like, okay, these kids are growing up in a white family. This is how they’re now seeing the world, but we make sure that we have discussions on a regular basis of when we see something, we say something, there is no keeping quiet when, when there’s something that happens.

And there’s, there’s plenty of people that have had. What was, what was it? The comments have been more just out of curiosity than anything else. [00:38:00] Like how can you be their mom, like, or, or I would I remember one time the younger two were on the playground and the kid came up to them and said, how can you be brother?

And sister kids are going to ask that, oh yeah. And my daughter’s like, we’re adopted duh. So, so they, you know, they were very open and honest with our conversations. We make sure that, you know, our house is filled with, you know, pictures of people that look like them as well. It’s not, you know, we, we don’t have, we tried it, we do our best, right?

Like that’s what we do as humans, we do our best. And for me, it’s really important that we kind of show them the world and that they see that they’re not the only ones. I mean, we live in. Sarasota, which isn’t necessarily the most diverse place. But again, we, we do the best that we can and our kids are happy there.

They’re [00:39:00] amazing. They’re honestly amazing kids. I mean, our son, sun RA just turned 18 yesterday. He’s just such a good human and that’s kind of, I think for me as a parent, the most important thing is raising good humans. Yeah. Gracie says I like the family picture on the wall. Yeah. It’s awesome. I’m glad I switched to this view cause we yeah.

And like blocking a little bit, but yeah. Yeah. That was like, that was right before COVID. That was December 20, 20, no, December, December, 2019. Hello. See, I lost a couple of years there, December, 2019 picture. Okay. So that’s Ari . So he’s from Ethiopia. He’s now 18. That’s Noah. He is from South Korea. He’s now 15.

That’s Millie she’s from Ethiopia and she’s 14. Olivia. She looks like me. She’s 19. I was going to say that looked like you. That’s Olivia she’s 19. Jacob’s 25 and Emma is 22. So yep. That’s my group. [00:40:00] And again, they’re, they’re amazing kids. And the more we go along in our journey, I’m like, Ooh, I really won the jackpot with all of them, because trust me, we have our issues.

Like we have our, we have, we have our struggles, like every other family, but I don’t look at another family and say, I used to, I used to be like, okay, I’m taking a family photo and they are not smiling. We had one year where the older kids wanted to do like. Ugly jackets from the eighties, the eighties 81.

What would be an ugly jacket? Oh my God. They, they, they went to Goodwill and they got these hilarious jackets and the two younger ones, like did not, they did not want to wear them. And. So basically the family photo is the three older kids. Smiling are Sanaria was kind of like, Hmm. And the older, the younger two were just like angry.

And I was like, okay, that’s the photo that’s going out because that’s what you chose to do. I mean, this is life, [00:41:00] right. Life is not perfect. So yeah. So Gracie says you have six children while supermom. Yes. Happily life. Isn’t perfect. You’re right. And you know what? It just creates memories. You remember the moment even more so whenever my video, where I, that I played before this show, there a picture of my parents and me and my grandson he’s five and he doesn’t look too happy in that picture.

I remember that day. He was, he didn’t want to sit for a picture, but yeah, it’s a great video, by the way. I was going to say that when we first started, I was like, Ooh, that is a great intro video. I love it. It highlights several of my past guests in the main points. You know, when you said, when you see a picture of a guest in the point, that’s the point that guests made, you know, during their code and the, I love it.

And I haven’t played too. Yeah. I think it’s great. But yeah, I mean, you know, we, you know, one year I love funny holiday photos, but one year I made them where I made them, literally made them [00:42:00] wear onesies. And so like one was wearing, ER, one was wearing poo and other one was wearing a giraffe and the photo actually turned out really good and it was really funny and they were like, you are the worst.

And I was like, oh, but I love it. I love it. So. Gracie recess. We have a family picture where we look like the Adams. I think everyone can relate. And that’s the whole thing about Simone, you, you love telling stories and people can relate to those stories. And is that, you know, so tell us a little bit about your book.

I know I asked that and then we get off on something. Sorry. I tend to, I tend to go left you say, right. And yeah.

So it really is all about realizing what you’re capable of and recognizing that the things you do every day matter, like you don’t have to be the big philanthropist. You, you have to be, you, we have to realize that waste every day, when you wake up in the morning, like you can choose to be [00:43:00] miserable. You can choose to be happy no matter what your circumstances are.

Right. Just like we talked about before and how you interact with other people. So there’s stories about the kids, adoptions and stories. Obviously about Kilimanjaro life in general. I’m also Jewish. So some of my Jewish values, which again, I, it’s not about religion. It’s about that. We’re all I have a t-shirt that says humankind, be both human kind.

So I think respecting every person that you interact with for who they are, they’re not there, they’re not their title. That’s another thing I think that you know, that’s all an offshoot again, I’m going left again. My husband is not a fan of customer service call calls, or at least he wasn’t because he was like, it’s so stressful.

And I’m like frustrated. And I was like, well, start with remembering that. There was a person on the other end and their name isn’t [00:44:00] customer service. They’re actually a human and they’re actually there to help you. Right? I mean, they’re not there to like shut you down, you know, maybe sometimes, but I think in general, they’re, they’re there to help you.

And I said, you know, cause he’ll listen to me talk. And he’s like, oh, I don’t know how you do it. And so he, he had to make a call and I said, I’m not doing this one, my friend, you got it. And he said to me, well, guess what? I pulled a Simone. And I was like, I am not sure what that means. Do I want to know? He was like, I, I asked the person about their life.

I asked the person about their day. I was actually really interested. I had a great conversation with them. And then we got to the customer service part and guess what? They were able to fix it. And. It worked like understanding that I’m not just, they’re not customer service, like her name is Helen and like take that [00:45:00] into account and it really makes a big difference because again, we’re all just trying to do our best life is really complicated right now.

Right? So like, I think when we look at other people with respect and compassion, then it really will make a big difference in your day. I love that. I love that because you helped your husband realize that who knows who he’ll help realize it. And it all trickles out. Sometimes we think, oh, I’ve got to make a huge difference, you know, and just make a difference with where you are.

Like the guy in Ukraine that I interviewed yesterday, he’s making a difference by delivering stuff to. To the bunkers underground. You he’s not taking up guns. He doesn’t, he, he doesn’t feel qualified to do that, but he’s making a difference where he is. He doesn’t have a ton of money, but he’s doing what he can with what he has and spreading kindness.

And you’re doing that by telling your stories and helping other people realize they’re not alone. It’s [00:46:00] awesome. So it doesn’t have to, you don’t have to tell your story in front of 2 million people or 500,000 people if it hits one person. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, it just the same thing with every little thing we do during the day, you have a choice on how do you, you know, I used to walk with my head down, going from point a to point B, not understanding that.

The value is in the journey from point a to point B and meeting the people. And now of course, you know, beyond laughing at me for talking to myself, talking to myself in the mirror, they laugh at me when, when I travel, because, and of course they haven’t, we haven’t gone anywhere for a bit, but because I, I start conversations with whether I’m sitting at the bar next to someone on the plane.

I, you know, I, I start a conversation because I think that you can learn something from everyone you meet, and I’ve learned amazing things and have had amazing conversations with strangers that have truly impacted my life. So never take that for granted. Okay, well, let’s see if this is going to work [00:47:00] on this comment next time and get involved with an angry pitfall.

I’m going to pull a Simone. Yeah, it might work actually. I mean, in addition to six children, I have four dogs. I don’t have any pitfalls, but I do have four dogs. So I do think that kindness and compassion with animals works as well. Very sweet dogs who, you know, and then come back and tell us how let us know.

Oh boy. So what do you mean by why did you pick that title? Extraordinary on, yeah. Again, because I think that we you know, I think that a lot of us feel like we’re just ordinary. Like we don’t make a difference in the world and we, the choices that we make. Don’t impact anyone. And I completely disagree.

I think that we are all unique. We are all unordinary and we all have extraordinary things that we do in our lives. And we just need to realize it. We need to take a look in that mirror and say, wait, you know what, let me [00:48:00] look at what I did today. And whatever your job is, whatever your family life is, you impacted someone’s life today.

And, but you need to take a step back and look at that. Yeah. And how did you impact it? Because we could impact someone’s life negatively or positively, you know? Right. Cause you have a choice, you have a choice in how you want to move forward on your journey. And that comes with being aware and noticing, you know, sometimes we can just go through, life’s so busy that we’re not even noticing, you know, how we’re impacting people or how we’re reacting to life or whatever points.

So this is how they people can order your book, right? This is the link and it’s only for Amazon. It’s on Amazon and this is. Your website smoke. Can I go.com so people can take a look there. What are the kinds of things that you offer on your website? You want to talk about that? Yeah. I have a new blog post every week, so I definitely, I keep up and writing a new article every week.

Usually, it [00:49:00] just depends. Sometimes it’s about what’s happening in the world. Sometimes it’s about something that happened in my life. But I really try to stick to, I do stick to once a week that I write an article. I also, if you want to sign up for my newsletter there, you can download 30 days of positive affirmations.

Again, I really think they work 10 years ago. I would’ve said not me. I would never say that. But I really do think they make a difference in my life. So you can do that. And I also, so my newsletter, every month I send out, it has a different, different article and you know, things that are things that are happening, things that I’m really thankful for, that have, that I’ve experienced or that I want to share with my readers, gratefulness.

Something good. Depressed. Yeah. Okay. And then you have a face Facebook site. Yep. Facebook and Instagram. I also post almost every day, some something on there. It’s a lot of work, you know, it’s like keeping up with all of this and, and then I [00:50:00] love when I get the feedback from the kids. Oh, I loved your post today.

Or, you know, mom really? That was your post today. I’m like, oh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the feedback. I’ll take that into consideration for the next one. Tracy says, what exactly is a Simone? I think what he means is he’s going to be nice and asked the pit bull, you know, be nice to the pitfall, treat them with kindness.

And maybe that will, you know, have the pit bull not attack them. Yeah. And understanding that you know, that your inner you’re interacting with another person. That other person has feelings that other person has. We have no idea what anybody else is going through in our life and their lives. So really reaching out with, with kindness, I think makes it makes a big difference.

And again, there’s no, you know, there there’s no unicorns and rainbows, it doesn’t work that way. We all have struggles. And especially now we all have a lot of struggles, but understanding that I think it makes us move forward with a different appreciation for other people. I remember when I went to the Naval academy [00:51:00] and I used to, I used to sit in my classroom and it overlooked a really nice river with these big homes on the, you know, the Severn or these big homes.

And I used to sit there and think. Let’s people just have perfect lies. They have it all together. My life sucks here at the Naval academy. And in reality, you don’t, you can’t tell just cause they had a big house on the river. If they had a perfect life or not, and what is a perfect life, but you can’t tell if they were happy, you know, whatever you can’t judge by that.

Yeah. And you, you never know what’s happening inside the walls of someone’s house. So, you know, I think we, again, looking at social media and we see these beautiful photos of this beautiful moment in time and we need to remind ourselves like that was a moment in time and not looking at anybody else and saying, I want to be that, look at yourself and say, I want to be me.

And how can I be happy by being me? Yeah. I love it. [00:52:00] I just love it. I love everything that you said. What is next for you? Like what’s your young, how old is your youngest child? Youngest is 14. So she’s in eighth grade. So we still have high school to go through. And you know what, I’m kind of like cherishing these days now because I’m thinking I keep joking that I’m a 50% empty-nester, but I’m a 50% at the empty nester, which means that in four years, they’re all going to be gone.

And I, I say to my husband, and then we’re going to have to talk to each other all of the time. Yeah. I mean, we’ve been married for 29 years. Like we’re used to it, but you know, it’s it’s, it’s, it’s funny. It’s so great. Like my daughter’s home this week for her spring break and she brought four of her friends with her and it was like, so, so nice to have them here.

So I’m kind of just embracing all those moments and what’s next for me? I actually have. I have some cool things going on, but I have, I think the most exciting thing is that April 3rd, I’m going to be at UC Santa Barbara. I’m doing a TEDx [00:53:00] about the importance of talking to our children at a young age about racial bias.

And so that one I’m, I’m really excited for. You got to definitely send me that link so that when I publish this episode, I’ll put the link in there and, you know, tag me when you post about it, I’ll share it. Cause I’m really, yeah. I’d love to do that. Congratulations. I’m excited for that one. Yeah, that’s great.

So let’s see, I think this might be Kelly, the friend of mine. She says I own retail stores. I tell my employees all the time, smile and treat everyone with kindness. You never know what they’re going through. And then so true. Oh, Emily. I was in that house across the way.

Going back to what you said about like, I wish I, you know, oh, look at those houses. I wish I had that life. And those aren’t the things that make you happy, not at all. And you know, we can look at people and say, oh my gosh, they have so much money. And then you’re sitting inside their house and you’re thinking [00:54:00] like the husband and wife don’t even talk to each other.

So looking, looking at that, I think we have to look at things differently. And that’s what I’ve realized is that I need to be happy with myself. I don’t need to look at anybody else. And yeah, social media is still there. I look at it and say, oh, she looks great in that trust what a beautiful dress.

Instead of saying, like, I wish I could fit into that dress. I don’t do that anymore. I used to, I don’t do that anymore. And that’s what I’m trying to teach my kids is that that’s not what social media is for. It’s not about looking at it and saying, I wish I could be them. You know, I wish I should’ve done that.

You know, I, I could have done that. No, it’s not that. Yeah. And, and we can actually think about, you know, you can fast forward to the day. When, you know, you’re older and wiser, what was your elder and wiser self say to you right now? Social media likes, you know, isn’t what matters. It’s not, you know, yourself be the extraordinary unordinary.

You live life [00:55:00] that way and go out and climb Mount Kilimanjaro, go live your life, your life, not somebody else’s. Yeah. I, I, th another thing that I really like to say is I I’d have people say to me, oh, you climbed Kilimanjaro. I could never do that. I can’t do that. I see all. And I’m like, okay, well, let me ask you a question.

Would you want to, they’re like, no. And I’m like, well, then change your words. Say that you can’t do something. Ask yourself if you want to, because can’t means won’t. I mean, from the beginning camp means what if you say, I can’t do it. You’re never going to do it right. But ask yourself if you want to do something, that’s the most important thing.

When you make decisions in life, is this what you want? If it’s not what you want, then, you know, start thinking about it a little bit more. And I would say too, when you ask yourself, what do I want, pay attention to both what your mind says, and also what your body says.

Or your heart, you know? Cause it might be yeah, shit. [00:56:00] Your mind might be like, yeah, you really should want that because you really should want to be an accountant. Cause then they go out of money, you know, that’s what you should do, you know? And then your, your body’s like, I don’t know if I really want to do that.

So you got to pay attention to both, right? Yeah. Yeah. Completely. And for me, the accountant part was, you know, after I failed organic chemistry was really my dad saying to me, well, you’re good at math. This is what you should do. Well, I don’t. Okay. Okay. I guess I’ll do that. And yeah. I mean, there’s, there’s things that we think that we should be doing.

You’re right. Like, okay, I want to make more money. I want to do this, but is it going to make you happy that that is part of the equation? Is that what, and what is happiness to you? And you know, people will say to me, do you feel successful? I’m like, I feel successful because I’m happy. That to me is the definition of success.

I really love, you know, so I know we gotta wrap this up. I’ll just tell one story is that my son, you know, is going [00:57:00] to college to first, he started off as studying electrical engineering and he’s just finishing up his AA, but he started off going to electrical engineering because, and he even admitted to me, my ego was looking at, you know, which ones will make the most money.

Then he realized that would have to, you’d have to go out of state to get that degree based on where he lived. So he chose, he switched it to materials engineering, I guess that’s my computer. I thought I had silenced it. But anyway, and now he’s saying, I don’t know if I want to go pass these two years. I really want to spend time with my wife and son and I, so I said, what.

You’ve got a mother who coaches people on create a life. You love living. Now, I’m not going to push you to go get your degree. You know? And in fact, right now he’s really interested in growing trees and plants. He’s always been interested in being outside. So he’s starting to question whether or not he wants to be an engineer, which is perfectly fine, right?[00:58:00] 

Yeah. I mean, it’s hard to know what we want to do. I mean, right. It took me 40 something years to get there. And I can’t look at my kids and say, you need to do this now. And, you know, look at my kids that are, you know, my, my son. That it has a job, like, will he stay? I mean, he’s, he’s actually a materials engineering and you know, well, he, and he has a master’s in it, but is that going to be what he does his whole life?

I have no idea. My daughter, who’s graduating college in may, you know, she’s going to take a gap year and figure it out because it’s been a hard couple of years. Like, what does she want? I don’t think she knows yet. And to push these expectations on them when I didn’t have any clue for 40 something, years is not right.

So we gotta be happy. We gotta, we gotta figure out how we want to move forward and make a difference in our world. I love this interview, Simone. I’m so glad we were able to get you on the show. Thank you so much. Thank you everybody for watching. We had so many people commenting and everything. [00:59:00] I really appreciate it.

When you guys show up, I want you to know that from the bottom of my heart. Thank you. . Onward live is sponsored by Emily Harmon, coaching and consulting. Visit my website, Emily harman.com to learn more about me and my coaching program.

I’d love to help you create a life you love living. Remember every adversity is our own personal university. Sometimes the lessons are difficult and we must learn from our experiences. Vulnerability is your super power. You are lovable and worthy, and we discuss these topics and more because professional is personal.

Thank you for joining us and engaging with me and my guests. I look forward to.